KD Mobile Cranes specialises in the fabrication of 10-30t superstructures, making its own hydraulic cylinders, hydraulic locks, frames, outriggers, and boom parts.
Jaroslava Malcová, assistant to the director at CKD mobile cranes says,"In communism there was CKD Praha, and under it was CKD Slaný with production of truck-mounted cranes.
"When CKD Slaný ended, we signed a contract with CKD Praha Holding (CKD Praha) to use the trademark CKD."
CKD Mobile Cranes in Slaný was formerly owned by Czech engineering group CKD, CKD Group says. Formed in 1927 by a colleague of Nikola Tesla, it built motorcycles. During the second world war, the plant in occupied Slaný was used to build tanks.
Under state ownership after the war, CKD Group’s Slaný facility made excavator/cranes, launching its AD truck crane line in 1950, while other parts of the group made trams and locomotives for socialist countries.
Today CKD Group’s four main segments provide equipment, compressors, power industry systems and designs.
The mobile crane business was restructured during privatisation, and ownership passed into the hands of a jointstock company. "During the restructuring of CKD in 1997, when our company CKD Mobilní Jeráby was founded, we moved to new production facilities on the other side of town. We rented a production building and offices, and we renovated it to meet our needs. In 2003 we bought all these production facilities."
One of CKD Group’s former automotive subsidiaries Tatra (CKD Transportation Systems) is these days one of CKD Mobile Cranes’ main suppliers for crane chassis.
"The first cranes were assembled on Tatra chassis, because there weren´t other chassis producers and Tatra chassis is a Czech product," says Malcová.
Tatra was briefly owned by Terex, and has also supplied to Demag and Gottwald in the past.
CKD has evolved its truck-mounted crane chassis offerings since restructuring by allowing clients to choose from several well-known brand chassis, for example Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, MAN, IVECO, MAZ,KAMAZ, Renault, and Scania, as well as Tatra.
"Today customers can choose which chassis they want. We have no special contract with Tatra company as chassis are bought on single contracts. If the customer wants the Tatra chassis, they can have it," says Malcová.
CKD can also provide custom booms. Malcová says, "A Hungarian customer wanted to shorten a standard boom length for better manipulation of heavier loads in halls with a limited height. All the boom’s components were shortened to 64% of standard length.
The company can develop other components on the superstructure on request. Malcová says, "If it’s necessary, we can change other components, for example adjustment of the welding of the upper frame or the support cylinders of the boom."
Even so, market slowness hinders further design development of superstructures.
Malcová says,"We aren´t considering development of new types of cranes because of the difficult economic situation in the market now."
"CKD has made only small developments on the crane superstructures on customer request, or when sub-suppliers change supplied parts. For example, it can offer a new crane cabin, air-conditioning in crane cabins, and wireless operation of cranes," adds Malcová.
CKD currently has several markets for its truck-mounted cranes. The company provides mobile cranes and hooklifts for its construction and container haulage market. In 2001 it introduced two new products: container crane superstructure AD 10 K (10t) for work such as haulage and a multipurpose rescue crane AV 30 for rescuing at height. The AD 10 K has a cost advantage, CKD explains. "The advantage of this machine is using the crane superstructure without needing to invest in another undercarriage, for firms which already own a chassis with container hydraulic system. Another advantage is its ability to work independently thanks to having its own engine placed on the crane superstructure."
The new crane from the rescue segment is its multi-purpose rescue crane AV 30, developed to meet the lifting and working at height requirements of Czech Fire Brigades. As one of the legacies of state ownership, CKD Mobile Cranes builds cranes for government services, fire brigades and military, an offering which it says is unique in the Czech market.
Fire Brigades regularly use CKD rescue cranes for firefighting and wreck towing. They are equipped with scraping blades, towing rods and remote-controlled search lights.
Malcová says the Czech army uses the cranes to build field hospitals. She says "They transfer the equipment from which the field hospitals are built with containers. They are equipped with winches, which isn’t standard on our cranes."
CTS, in Okrinek, is a past supplier of hydraulic systems to CKD Mobile Cranes for the AD 10K in the Czech market. Marek Košnár is export manager at CTS-servis, the service company for CTS, and explains that the business primarily provides service on CKD cranes.
"CKD Slany has got a service contract with our company. It’s all about our hooklift systems. We’ve got lots of combined superstructure applications with the hooklift and the crane or the crane built on the roll off container."
CTS-servis also supplies for HMF knucklebooms, which are seen as having different advantages in the local haulage and building market.
"Customers of HMF cranes are more likely to be delivery companies. They carry, load and unload bricks, palettes with different goods for civil engineering," says Košnár.
"Customers who prefer CKD cranes to knucklebooms need to load heavy goods at a greater distance from the truck. They also have better winches with thicker cables to do so. You could find them in concrete panel facilities and also among the companies that are specialised for metal construction: building bridges, buidlings, big shopping malls, etc."
Superstructures used in container crane systems have a debatable advantage in the market over single-body cranes because they can be swapped out for multiple applications.
Kosnar says, "You are more flexible with a hooklift system as different superstructures for container applications can be loaded onto it. But a truck is a very expensive item itself. Then you need to buy the hooklift, then normal roll-off container, then a crane built on a roll-off container or roll-off container frame, such as CKD. Sometimes you can find the skiploader built on a roll off container frame, then there are many, many more applications to work with. All these things are also quite expensive and when you don’t use them all the time, because of other applications you also need to keep on, then sometimes it’s worthless." As Czech companies pinch pennies, local markets have been somewhat slow for CKD, though the company continues to expand its distribution network at global and now shows at trade fairs as far away as India and South Africa, with distributors in Russia, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. CKD has more distributors throughout Eastern Europe: in Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Hungary.
Malcová says that the company continues to benefit from the rapid recovery of Poland:
"The best export market this year is Poland. Last year the best were Poland, Slovakia, Romania. We didn’t sell any cranes last year to Bulgaria and Slovenia because of the crisis."
Despite the financial support of the EU’s European Regional Development Fund, and a booming export market to Poland, Slovakia and Romania, the economic crisis has been hard for the company.
"We haven’t seen any improvements since Eastern European markets joined the EU, although maybe customs documents are easier. Bulgarian housing development hasn´t added new business for us: We would like to sell more cranes in Bulgaria, but without success.
"Our company previously produced about 30 cranes per year, but now in conditions of economic crisis this number is about 10 cranes per year. Our cranes are intended for the building industry and there is stagnation in this industry now," says Malcová.
Still Central and Eastern Europe remains a stronghold for CKD cranes, which keep a tenacious grip on the market, even when compared to major crane brands such as Liebherr and Manitowoc.
Malcová says, "We think our clients value the high quality of our cranes, price acceptability, service network and, naturally, tradition."
