Loader crane manufacturers offer such a vast range of cranes, with basic models that can be reconfigured in numerous ways, that it would be impossible to keep stocks of every crane. The traditional solution was to have distributors keep stock of basic models and reconfigure the cranes after customers placed orders.

Italian manufacturer Effer, however, is adopting lean manufacturing and ‘just in time’ principles. Instead of forecasting annual sales and devising a build programme to match targets, it now only begins to make a crane once an order has been placed. This strategy reduces the need for costly inventory, but for it to work Effer has had to reduce the time it takes to build cranes. Without stock, delivery time becomes critical. Customers do not like to wait.

‘It’s the old story,’ says Bill Green, managing director of UK distributor PL Crane Sales. ‘People ponder on the decision to buy a crane, and then when they make their mind up, they want it yesterday.’

Effer’s production redesign project began in 2000, with the help of Bonfiglioli Consulting SOA, based in Bologna. To improve delivery times, Effer redesigned its large crane fabrication processes at its two factories in Minerbio and the assembly processes at its head office site in Castel Maggiore. ‘I didn’t believe it could be done until I saw it,’ says managing director Giancarlo Monti. ‘The mentality is so different.’

Lean manufacturing means cutting out intermediate stocks of components in the production process. ‘Eliminating the intermediate stocks has of course reduced a lot of unnecessary handling, transport and stocking during the whole process,’ says marketing manager Giancarlo Manzano. A production line system was developed for large cranes, replacing work islands.

The result is that Effer has cut the manufacturing time of its established models, such as the 360, 430, 460, 860, 950, 1050, from five months to just 33 working days, or about six weeks including weekends. Newer models have been designed to be made under the new system and can be built even more quickly. The 500/550 and 750/850 models can be built in 20 days (about a month including weekends). For the 500/550 models, Effer estimates that 12 of the 20 production days are spent fabricating components, and eight are spent assembling the crane.

Next year assembly of large cranes (40tm class and bigger) will move from Castel Maggiore to a new factory now under construction in Minerbio, which will reduce the transporting of fabricated components. The extra 6,200m2 will provide space for testing cranes. The Castelmaggiore site, built in 1971, will close. At the new plant Effer will be able to assemble up to 900 units a year.

In the meantime, production processes are also being redesigned at Effer’s small crane factory in the southern region of Taranto. This factory produces the 15tm model 155 up to the 35tm model 370.Turning out about 1,000 cranes a year, it accounts for half the company’s annual production volume (2,170 units in total in 2003).

Effer is not the first crane manufacturer to shorten manufacturing times to enable it to build cranes only to order. Palfinger introduced what it calls its RAP process in 2002.‘As mass production was eliminated, the focus shifted increasingly towards the client-specific just in time production of components,’ says Palfinger marketing manager Harald Böhaker. ‘What component fabrication intends to do is build a relationship with the client at the earliest possible time.’

Palfinger now takes 15 working days to make small cranes, and 20 days for cranes that are 32tm class or larger.

Of course, these times do not include transport and installation on a chassis, and this can add another 15 or 20 working days, especially in the UK, according to Mark Rigby, director of Palfinger distributor TH White. ‘Only Iveco now has stock chassis. The others – DAF, Mercedes, Volvo, MAN, Scania – are all on just in time orders. They only order to suit. People say to me, if you go to Rotterdam and look around the end of the DAF production line, there are chassis coming out of their ears, but they are all left hand drive.’ Because of its need for the specialised right-hand drive, the UK in particular suffers long lead times – 10-12 weeks – for new chassis. That means that often UK dealers are left holding a crane, waiting for the chassis to arrive.

Despite the change in the supply operation, some distributors still keep a stock of cranes that they have bought, either for spot business or to look after specific customers. Rigby says that TH White has more than 20 cranes in stock, including three that it keps on the shelf for the builders’ merchant WT Burdens, which has an all-Palfinger fleet of 200 truck loader cranes. In addition, TH White has some 9501 and 10000 crane models in stock, as well as some Epsilon grab cranes – just in case. ‘Every month there are spot orders,’ Rigby says. ‘Someone’s found a new or secondhand chassis that they have bought, and want a crane on it quickly.’

Eliminating inventory and building to order may work well for the manufacturers, but distributors still need to maintain stock, it seems.