The event was founded by Cranes Monthly, a professional magazine in Korea, and is supported by Cranes Today partner magazine Construction Machinery Technology & Management magazine (CMTM), amongst others.

This year, the symposium moved to Beijing, China, and was held at the Dua Ho hotel, during BICES 2007. This year’s symposium was organised by China Construction Machinery Association (CCMA), CMTM, Korean Agency for Technology and Standards, Japan Crane Association and Cranes Monthly magazine. Around 70 industry representatives from China, Japan, Korea, Britain and Germany attended this symposium.

The general-secretary of CCMA engineering crane bureau, Shen Yongmin, gave a speech to introduce the development of the China mobile crane industry. She said that the China mobile crane industry has seen rapid growth in the last five years, and will reach a historical record in 2007. Sales in 2007 will touch RMB16bn, a 58.4% increase year on year, with 24,200 units forecast to be sold.

Truck cranes are still the leading products in China market, but the market share for small tonnage products is decreasing gradually, while the middle and large-capacity truck cranes have a growth market. Otherwise, highly centralised production is one of the Chinese crane industry’s key characteristics: the top four manufactures XCMG, Zoomlion Puyuan, Sichuan Changjiang Crane and Tai’an Crane share 80% of the market among them, with XCMG taking more than 50%.

Meanwhile, crawler crane saw the highest growth. Some new type crawler crane not only feature high technology, but also have their own intellectual property rights. Fushun Excavator Corp took 41% of this market in Jan-Aug, 2007, and Sany ranks the second position with 25.5% market share.

Shinji Noguchi, of Tadano’s control system design unit product development department, gave a speech desciribing the company’s new lift adjuster product, which compensates for boom deflection and the subsequent movement of loads when lifting.

Shinji Goto, of Kobelco’s engineering and development department, gave an overview of trends in Japanese crawlers, discussing their development and highlighting differences with European models.

Shang Hong, a Chinese government officer, gave a speech on model and specification requirements for crane type testing in China. He is an officer from the special equipment safety supervision bureau of the general administration of quality supervision, inspection and quarantine of the People’s Republic of China. He introduced the demands for China’s crane type test, gave guidance on the applications of type test within crane manufacture (including the type test records to be kept), and the supervision and inspection process. He stressed that where the main loaded components, main material, main mechanism and electrical system have changed, and the crane type has changed, manufacturers must complete a new type test.

Xu Gening, a member of the Chinese national crane design rules standard revision team discussed the state of his team’s work. He introduced a new version of the standard, explained the process of examination that is taking place and said that this will soon be reported to central government to approve.

Former editor of Cranes Today Phil Bishop spoke about European crane safety, focusing on the UK.

The new version standard, Xu said, has collected more than 1,200 suggestions from all over the local industry, and references worldwide standards such as ISO and DIN. The contents include referenced standards; crane, mechanism and component classifications; load computation; structures; design computation principles for crane mechanisms, and for general and special crane components; electrical systems; stability to resist overturning, wind and skidding forces; and safety.


The sixth China-Japan-Korea crane symposium during BICES The sixth China-Japan-Korea crane symposium during BICES Kiswire’s Jeong Min Oh speaks at the symposium Kiswire’s Jeong Min Oh speaks at the symposium