One of the biggest challenges facing manufacturers of mobile cranes is to produce a machine that meets the needs of all their customers. In truth it is probably impossible. Even within the European Union there are different laws and regulations in different countries. It is even worse in the USA, where different states have their own regulations.
And then, regardless of the regulations which have to be satisfied, different customers want different features on their machines depending not just on transport or lifting regulations, but also on applications and crane culture.
You ask 10 different customers what they want a crane to be like, the manufacturers say, and you will get 10 different answers. The key to success as a manufacturer is to produce a machine that addresses as many of these issues as possible.
Now, however, the European association of heavy haulage, transport and mobile cranes – ESTA – has decided to try to make the manufacturers’ job easier. In an initiative led by ESTA vice president Steve Cooke, who is also service director of the UK’s Ainscough Crane Hire, the association has produced a pan-European mobile crane specification template. As the manufacturers have found, it will be impossible for a single prescriptive specification to be produced, as there will always be those who want variants. But the buyers believe that by getting together and agreeing on their position, instead of sending out conflicting messages, they will be better served by the manufacturers. Cooke explains: ‘We will sit down with the crane manufacturers and tell them that this is what our members are looking for.’
The intention is that this document should be a starting point for any buyer when ordering a crane. It will never be a finished document, but will be added to and changed as crane owners raise issues of concern.
To help in the process of harmonising the demands of crane buyers, ESTA plans to establish a website where crane users can report good points and weak points of cranes that they own. Feedback can then be consolidated and delivered to manufacturers in a stronger way.
Fighting talk
This is clearly a very positive initiative, generally welcomed by the manufacturers, but some major crane buyers in Europe, including Cooke, are highly critical of the manufacturers. Cooke presented a paper to the World Class Crane Management Seminar in Amsterdam in May explaining ESTA’s development of the generic mobile crane specification. It was his opinion that the manufacturers were failing their customers and so the buyers had to organise themselves to exert pressure to get what they wanted. ‘Gone are the days where we are going to be divided and conquered,’ he said.
Cooke accused the manufacturers of not listening, of providing cranes that they wanted to make and not what operators needed to use. As an example, he showed a photograph of a newly delivered crane without a tackle box. ‘Crane manufacturers to this day are producing cranes which don’t take into account the equipment that we are carrying,’ he told the seminar. As a result, the cranes are usually not road legal when fully kitted out.
Much of ESTA’s generic specification is simply a restatement of existing regulations. The Supply of Machinery Regulations stipulates provision of a spare wheel, for example, automated lubrication system, and transmission retarder, among many other things. Other parts of it are rather general but give manufacturers an indication of what matters to owners: increased fuel economy, long range fuel tanks, anti-theft devices, tiltable superstructure cab on machines rated at 50t and over, fully powered booms with all hydraulic operation.
The particular complaint of Cooke – and ESTA members, he said – was the complex issue of weight. Manufacturers produce cranes which they say weigh less than 12t per axle (the maximum allowed in most of Europe) but sometimes this is not just without the lifting tackle necessary to make a lift but also without fuel, without hydraulic oil, and without even a driver. They are producing cranes which cannot legally be used, he said. Cooke said that manufacturers would not tell buyers specifically how much tackle they were able put on each crane and still come in at under 12t per axle.
Cooke accused manufacturers of a lack of responsiveness. In their defence, they do appear to have tried. The Tadano Faun ATF 60-4 was the first ‘all-in’ taxi crane. It is, in effect, a three-axle 50t crane with an extra axle to allow the maximum counterweight to be carried at 12t per axle. Grove Europe marketing manager Malcolm Early says of this crane: ‘It was felt by many that this would prove to be the end of the three-axle 50t crane, but this has proved not to be the case, the majority still prefer the cost/compactness advantages of the three axle 50t crane. For a little extra outlay crane hirers can buy a GMK 4075 which out performs the 60t four-axle machines in a legal configuration as well as having the option to transport additional counterweight to maximise the crane.’
But Cooke says that it is not just the weight issue where manufacturers are failing their customers. Speaking after the seminar: ‘I would question whether any of the manufacturers, apart from Kato, has met the new noise regulations that were introduced in January.’
