The Czech survivor

The Czech Republic, and Czechoslovakia before it, has a long history of crane manufacturing, as detailed in Stuart Anderson’s history of the industry, Telescopic Boom*.

During World War II Skoda began production of Menck machines at its plant in Plzen under an arrangement to move production away from allied bombing of the Menck plant in Hamburg, Germany. Subsequently, production was transferred to the CKD manufacturing plant in Slany. Crane production continues there today.

During the 1960s CKD Slany developed its first telescopic cranes. These were 8t capacity and mounted on modified commercial trucks, mostly Czech-made Tatra carriers. The Elan series of mobile cranes was introduced in 1965. Also rated at 8t, these could be equipped with either lattice booms or cranked telescopic booms.

By the 1980s the CKD line had extended to include truck cranes up to 40t capacity. Models over 20t capacity were mounted on advanced-design Tatra 6x6 wheel drive carriers which gave them travel performance that, according to Anderson, was ‘superior to most truck cranes of the day’.

From the early days, CKD had export markets across eastern Europe, but in the mid and late 1980s also had some limited success in France, the UK and Spain, the latter of which took about 20 CKD cranes a year. There were occasionally orders from further afield – in 1986 the state trading company Pragoinvest won an order for 50 CKDs of 20t and 28t capacity from the China National Machinery Company.

As Anderson relates, soon after Czechoslovakia divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1989 and the communist era drew to a close, CKD was split into several smaller businesses. One of these was CKD Slany, which set about attempting to promote its line of 10t to 30t truck cranes to a wider international market.

The global marketplace was difficult for the Czech producer, but there were some successes – in the mid 1990s, William O’Brien of Ireland bought five 28t CKD truck cranes.CKD Slany was converted into the joint-stock company CKD Mobilni Jeraby in 1997, and began operations on 1 January 1998. It was by then – and remains today – the country’s only mobile crane manufacturer, and is the sole owner of the CKD brand.

At the time of the transfer six years ago it had a strong heritage, having produced more than 20,000 mobile cranes over the years, but limited prospects.Today the company offers telescopic boom truck cranes of 10t, 14t, 20t, 28t and 30t capacities, plus two rescue crane models rated at 14t and 30t.

The full truck crane product line up is:

·AD 10 – 10t capacity, 7.1m to 12m main boom, 15m reach with fly jib.

·AD 14 – 14t capacity, 7.5m to 16.9m main boom, 23.4m reach with fly jib.

·AD 20.2 – 20t capacity, 8.9m to 20.9m main boom, 28.8m reach with fly jib.

·AD 28 – 28t capacity, 9.5m to 26m main boom, 31.2m reach with fly jib.

·AD 30 – 30t capacity, 9.5m to 26m main boom, with tubular or lattice fly jibs extending maximum reach to either 38.9m or 33.9m.Carriers are generally Tatra, but all standard truck models are available. The AD 10 has been produced on Mercedes-Benz chassis and an AD 30 on a Mercedes-Benz chassis is in production. The AD 30, on a MAN carrier with Danfoss hydraulics, is also a recent innovation for CKD.

The domestic customer base today includes the fire service and the army, as well as civilian contractors and lifting companies. Export markets include Romania, Hungary, Poland, India, Slovakia, Serbia and Montenegro.

Orders for CKD cranes remain scarce, however. Domestic sales for 2004 are forecast to be just eight units, compared with 10 in 2003 and seven in 2002. In addition to these were two units that were exported in 2003, six exported in 2002, and 13 in 2001.

Models produced last year were the AD 10, AD 20.2, and the AD 30, plus the AV 30 rescue crane, on Tatra, MAN and Mercedes-Benz carriers. An option for a company like CKD is to pursue sub-contracting work, given that the major mobile crane manufacturers have outsourced increasing amounts of componentry in recent years. CKD has the capability to produce hydraulic cylinders, for example, with lengths up to 10m and diameters of 80mm to 300mm.

But the company management, led by Milo Kubr, says that it would rather have a full production schedule for its main product – cranes – and is anxiously seeking distribution partners around the world to help it restore the CKD brand name to its former glory. And with demand for truck cranes in Europe no longer being met by the previously dominant Japanese, who’s to say that CKD cannot rise again?

*Telescopic Boom: The history of the mobile hydraulic telescopic crane industry by Stuart Anderson, is available from Wilmington Publishing