Travelling light

26 September 2016


Böcker saw its sales rise in the UK over the past three years. Sotiris Kanaris talks to their UK dealer and customers about the appeal of this equipment.

In the highly competitive and populated mobile crane market, German manufacturer Böcker managed to distinguish itself by producing aluminium boom cranes.

The family-owned company was founded in 1958 in the town of Werne and was initially selling inclined material hoists. In 1989 it introduced aluminium cranes to its product portfolio, which now account for most of its business.

“Our cranes have been sold to approximately 35 countries. The strongest markets are Germany, UK and the Benelux countries,” says export manager at Böcker Andreas Sparrer.

Although the company was previously represented in the UK, the boom in sales occurred after Bristol-based Kranlyft UK - division of Swedish AB Kranlyft - became the distributor in 2013. Alan Peck, sales director at Kranlyft UK, says that around 60 units have been sold over this period.

Company director at Birmingham Crane Hire, Alastair Weatherson, says there was a gap in the market at the “entry level in terms of cranage” after the demise of the 25t Kato and Tadano truck cranes, which Böckers filled parts of.

This year Böcker has launched a number of models. In February, it launched the AK47/4000 which comes on a 7.49t carrier and the AK46/6000, the manufacturer’s heaviest machine, which can be installed on 18t or 26t trucks.

“The AK46/6000 on the threeaxle can lift up to 500kg at 34m, that is equivalent to a 40t mobile crane,” says Peck.

The AK46/6000 has been received well in the UK, with City Lifting having already bought three.

At Bauma the company presented its first tracked crane, the RK36-2400, which has a maximum lifting height of 36m, maximum capacity of 2.4t.

Sparrer says: “It is a new market segment for us. It is not a crawler crane, although it is on a tracked chassis you need to get the outriggers out to operate it.”

As to the reasons behind the decision to enter this market segment, he explains: “We understood that not all foreign customers wanted to have it on a truck or a trailer, some wanted to have a tracked chassis.”

Sparrer says the manufacturer currently sells more lightweight and heavyweight truck mounted cranes, whereas in the past requests were predominantly for the intermediate models.

Unlike Germany where the majority of Böckers are sold to endusers, in the UK 90% are purchased by crane hire companies.

Among the UK crane rental companies that purchased Böcker cranes are Ainscough, City Lifting, Berry Crane Hire, ABA Crane Hire, Birmingham Crane Hire and Island Crane Hire.

Birmingham Crane Hire, which specialises on the mobile tower market, has two AK44/4000 in its 15-strong fleet.

Weatherson says the company was interested in this model because of its low running costs, as it runs on smaller tyres and is very fuel-efficient.

Lower running costs was also cited by Peck as a reason behind the increased popularity of these cranes, “A Böcker crane would average between 10 to 14 miles per gallon, you get 2 to 4 miles per gallon with a traditional mobile. Replacement tyres cost £200-250 on a Böcker, compared to £2000 on the mobile.”

Apart from fuel efficiency, these machines are attractive to crane hire companies because they can travel and be set up easily. Weatherson says Birmingham Crane Hire has sent them to sites all over England.

“Our machines can be deployed very quickly to almost every site because they come with a standard carrier. You don’t need special allowances or permits, it is almost like a taxi, it goes everywhere,” says Sparrer.

Their low deadweight also allows users to operate them on various terrains.

Sparrer says: “We have got low outrigger loadings, so you can operate these machines on terrains where other cranes with that kind of lifting height can not operate and it allows us to use very small standard carriers.”

ABA Crane Hire purchased its first Böcker in 2014 and currently runs a fleet of five cranes from this manufacturer, four AK44/4000 and one AK46/6000.

Adrian Baggott, technical representative at ABA Crane Hire, says a number of factors influenced the company’s decision to purchase these machines. He says: “Sites are getting tighter and tighter, so the short rigging space was of initial interest to us. They are cost-effective to run, with lots of boom length for light duties, which is what the bulk of our work depends on.”

