ITALIAN FASHIONS

There is nothing like a construction equipment fair to feel the economic pulse of a nation. The Samoter fair in Verona in March offered just such an opportunity. An examination of the Italian crane market showed definite signs of improvement after several difficult years.

Sales of mobile cranes were up and several domestic loader crane manufacturers have been able to ride out the collapse of the Asian market and increase turnover regardless.

The Italian economy has never been noted for its stability but the hard battle to meet the criteria to join the European single currency and become part of ‘Euroland’ was won. It is reasonable to view the launch of the Euro at the start of the year as more of a political project than an economic one, but Italian crane manufacturers, whose livelihood depends so greatly on exports, are likely to benefit from more settled exchange rates which are likely to result, especially if or when Asia recovers. Domestic economic stability, however, is still by no means assured.

Loaders pick up

One of the more successful Italian crane companies of recent years has been loader crane manufacturer Amco Veba. Since being acquired by Dr Giancarlo Perego three years ago changes that have been implemented have borne fruit and turnover has tripled. New markets such as North America have been attacked, a new distribution system has been put in place, ISO 9001 certification was secured in January, and a new 10,000m2 factory is being built. The new factory, due for completion by the year end, is five times bigger than the current production facility. Until the new factory comes on stream, though, production limits have been reached, says Perego, and while turnover is expected to grow in 1999, it will not be the 35% growth that was achieved in 1998 when crane sales totalled 50bn Lira ($28m).

Growth has been based on exports across the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. The domestic Italian market is stable, he says, but too competitive to merit much attention. Hence exports account for between 85% and 90% of sales, he estimates.

The product range from 1tm to 80tm has now been completed, says Perego. The range includes the T boom series of car recovery cranes, the short boom C-type, the marine line and the new long boom JT line of construction cranes. New models in the first three series have been added in the past year rated at 52tm, 60tm, 72tm and 80tm. Perego is not planning further additions at the top end of these ranges, nor can he see any more unexploited niches to target. He is not interested in the forestry or scrap sectors, he says, as these markets call for a different type of loader crane.

But there is always product development in the existing ranges, of course, and new at Samoter was the VR 80 general crane, with eight hydraulic extensions, plus jib, and a 20m horizontal outreach. A new 32tm general crane with seven extensions is also planned.

The Amco Veba group also continues its diversification in food machinery, automotive equipment and, more recently, real estate, to the extent that cranes account for only 50% of the total business.

Amco Veba was less affected than most by the collapse of the Asia market, as it had not built up a significant presence in the region by the time of the collapse. For Cormach, on the other hand, Asia was a key market worth 5bn lira ($2.8m) a year. In spite of that disappearing, export manager Giulio de Luca is able to report: “1998 was still better for us than 1997.” Cormach is now planning its return to Southeast Asia with a wholly new distribution organisation, he says.

Among the product shown by Cormach at Samoter was a 140t-capacity telescopic boom truck crane, the M1401, mounted on an Astra chassis. The crane is one of an order of 13 for the Italian fire brigade which will use them for such tasks as pulling trucks out of traffic accidents. There are winches on the front and back, as well as on top for the hook. The M1401 is a bigger version of a previous Cormach truck crane, the 120t-capacity M1201. The boom of the new machine is 6m longer, though, at 20m.

Autogru PM is another loader crane manufacturer saying that it rode over the Asia downturn. In 1997 Southeast Asia accounted for 20% of turnover, yet in 1998 PM still managed to grow turnover by 5%, with sales in the USA proving particularly healthy. How PM’s USA presence is affected by the breakdown of its distribution agreement with Iowa Mold Tooling (IMT) remains to be seen. IMT struck a deal with HMF of Denmark earlier this year, leaving the question of quite what PM products it will promote still a subject for discussion.

PM sold about 2,000 cranes last year and marketing manager Paolo Marengo expects to sell 2,300 this year, with 30% generally being sold in Italy.

As technology has reached such heights, says Marengo, PM’s philosophy is now to address the specific needs of each customer. “We are oriented towards the market, not product oriented,” he says. For example, if a customer wants tubes on the inside of the crane rather than the outside, no problem: PM will provide it. The new Series 12S crane is a case in point. A customer in the Netherlands wanted a crane with a third control position; not just front and back, but on top too. A safety device is triggered by the operator standing on the upper operating platform to create a safe zone around the operator into which the crane cannot move.

The modular approach to production gives results in such cranes as the 26024 LC + J53, premiered at Samoter. The designation is explained by it having a 26tm rated capacity in standard version (though this is reduced to 24tm because of the addition of the jib), two booms and four extensions. LC means that it has a retractable boom, designed for lifting large, high pallets. Maximum load is 11.5t, vertical reach is 23.05m and horizontal reach is 19.85m. What makes this model new is that it is the first to combine the retractable boom (LC) with a jib. A similar concept is followed by the 36025 LC + J63, also premiered at the show.

