The mini crawler crane, described by Unic as “the world’s smallest and lighest mini-crane” won the Best Tools & Access Product category at the exhibition, held at Birmingham’s NEC on April 23-27.
Judges, led by Construction Products Association chief executive Michael Ankers, were impressed by the impact that improved access could have on the productivity and safety of a whole construction job.
They said: “By being able to bring the Unic into a building the contractor could perform a wide range of tasks without the costs or time constraints of a bigger crane. It was felt that its benefits could be seized upon by main contractors and subbies alike.”
The A094CR features a maximum boom length of 5.49m, while total width is just 0.5m.
Unic displayed a variety of its cranes at Interbuild, which was attended by more than 40,000 people.
As Cranes Today reported earlier this year, UNIC Cranes Europe recently appointed new distributors in France and the Netherlands.
CTE Elévateurs has been appointed as the exclusive French dealer, while HDW Nederland will supply and service UNIC’s full range of mini crawler cranes across the Netherlands.
UNIC Cranes Europe specialises in the sale of mini crawler cranes, designed for lifting in restricted access and confined working environments.
Gill Riley, managing director of UNIC Cranes Europe, said: “The Netherlands and France are markets that we have been looking to develop. HDW and CTE are both established companies with nationwide service networks and will be excellent partners for us.”
CTE Elévateurs, the French arm of the Italian access specialist, operates from depots just outside Paris and from the Rhones Alpes region in the south of France. In addition to truck, van, trailer and crawler mounted access, CTE also distributes Effer truck-mounted cranes.
HDW, part of PON Holdings, is a leading supplier of construction plant and machinery in the Netherlands, specialising in aerial platforms and earthmovers and representing manufacturers including Genie, Teupen and Terex.
Christian Cazabat, director of CTE, said: “Mini cranes are the perfect lifting partner for aerial platforms for jobs where space is at a premium. Where once you might have had the hassle and expense of closing off a street to send in a large mobile crane, you can now take a mini crane inside a structure to tackle the problem at its source.”
Arjen Snijder, sales manager at HDW, said: “Mini cranes are a growing new technology, with many applications for construction and other markets such as machinery installation, maintenance and restoration. They will complement our range of aerial work platforms and allow us to offer a complete lifting and access solution for confined working environments.”
Italian loader and marine crane company Effer and its sister company, access equipment supplier Bizzochi, were bought by CTE for €13million last year.
The move came after Effer and Bizzocchi got into financial difficulties following heavy investments in two of its factories in Italy – Taranto and Minerbio – and unexpected losses in Germany, Switzerland, and the UK.