The remote control gives drivers a visual advantage, according to Baggott. These machines are completely radio controlled, so operators can position themselves wherever they thinks it is best.

“In Germany they are mainly used for house erection and they are very popular in the UK for doing that as well,” says Peck. Sparrer gives the examples of window installations, roof maintenance and solar panel installations where the use of a bigger crane wouldn’t be cost efficient.

This was an issue which Birmingham Crane Hire’s Weatherson identified prior to purchasing Böcker cranes, “House builders use small cranes for roofing and other tasks. We were basically over-craning all their jobs and obviously those machines were expensive for those jobs.

We used to basically sent a 50t mobile to do a job of a 25t truck.” Ainscough, which has eight AK44/400 in its fleet, recently used one with variable outriggers for the lift of large-format glazing at a residential development in Kent.

The task was to lift large format glazing panels from the front, to the rear of the property, directly over the roof of the house and then position them within the frame of a bi-folding door on the ground floor rear elevation. The lift was delivered on behalf of the Bi-Fold Door Factory Ltd.

Reflecting on the task, Rani Notarianni, manager at Ainscough’s Maidstone depot says: “It was a confined space and there were around 20 different contractors on site all working to complete the building so we had to ensure we safely managed the lift in those circumstances.”

Weatherson says the lack of a tail swing and ballast hanging out, allows Böckers to be used in very confined spaces, characteristic of residential construction sites.

He also says the low weight of the machine makes them suitable for work on residential properties or shopping centres, as they can stand on block paving without decimating it.

City Lifting also took advantage of the low weight of Böcker cranes, as it lifted one with a tower crane onto a small flat roof in the middle of the courtyard of a 5 star Hotel at Trinity square in London, to install a large amount of glass from inside without the need to close the road.

ABA Crane Hire mainly uses Böckers for light duties such as trusses, timber, small steel jobs, chimneys, pumps, motors and mancage duties.

The company has recently completed a project at St Mary’s church in Hinkley, replacing old clock faces with new ones using an AK44/4000.

Baggott says: “We lifted one man in a man-basket up to each clock face so that he could manually remove the clock hands.

We then lowered and removed the man basket, connected the chains to the clock face while it was unbolted and removed from the clock tower. When it had been removed we safely lifted it down to ground level. The process was reversed for the new clock face to go in.”

Peck says that the optional access cage can expand Böcker cranes’ applications even further.

“The access cage takes these machines to a whole new customer base,” says Peck. ABA Crane Hire said that one of its clients is private members club Auto Vivendi, which uses a Böcker crane to lift a photographer in an access cage to take pictures of supercars.

All of the manufacturer’s truckmounted cranes can also work as an access platform, as users can attach a platform on the jib. This is also possible for the AHK362400 trailer-mounted crane as well as the RK36/2400.

Uncertainty and optimism Kranlyft’s Peck finds that since the Brexit vote there has been a decrease in the order intake across all the brands they represent, attributing it to the depreciation of the pound against the euro and yen.

He says that Kranlyft UK has currently 14 cranes on order at the factory. “Most of them are sold and I have ordered some of the new RK36-2400 tracked cranes for stock in the UK and Sweden.”

Peck says that this product will become bigger in the future and that at the moment they are “just scratching the tip of the iceberg.”

“Give it six months, with all the uncertainty over Brexit, we should see the currencies level out a bit. I think the order intake will increase in the first quarter of 2017.”

He believes that the RK36- 2400 will be very popular in 2017. “It lands itself more to the Maeda spider cranes because it is a tracked crane. It has fantastic terrainability.

“Once we get the first 2 or 3 cranes in [the market] and people see them out working on construction sites, I can see that being quite a big selling product in 2017.”

Böcker are often used with specialist material lifting attachments
ABA Cranes used their Böcker as both a lift crane and for lifting personnel on this job