Safety was also an issue. ‘There have been several injuries with folding jibs falling off,’ said Cooke. ‘The manufacturers say that there is no problem if you pin it properly. We say, agreed, but people are still getting hurt.’
Another issue is maintenance schedules and the cost. One manufacturer’s manual, for example, says that all hydraulic hoses must be changed every six years, Cooke said. Is that really essential, because few people are observing it, or is it something that the hose manufacturers have inserted? On this issue there is progress, Cooke said. Discussions were being held with crane manufacturers, through the FEM committee, about taking out of manuals those service instructions which are not essential.
More fundamentally, the manufacturers do not know the service costs of their cranes, Cooke alleged. ‘Manufacturers should be knocking at our door asking what our major costs are, and finding out about the necessary maintenance regimes of the cranes that they make.’
Every crane that Ainscough has bought since 1996 has had data logging, so all the necessary information is available. One of the manufacturers is now talking to Ainscough about using this information, Cooke said.
At the seminar Cooke delivered a strong message in an uncompromising way. I am the customer, and therefore I am right, he suggested. Unsurprisingly he provoked an angry response from those manufacturers’ representatives that were present. ‘Have you seen the counterweight options on our new 350 tonner?’ asked Demag’s John Scholtens, who added that the end-users should standardise the lifting tackle that they are going to take on board. Grove regional sales manager Willem Hilderink, who was in the audience that day, told Cranes Today later that if the manufacturers were really not listening then they would soon go out of business. ‘We only build what we are asked to build,’ he told us. ‘We can build a crane at 11t per axle to allow lifting gear to go on, but then the capacity is reduced. If ESTA members only bought legal cranes, you would see how quickly manufacturers can change. They dictate what we build.’
Hilderink thought that it was particularly ironic that the complaint was being led by a UK crane buyer when it is mostly UK customers that are asking for extra counterweight which takes the cranes above 12t per axle. There was not even consensus among ESTA members on what equipment is needed. ‘In Holland they want concrete buckets, in the UK they don’t,’ he said. ‘Michielsens in Belgium uses aluminium outrigger plates [to reduce weight] while others say it’s a waste of money.’
Keep it simple
The ESTA initiative is seeking to unleash a wider debate about who is leading the industry: the manufacturers or the customers? As service director for Ainscough, Cooke is responsible for keeping a fleet of 440 mobile cranes in operation. This is one of the largest fleets in the world, and most of them are all terrains. Ainscough’s highest maintenance cost is below the crane, he says, repairing and servicing high-tech carriers. Mobile crane carriers have a tough life. ‘We must get through five or six transmissions a week.’ A lot of the technology and expense on the carrier is equipment that the company doesn’t even need, he says.
‘I’d question the manufacturers: who’s driving this technology forward? Kato builds the most reliable crane in the world, without any doubt,’ he said. ‘They are so utterly reliable and very simple in operation. We have got brand new Liebherr and Demag ATs with major software problems. We’ve got experts flying in from Mercedes in Germany because there’s no one in the UK who can sort it out. We have got 59 engineers in Ainscough, some of the best fitters in the country, and technology is leaving us behind.’
It would be wrong to view Cooke as a techno-phobe who wishes we still lived in the 1950s. As has already been said, Ainscough Crane Hire has embraced the benefits that can be secured from technologies such as data logging and the internet.
He says: ‘If there were hundreds of service outlets that I could take the crane back to, it would be a different story. But I want to service it myself and we don’t have the information provided by the manufacturers.’
A previous speaker at the seminar, Søren Jansen, managing director of Danish rental company BMS, questioned why European fleets were dominated by expensive all terrain cranes even when they never went off the road. It was an extravagant fashion, he said, like yuppies driving 4×4 sports utility vehicles in the cities, who never went off highway in their lives.
Said Cooke: ‘Søren is dead right. We don’t need so many ATs. The operational costs of a truck crane are far less than an all terrain. What Cooke wants available is a compact crane virtually the same as an AT but without the off-road capability. It might be two-wheel drive with an unsophisticated transmission and so have reduced maintenance costs. ‘Is anybody talking to us about having a simplified machine that will reduce maintenance costs?’ he asked, rhetorically.