New from Fratelli Ferrari at Samoter was the 725 PB. The PB stands for power boost, which is F.lli Ferrari’s equivalent to Hiab’s LOS, Fassi’s XB and PM’s Plus, says technical adviser Pier Guido Ghinelli. It is a new system for F.lli Ferrari; at the flick of a switch power can be increased by about 10% at the expense of a reduced operating speed. The purpose is that if the crane’s LMI locks out, the lift can be completed by switching on PB. Leaving it on all the time, though, would mean the operating speed would be too slow for regular use. Ghinelli says that F.lli Ferrari will fit the same electrohydraulic components to other cranes too.

F.lli Ferrari also showed its new 28tm-rated 728 model which features movable automatic stabilisers (Reaching out Jun98, p14). This is the company’s biggest crane with a rack and pinion bearing system. Beyond this, slewing rings are used.

New from Fassi was the F60A, a 6tm model which succeeds the F50. It is available with one, two or three hydraulic booms and is aimed at users of light vehicles who have to operate in narrow spaces. Also on show was the Micro 10, Micro 15 and Micro 20 models, in production since January.

Other loader crane manufacturers that exhibited at Samoter include Nuova Copma, which sold about 1,000 cranes in 1998, and its sister company Pesci, as well as Effer, Palfinger Italia, Heila, Benelli Gru, Maxilift, Jolly, Marchesi and RF, whose owner Romano Ferrari reports sales of 120 units in 1998 and forecasted sales of 150 units for this year, albeit with severe pressure pushing prices down by 15% for small cranes.

RTs revive

Italy is also quite well endowed with manufacturers of mobile cranes, and they were out in force at Samoter alongside their larger international competitors: Liebherr, Mannesmann Dematic, Tadano Faun and Terex PPM.

“I think we can say that the Italian market is recovering,” says export manager Maria Mortarino from Locatelli, which claims about half the Italian rough terrain market, which it shares with Bendini. She estimates that the RT market in Italy rose last year from about 60 to 70 units in 1997 to between 80 and 100 units in 1998. Of these, about 20% to 30% tend to leave the country immediately with international contractors working overseas. Locatelli also exported about 40 cranes in 1998, says Mortarino, most of which were RTs.

Locatelli’s RT range extends from 20t to 55t, but 60% of Italian sales were in the 30t and 40t range, she says. A new 60t-capacity RT is in the pipeline, though, which will be the biggest crane that Locatelli has made to date.

On show at Samoter alongside a 40t RT was a 30t all terrain crane, which the company is promoting.

A source of pride for Locatelli is that it was until recently Italy’s only ISO 9001 certified mobile crane manufacturer, according to Mortarino. Certification was achieved in 1997, and is proving increasingly important in international tenders. Ormig has recently joined Locatelli in sharing the distinction.

Ormig, this year celebrating the 50th anniversary since it was established by Guido Testore in 1949, is remarkably coy about its sales figures, admitting only that “in Italy, 1999 is about the same as 1998 which was better than 1997”. Demand is good for its yard crane range, says marketing coordinator Dr Gian Paolo Aschero. The 9t and 33t models (designated 9tm and 33tm) are available in electric powered as well as diesel versions, and both power source types sell in roughly equal quantities, Aschero says.

Trucks are us

A totally new field for Ormig is the truck crane mounted on a commercial vehicle. Exhibited at Samoter was the compact 804 AC, an 80t-capacity truck crane with a six-section, 33.15m boom mounted on an Iveco chassis (though available on any chassis requested). “We think it will appeal because of the difficulty in travelling with ATs,” says Aschero.

It is a market that Marchetti is also exploring with a 70t truck crane that it is now building. As with the Cormach and Ormig models, it is designed as a “rescue crane” for getting quickly to the scene of an accident, perhaps, and pulling away the wreckage. Idrogru also showed a truck crane at Samoter, the 80TR with a four section boom and fly jib.

Marchetti export sales manager Maurizio Minerva explains the appeal of a truck mounted crane over an AT in Italy. “The advantage of this crane, with four axles, is that you can travel on the road without a permit. Italy has two different homologations. One is a working machine, which has yellow plates and cannot go on the motorway or travel at more than 40kmh. For this, there is a 13t per axle limit. The other is a special vehicle, which has white plates, like cars, and can go on the motorway, has a maximum speed of 75kmh and has a 12t per axle limit.” ATs have their advantages too, however: “Working machines pay significantly less insurance and you don’t need a vehicle test every year.” Given European Union harmonisation, Minerva expects this to change over the next couple of years, and such distinctions should disappear.

