For loading machines instead of a jib? The gantry is a real PITA compared to a jib crane. They take 2 people to move without making marks on everything around you, they do have to be moved to load a machine like a VMC, and are constantly in the way whether using them at the moment or not.
Big Adam (Abom79) used his jib crane when we loaded the Quartet mill out. Serious handy critter, that was.
Biggest drawback vs a mobile gantry or FL truck (both of which he also had - plus skates I had shipped ahead) is that the conventional jib crane can only work within the fixed arc where planted , and not to the same capacity at all points of the boom's radius, even then.
Now . .with even HALF decent planning that is a
feature not a bug, and that is why those blessed with them generally appreciate them.
If wishes were fishes, I'd take the GI 20T rough-terrain crane I was once licensed on.
Not only can I move the crane, it is even a better than just a half-assed 'dozer to move the Earth to carve out an improved seat for itself and related working.
Clearly, a gantry would be far more often useful for a machine-shop. Thankfully it is only space - and MONEY - that limits our having more than one solution.
Nothing is perfect. A GOOD gantry is a fairly righteous compromise. Were I not stuck with 8-foot ceiling, beams under, and a six-foot-nothing-much by 17 1/2 foot door?
I'd have one. Even if I also had a jib crane, pallet jack, skates, and a forklift. "Either-or" choices they are only as far as few - or NONE - among us having stupid amounts of "spare money". Gantry now, jib crane later can work. Cost thing.
Adam was, after all, third-generation of family machine shop, and they had plenty of experience at what was worth having handy, and why there was never,
ever, only
one right answer.
When the major machine tools were moved out? Third-party heavy lift had to be called in, regardless. Documented right here on PM, too.