When a machine is too heavy, too tall, or too tight to move safely, Chicago calls a rigger. Badass Logistics plans and executes precision lifts, machine setting, and heavy moves across the Chicago metro — from a few hundred pounds to 200,000 lbs and beyond, rigged, moved, and set by one accountable crew.
Quick answer: Badass Logistics provides industrial rigging in Chicago, IL and the surrounding metro. We handle engineered lifts, machine setting, and heavy moves from a few hundred pounds to 200,000 lbs and beyond, set and leveled to spec. Our crews work across Chicago and nearby Illinois metros, and moves between facilities run as project freight under the same plan — usually quoted the same day. Call (307) 284-1332.
Chicago's heavy manufacturing & the nation's rail hub base runs on machines that can't be muscled onto a truck — presses, machining centers, transformers, and production lines that have to come off the floor, through the door, and onto a trailer without a scratch. That's rigging: engineered lifts, air skates and gantries, and a crew that measures every doorway before anything moves.
Badass Logistics rigs it like an engineering problem and runs it like a road crew across Chicago. We plan the pick, protect the floors, and set the load to spec — and when the load has to leave the building, the same team runs the move and the project freight, so it gets rigged out, delivered, and reset without a hand-off.
Rigging in Chicago, IL is mostly a building problem, and in this metro the buildings are in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor near the Near West Side, the Pullman industrial district on the far South Side, the Little Village industrial corridor along the Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Calumet industrial area along Lake Calumet. They are a mix of older multi-storey brick loft buildings in corridors like Kinzie and Little Village with tight column spacing and small freight elevators, alongside larger single-storey clear-span plants further from the core — column spacing, door height and floor rating decide the gear long before the weight does. The lifts themselves follow the metro's food processing and packaging, plastics injection molding, metal stamping and fabrication, and printing and packaging equipment.
Plenty of Chicago, IL work — heavy manufacturing & the nation's rail hub — moves across state lines before it lands. We run the same industrial rigging crews through these IL and regional markets:
Chicago's industrial base — heavy manufacturing & the nation's rail hub — runs on equipment that doesn't move like freight. Most work happens around live distribution and production operations that can't stop for the move. Typical rigging jobs for Chicago customers include:
A Chicago lift list usually runs to stamping presses, injection molding machines, packaging lines, CNC machining centers, and material handling conveyors, and each one changes the rig: where it can be picked, what it cannot be set down on, and how much of it has to come apart to clear a doorway.
Setting and leveling machinery onto pads and foundations to spec across the Chicago metro.
Crane, gantry, and jack-and-slide lifts up to 200,000 lbs and beyond across the Chicago metro.
Presses, generators, transformers, and production-line machinery across the Chicago metro.
Skating machines through doorways, up mezzanines, and out of packed floors across the Chicago metro.
Plenty of Chicago jobs start and finish on one floor. The rest have to travel — to a new building across the metro, a sister plant down I-55, I-80, 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.
Not every Chicago rig finishes on the floor it started on. Served by BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian National and CPKC, with Chicago functioning as the largest rail interchange hub in North America. The Illinois International Port District on Lake Calumet handles bulk and breakbulk cargo with access to the Great Lakes and, via the Illinois Waterway, the Mississippi River system. Add I-55, I-80, I-90 and I-94 for the road legs and a machine rigged out of a Chicago plant can leave on a trailer, in a rail car, or over water — the rigging plan is built backwards from whichever it is.
Every industrial rigging job in Chicago, IL 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 Chicago jobs. For bigger moves we walk both sites before we price anything.
The same Chicago crews handle every kind of industrial rigging. If your job looks more like one of these, start here:
Running a trucking fleet out of Chicago? See truck dispatch for fleets of 4+ trucks.
Working throughout Chicago, IL and the surrounding metro — backed by a nationwide network of 88 locations when a move crosses state lines.
Industrial Rigging throughout Chicago and the industrial suburbs around it — the towns below are where the plants, shops and distribution parks actually sit:
| Town | County | From downtown |
|---|---|---|
| Joliet | Will County | 32 mi |
| Aurora | Kane County | 35 mi |
| Naperville | DuPage County | 26 mi |
| Elgin | Kane County | 35 mi |
| Cicero | Cook County | 5 mi |
| Gary, IN | Lake County | 24 mi |
| Hammond, IN | Lake County | 20 mi |
| Bolingbrook | Will County | 24 mi |
| Bedford Park | Cook County | 10 mi |
| Romeoville | Will County | 27 mi |
| Elk Grove Village | Cook County | 20 mi |
| Waukegan | Lake County | 37 mi |
| Arlington Heights | Cook County | 24 mi |
| Evanston | Cook County | 13 mi |
| Schaumburg | Cook County | 26 mi |
| Palatine | Cook County | 27 mi |
| Skokie | Cook County | 13 mi |
| Des Plaines | Cook County | 17 mi |
| Orland Park | Cook County | 19 mi |
| Tinley Park | Cook County | 20 mi |
| Oak Lawn | Cook County | 11 mi |
| Berwyn | Cook County | 7 mi |
| Mount Prospect | Cook County | 21 mi |
| Wheaton | DuPage County | 24 mi |
Moving across the metro or out of state? See all our Chicago services, Industrial Rigging across Illinois or get a quote.
We run industrial rigging in metros across Illinois — pick the nearest crew:
Most Chicago 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.
Presses, compressors, generators, full production lines — disconnected, rigged, hauled, and re-leveled across Chicago as one accountable job.
Chicago machinery moving company →Machine tools are instruments, not freight. VMCs, lathes, and grinders moved on air-ride and squared back to the builder's spec in Chicago.
Chicago CNC movers →Moving the whole floor instead of one machine? Phased teardown, sequenced loads, and reinstallation planning for Chicago plants.
plant relocation in Chicago →In Chicago we also run machinery movers, CNC movers, and plant relocation, plus project freight for the jobs we rig — or see every service we offer in Chicago.
The same Chicago crew also handles millwright services, machinery removal, crane and rigging services, and machinery loading and unloading.
Specialty rigging in Chicago: heavy lift rigging, chiller and HVAC rigging, transformer and generator rigging, MRI and medical equipment rigging, lab equipment moving, printing press moving, and data center rigging.
Tell us what's moving and where. We'll route the nearest crew and quote it fast.
Get a Chicago Rigging Quote