WT Burdens has a fleet of about 120 two- and three-axle trucks that it uses to deliver heavy building materials to customers throughout the UK. It is mainly handling concrete and clay pipes, and blocks and bricks, mostly for civil engineering contractors working in road building or below ground utility projects. ‘We are more of a distribution company than a builders’ merchant,’ explains managing director Jeremy Burden. ‘We regard mechanical handling and the movement of goods as our main business.’ The trucks are all equipped with loader cranes, and all but seven old ones are fitted with Palfinger cranes. Burdens sticks loyally with Palfinger partly out of satisfaction with the product, but more, it seems, out of satisfaction with the relationship that it has with Palfinger’s UK distributor TH White. Both companies have their roots in the west of England and since 1990, when TH White began representing Palfinger and Burdens began buying Palfinger cranes, the two companies have grown with equal speed, almost hand in hand. Burdens has now bought 119 Palfingers from TH White, including 71 since 1998.
Customer and distributor have worked increasingly closely in recent years developing specifications together. Although its trucks may all look very similar, it is likely that no two cranes are absolutely identical, Burden says, because each time his company buys a new crane (and he is taking 10 this year), there is a small improvement or adjustment made each time.
What makes Burdens unusual – among crane buyers anywhere, one suspects – is that the specifications that it opts for today are 25% more expensive than the basic cranes that other customers prefer. And it pays more because it has learned that this saves it money in the long run. The basic crane is a 14tm Palfinger PK 14080 (although it is moving on to PK 15500s) rear mounted folding crane, says Burdens’ transport manager Peter Duckett. Most of its trucks are Volvos.
For three years Burdens has used a ‘total deployment system’ which means that the crane will lock out if it is not used correctly. It is a safety system that goes well beyond the standard overload protection system that cuts out the crane when reaching the limits of its lifting chart.
If outriggers are not deployed on one side, the crane is not able to slew over that side of the truck, even without load. Burdens is TH White’s only customer to specify this protection. There are two sensors on each outrigger for operations – one to ensure they are out and one to ensure they are down to the ground – and another sensor on each leg to check it is stowed properly before travel. In each case, the sensors are backed by audible and visible alarms as well as the cut-out.
This year Burdens has also begun specifying radio remote control, which only about 10% of loader crane buyers in the UK have so far selected. It is also planning a retrofit programme for radio remote control to its existing fleet.
Burdens specified a system that prevents the operator leaving the control box on site. The vehicle cannot drive away without the box being stowed in a specific place in the driver’s cab, with a specific plug put in it.
A further item specified by Burdens is a specially adapted hook within a Kinshofer grab to enable the crane to lift and lower heavy pipe sections slung from specially shortened chains.
Justifying his choice of expensive safety features, Burden says: ‘The cost of operating downtime far outweighs the cost of the crane.’ The safety features, coupled with the introduction of remote control, have resulted in a noticeable decline in costly vehicle damage. And the changeover to remote controls seems to have eliminated incidences of crane abuse. It has also enabled the company to switch its insurance cover from comprehensive to just third party damage, fire and theft, making a saving of £80,000 ($115,000) a year.
The extra cost of the outrigger sensors is about £1,500 ($2,200). The remote control option is rather more expensive. Altogether, Burden says, the company is paying £6,800 extra for the features it specifies, ‘which is roughly a 25% premium,’ says the managing director, ‘and our overall operating costs are coming down.’