It would be wrong to suggest that all the AT manufacturers are ignoring those who prefer a lower cost machine. From 1994 to 1996 Demag offered its 50t AC 155 in two versions, to cater for both ends of the market. The AC 155 A was the standard version with 6x4x6 (opt. 6x6x6), two-man cab, OM 401 LA engine, electronic gearshift control, suspension with automatic levelling control, etc. The B version, for those wanting a simpler, lower cost machine, was equipped with a one-man cab, 6x4x4, OM 366 LA engine from the AC 95, powershift transmission with torque converter without electronic gearshift, hydropneumatic suspension with manual levelling, and no independent rear axle steering.
The AC 155 A was a successful machine, but only about 30 units of the AC 155 B were ever bought. Roughly half of the AC 155 B versions to be produced were sold to Hewden Crane Hire in the UK. Hewden’s service manager Norman Kelsey broadly shares Cooke’s views on where technology is taking us. Kelsey describes the AC 155 B as ‘a move in the right direction’. He adds: ‘They didn’t go simple enough in some places and were too simple in others. They could have developed the idea a lot more if they had consulted the crane buyers.’ It seems that the lack of acceptance of the B version was down to operators. Operators didn’t like that they could not deploy the outriggers from a switch in the cabin but instead had to get out and pull levers, Kelsey says. Nor did they like the half cabs and certain other features that they felt belonged in the past.
No one can criticise Demag for rejecting an idea that was tried in the market place and seen to fail. Besides, as Demag marketing director Roland Schug explains, the higher specification cranes just keep getting more popular. Statistics support the view that the world likes sophisticated cranes and that Cooke, Kelsey and Jansen all hold a minority position.
Says Schug: ‘The development of our AT cranes strictly reflects the demands of our customers worldwide. Otherwise we would not succeed in the market.’ He points out that worldwide sales of mobile cranes dropped from 8,400 units in 1996 to 6,000 units in 2001, yet the AT segment is the only one to have kept growing steadily, from 1,600 units to 2,700 units in the same time period. Can we really accuse AT manufacturers of not knowing their market? As for demand for a simple carrier, Schug says: ‘The majority of our customers like to have the different steering options, e.g. the electro-hydraulic rear axle steering of the AC 60 and AC 80-2. The electro-hydraulic rear axle steering system gives the driver the choice between two programmes: one for travelling on-road and one for off-road. The customers we talked to very much appreciate this system.’
Malcolm Early at Grove makes similar comments: ‘Grove believes in introducing technology to make the operators job easier, not more complicated. Carrier technology such as CAN-Bus, Grove ECOS, Grove all-wheel-steer and Megatrak are designed to make the operator’s life easier. Maybe these are reasons why the all terrain sells.’
If, as Cooke suggests, the crane manufacturers are ignoring their customers’ desires for simpler carriers, why are those who produce high tech ATs proving so successful? Demag may have dropped the B version concept but there are still simpler products available. Faun, Sennebogen, Ormig and Marchetti all offer good mobile cranes on conventional, simpler carriers, but these machines do not sell in high numbers, not even in the UK where there is high regard for the old style Kato and Tadano truck cranes on Mitsubishi or Nissan carriers (neither Mitsubishi nor Nissan produces carriers for the crane market any longer). There is a difference, it seems between what the operators want and what the service managers want. Operators – those who are not intimidated by the dashboards of the latest generation of ATs – love the benefits that technology gives them. Service managers see only problems. Listen to Kelsey: ‘We just took delivery of two Kato CR 100s last week and there’s a bloody tannoy system with a microphone in the cab. There are useful purposes for it [to allow the operator to speak to slingers and banksmen] but it’s another complication that has to be maintained and another cost.’
Kelsey continues: ‘The designers are all on an ego trip and it’s all a case of who can make it look the fanciest and most high tech. Look what Krupp did with the Megatrak system. They’ve made it so complicated. Look at the new generation Liebherr. It’s frightening. It’s like flying Concorde. We employ normal, everyday service personnel. We don’t employ rocket scientists. We can’t afford them.’
Says Steve Cooke: ‘The question is: is crane technology leaving the crane owning companies behind? The answer is yes.’
If the crane buyers can no longer service the cranes themselves, maybe the manufacturers will only sell cranes with comprehensive service packages. When we see the money that some of them are investing in service centres around the world, perhaps they already know that this where we are heading.
