Inside a Minneapolis plant there is usually no room for a crane — a roof overhead, live equipment either side, and a floor that has to carry the load the whole way. That is where heavy lift rigging takes over: hydraulic gantries, jacks and cribbing, and skid tracks that move the heaviest pieces in the building without a hook.
Quick answer: Badass Logistics provides heavy lift rigging in Minneapolis, MN and the surrounding metro. We lift, jack, skid, and set heavy equipment with hydraulic gantries, jacking and cribbing, and skid systems — the methods for loads a crane can't reach, can't set up beside, or isn't allowed inside. Our crews work across Minneapolis and nearby Minnesota metros, and moves between facilities run as project freight under the same plan — usually quoted the same day. Call (307) 284-1332.
A crane needs open sky, outrigger space, and ground that can take the bearing. Most heavy equipment in Minneapolis sits where none of that exists — under a bay roof, in a pit, behind a column line, or in a building the load has to roll into. In Minneapolis's Upper Midwest manufacturing plants, the way a heavy piece moves is usually up a few inches, along a planned path, and down onto its set point.
Badass Logistics plans those lifts from the load data out: weight and center of gravity, the lift points the builder allows, floor capacity along the route, and the headroom at every stage. We set hydraulic gantries where the piece has to go up, jack and crib it where it has to come off a truck or a foundation, and skid or roll it where it has to travel. When there is room for a crane, the crane lift and the inside move go into one plan. Jacking and skidding, explained →
The buildings decide the method in Minneapolis. The stock here is a mix of postwar single-storey suburban plants in Fridley and Eagan with clear-span bays alongside older multi-storey brick mill buildings along the riverfront with narrow freight elevators and tight floor plates, which is why so many heavy pieces move under a gantry or on skid track rather than on a hook. The heaviest loads in the metro are cleanroom device-assembly lines, sterilization and packaging equipment, CNC machining centers, grain milling and conveying equipment, and stamping presses — each one planned from its weight, lift points, and the floor under it.
Minneapolis, MN runs on Upper Midwest manufacturing, and almost none of it stays put. Same crews and the same heavy lift rigging standards across the region:
The loads that need these methods are the heaviest and most awkward in the building. Typical Minneapolis heavy lifts include:
That equipment serves Minneapolis's medical device manufacturing and contract sterilization, grain milling and food processing, industrial electronics and controls, and outdoor power and turf equipment manufacturing, where a lift usually happens beside machinery that keeps running. Most of our jacking and gantry work here lands in the Medical Alley device-manufacturing cluster centered on Fridley, the Midway industrial district straddling Minneapolis and St. Paul, and the Mississippi riverfront milling and grain-processing district.
Loads lifted and traversed under roofs and inside bays where a crane cannot set up across the Minneapolis metro.
Heavy pieces raised off trailers, foundations, and pits in controlled stages across the Minneapolis metro.
Loads moved along engineered skid tracks or on rollers to the set point across the Minneapolis metro.
Equipment lowered onto anchors, soleplates, and foundations to the layout across the Minneapolis metro.
Plenty of Minneapolis jobs start and finish on one floor. The rest have to travel — to a new building across the metro, a sister plant down I-35, I-90 and I-94, or a facility in another state. We don't hand that part off. It runs as project freight inside the same plan: machines crated or prepped on site, loads sequenced to the rig-out, transport through our licensed broker and carrier partners with dedicated capacity for bigger moves, and our crew waiting at the destination to set it.
The heaviest pieces bound for Minneapolis often arrive by rail or water before they ever reach a road. Served by BNSF, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National, with BNSF's Midway Terminal switching much of the metro's carload traffic. The Port of Minneapolis/St. Paul on the Mississippi River handles barge shipments of grain, aggregates and other bulk commodities. Getting a load off a railcar or a barge and onto a trailer is jacking and cribbing work in its own right, and it goes into the same plan as the set at the far end.
Every heavy lift rigging job in Minneapolis, MN is quoted from the actual work, not a rate sheet. These are the things that move the number — send them with your request and you'll get a real quote back fast:
Photos of the equipment, its nameplate, and the path out of the building save a site visit on smaller Minneapolis jobs. For bigger moves we walk both sites before we price anything.
The same Minneapolis crews handle every kind of industrial rigging. If your job looks more like one of these, start here:
Running a trucking fleet out of Minneapolis? See truck dispatch for fleets of 4+ trucks.
Working throughout Minneapolis, MN and the surrounding metro — backed by a nationwide network of 88 locations when a move crosses state lines.
Heavy Lift Rigging throughout Minneapolis and the industrial suburbs around it — the towns below are where the plants, shops and distribution parks actually sit:
| Town | County | From downtown |
|---|---|---|
| St. Paul, AK | Aleutians West Census Area County | 3259 mi |
| Bloomington | Hennepin County | 10 mi |
| Brooklyn Park | Hennepin County | 9 mi |
| Plymouth | Hennepin County | 10 mi |
| Eagan | Dakota County | 13 mi |
| Maple Grove | Hennepin County | 11 mi |
| Eden Prairie | Hennepin County | 13 mi |
| Burnsville | Dakota County | 15 mi |
| Shakopee | Scott County | 18 mi |
| Rogers | Hennepin County | 20 mi |
| Saint Paul | Ramsey County | 9 mi |
| Woodbury | Washington County | 15 mi |
| West Coon Rapids | Hennepin County | 13 mi |
| Coon Rapids | Anoka County | 10 mi |
| Blaine | Anoka County | 13 mi |
| Lakeville | Dakota County | 23 mi |
| Minnetonka | Hennepin County | 13 mi |
| Apple Valley | Dakota County | 17 mi |
| Edina | Hennepin County | 8 mi |
| Minnetonka Mills | Hennepin County | 9 mi |
| Saint Louis Park | Hennepin County | 5 mi |
| Maplewood | Ramsey County | 13 mi |
| Richfield | Hennepin County | 7 mi |
| Cottage Grove | Washington County | 19 mi |
Moving across the metro or out of state? See all our Minneapolis services or get a quote.
Most Minneapolis jobs don't stop at one service. The crew that rigs a machine out is the crew that manages the move and sets it back down — so you're dealing with one company from the disconnect to the re-level, not three subcontractors pointing at each other.
Machine has to come off the floor, through the door, or onto a pad before it travels? That's the rigging side of the same Minneapolis crew.
industrial rigging in Minneapolis →Presses, compressors, generators, full production lines — disconnected, rigged, hauled, and re-leveled across Minneapolis as one accountable job.
machinery moving in Minneapolis →Machine tools are instruments, not freight. VMCs, lathes, and grinders moved on air-ride and squared back to the builder's spec in Minneapolis.
CNC machine movers in Minneapolis →Moving the whole floor instead of one machine? Phased teardown, sequenced loads, and reinstallation planning for Minneapolis plants.
Minneapolis plant & factory relocation →In Minneapolis we also run riggers, machinery movers, CNC movers, and plant relocation, plus project freight for the jobs we rig — or see every service we offer in Minneapolis.
The same Minneapolis crew also handles millwright services, machinery removal, crane and rigging services, and machinery loading and unloading.
Specialty rigging in Minneapolis: chiller and HVAC rigging, transformer and generator rigging, MRI and medical equipment rigging, lab equipment moving, and printing press moving.
Tell us what's moving and where. We'll route the nearest crew and quote it fast.
Get a Minneapolis Heavy Lift Quote