High- wire act

In the past, crane users were mostly concerned with planning the resources they own. Now, with new crane order delays at least a year long, crane owners need to also slot to production schedules for equipment they do not own.

Users do not come into contact with most of the delays in production of components and raw materials that have slowed down new crane supplies. One exception is wire rope, which is sold to original equipment manufacturers as well as the aftermarket. The situation looks set to get worse before it gets better.

The European rope brands Diepa of Germany and Teufelberger of Austria, and the Swiss-Korean brand Verope, all report delays in delivery of their most advanced high-technology special wire ropes.

"There is definitely a shortage in special wire ropes for crane applications," says Pierre Verreet, chief executive officer of Verope. "I can confirm that European manufacturers have significant order backlog at present," he adds, and includes Verope AG in that group.

"Our delivery times have expanded to six months," says Ruediger Braun, Diepa sales and marketing manager. "We have improved capacity more than 50%, we are working seven days a week, still we can't meet the market's requirements," he says.

Gerald Neuwirth, Teufelberger ropes marketing manager, says his company has now reached record levels of orders, a situation that has increased ‘dramatically’ over the past year.

Part of the problem may be that users are switching to higher performance ropes. Diepa’s Braun says the special rope market has grown by 30% in the past year.

Neuwirth says he thinks that the share of special ropes will continue to grow. "Better quality machines, the latest high performance cranes from Western European producers, for example, need higher quality ropes than 10- or 15-year-old cranes running in Asia, whose technical requirements for ropes are not that high," he says. "We can profit from newer machinery, which creates a trend for high performance ropes naturally, by, for example, specifying higher breaking loads for ropes. In addition, because of demand, utilisation rates of machines tend to be higher than in the past. This is one more argument to use high performance ropes, which usually have a higher service life than standard ropes."

Coping now

Neuwirth says that customers are starting to shop for availability. "Depending on the segment and the type of customer, some of them are willing to pay a higher price if the rope is available now," Neuwirth says.

But he adds that rope companies value loyalty, and reward a close (and profitable) relationship. "For big customers, we are trying to increase our cooperation and long term planning. We try to sit with them, and look at their figures and numbers for the upcoming year."

Braun at Diepa advises customers to order in advance; to tell the rope supplier their expectations for demand

over the next six months.

An alternative might be to buy from the USA. One of the USA's largest wire rope producers, Wire Rope Corp of America (WRCA), is not experiencing the same kind of demand for any of its crane ropes, according to Todd Stewart, vice president, distribution and customer service.

He says that the current order delay is a maximum of two months, and that time is how long it takes to actually produce new rope from rod, to wire, to stranding and closing at two Missouri, USA plants. Production is not currently a limiting factor, he said. Only a surge in demand would cause a lag as workers are trained up, he says.

All of the European brands are currently expanding production for next year. Verope's Korean supplier Kiswire is doubling its 2007 capacity to 800t/month, and in 2008 to 1,200t/month at its Pusan, South Korea plant. Teufelberger is currently expanding one of its Austrian factories. August Rich. Dietz & Sohn, which runs the Diepa brand, is increasing production in a 4,000 sq m factory hall it opened this year. Next year, it will start producing a huge 100t-capacity single-fall rope for offshore use, Braun says.

But with onshore and offshore construction industry booming in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, it is not clear that these improvements will make any difference. "The information I have from crane manufacturers, the delay will definitely increase," says Braun from Diepa. "I do not see any reduction in the next two to three years."

Cross-section of Teufelberger's TK 16 Evolution wire rope, which it claims has the highest breaking forces of any wire rope in its class. The rope features a three-layer design with its own compaction and plastification technologies. Cross-section of Teufelberger's TK 16 Evolution wire rope Orders of special wire ropes are becoming more and more delayed Wire rope assortment Kiswire's new South Korea factory Kiswire's new South Korea factory