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A year of slow improvement
18 December, 2017
It's the time of year when I look back over previous copies of Cranes Today to see what the industry has achieved. I think it's fair to say that 2017 has not been a great year—few sales records have been set, the big trade show had few big surprises—but it has not been a bad year.

Conflicting interests, split opinions
20 November, 2017
I've had a series of interesting conversations over recent weeks. It's a time of year when we get many invitations to product launches and factory open days. I've also had a chance to catch up with a few senior executives as they take on new roles, or as their companies go through a transition.

A ladder into the crane industry
25 October, 2017
This month, we look again at the important role training and certification plays in the industry. There's some good news from the two big certification outfits, the NCCCO in the US, and ECOL in Europe.

Disaster and hope in London
19 July, 2017
As this issue of Cranes Today was being written, London was hit by one of its worst disasters in decades. A fire took hold in the Grenfell Tower, a social housing block in one of the city's richest areas, Kensington, killing around 80 people. The details emerging from the police investigation—which treats the disaster as a potential manslaughter case—are horrifying.

Selling cranes to the world at large
30 June, 2017
The crane industry is at once ever-present in the public eye, yet largely invisible.

Trials of faith, signs of redemption
16 May, 2017
The crane industry's long march out of the slump caused by the global financial crisis continues like the final stages of the Compestela pilgrimage – a painful and exhausting crawl on bloody hands and knees.

Borders, deadlines threaten US industry
17 April, 2017
As the worldwide construction-equipment event cycle evolves, it has become harder and harder for any event other than bauma in Munich to really claim to represent the global industry. ConExpo in Las Vegas certainly makes a good showing, but with launches in a hard market recently focused on the German show a year before, it is hard for it to claim to be anything other than the biggest show in the Americas, not a transatlantic contender for the global crown.

The winds of change
21 March, 2017
The wind-turbine industry has provided the push for some of the most exciting innovations in the crane and special transport industries. From Grove's unique GTK telescoping-tower mobile cranes, featured on the cover of this issue, or Liebherr's giant LTR telecrawler, through to some of the most highly optimised crawlers available, the sector has pushed the boundaries of what can be lifted.

China crisis
16 February, 2017
I write this comment as the Chinese New Year is celebrated. Like in many cultures, people in China have a series of traditions that say that, as your new year goes, so goes the rest of the year.

A throw of the dice
23 January, 2017
This month, as the year gets underway, we have articles looking back over the past 20 years, and forward to the year ahead. With ConExpo in Las Vegas, we also take a first look at some of the cranes we expect to see at the show.