AT sales: the numbers game

Marchetti’s core product, of course, is the all terrain crane. And in spite of a spate of enthusiasm among manufacturers for putting their cranes on commercial trucks, AT sales rose strongly in Italy last year by 20% to about 50 units, according to official figures.

Deliveries of new AT cranes during 1998 claimed by the various manufacturers were:

Marchetti 18

Tadano Faun 15

Mannesmann Dematic 12

Liebherr-Werk Ehingen 10

Autogru Rigo 9.

It will be noticed that these numbers add up to considerably more than 50, so readers are left to decide that either the official figures are wrong, or some manufacturers are prone to exaggeration. Either way, even if the actual delivery numbers do not add up, there is general agreement on the ranking order, with Marchetti just shading Tadano Faun to market leadership.

As well as the 18 ATs, Marchetti says that it also delivered 15 units of its Trio, mostly to domestic customers, though two went to Germany and two to Switzerland, making a total of 33 cranes delivered during the year.

Minerva has two developments on the Trio to report: firstly, Rexroth hydraulics are now being fitted instead of Volvo; and secondly, Potain is to distribute it in France as the Potain Trio (Tower talk Apr99, p39).

Exports generally were well down for Marchetti last year, which Minerva attributes to the disappearance of the Asia market. Marchetti began a marketing push in Korea in 1996, with immediate success. But the proportion of cranes exported fell from 45% in 1997 to 10% in 1998. Marchetti remains optimistic about Korea, though, and is negotiating a distribution deal with Hyundai which may even result in Hyundai making Marchetti cranes under licence, Minerva reveals.

New from Marchetti is the four-axle 70t-capacity MG 70.4, which will be ready for delivery from June. The prototype was shown at Samoter in a bid to drum up a first sale. Designed as a taxi crane, it is road legal with 4t of its total 11.4t counterweight (automatically controlled from the upper cab). With 4t of counterweight, rather than full counterweight, the chart only begins to diminish at longer radii beyond 14m, says Minerva. It is powered by a single Iveco engine, Italy’s supplier of choice, it seems.

Minerva reports: “Best sellers last year were the 60t and 80t models. This year started well with the 120t. We don’t really see any sign of a downturn.” Tadano Faun entered the Italian market in earnest only as recently as April 1997 when it appointed Salvatore Pennisi as its agent. Since then, he has sold 23 new cranes, with the 60t taxi crane ATF 60-4, launched at Bauma 98, proving the most popular Faun model with eight units sold. Pennisi admits that he is aided by Tadano Faun being more willing than certain rivals to buy back old cranes to encourage sales.

  In the first two months of the year Salvatore Pennisi delivered three cranes ordered last year and took orders for a further three. He expects to sell 20 during the course of this year.

Liebherr Italia’s Georgio Lupi, general manager since 1984, says that while sales were up in 1998, this year began even better, though by March he was noticing signs of a slow down in work for steel erectors. He speculates that it might be related to political uncertainty over a wave of forthcoming elections. Others in Italy see no such downturn, however, and argue that Italians, with so many changes in government over the past decades, are by now immune to the vagaries of elections.

Lupi says that last year was Liebherr’s best in Italy for 15 years. As well as the 10 new cranes, he says, he delivered a further 18 used ones, reconditioned by the Ehingen factory in Germany. On 1 March his order book for 1999 already had 10 new cranes listed and 10 used ones. His forecast for the year is that he will sell between 30 and 35 new and used cranes in Italy this year “if everything continues as it is”.

“I could sell more used cranes if I could get them,” he says – a view expressed to this magazine recently by Liebherr representatives in other countries, confirming the need for the current expansion of the Liebherr-Werk Ehingen factory in Germany.

Among new cranes on order are three units of the 80t LTM 1080/1, shown at Bauma 98 in prototype form and seen in its finished version for the first time at Samoter. “The problem is delivery time. I can’t deliver an 80 tonner before the end of August,” Lupi told Cranes Today in early March.

Rigo export manager Dr Daniele Rigo says that last year he exported five ATs and three RTs, in addition to the nine delivered to Italian customers, making 1998 a significantly better year for the company than the poor 1997. Negotiations close to fruition, including a 10 unit order for Iraq, suggest than this year will be even better.

New from Rigo is the 603, a 60t-capacity AT on three axles, displayed at Samoter. Initially conceived as a 70t crane, Rigo decided instead to put the 70t crane on four axles, to meet axle weight restrictions. The four axle machine is now being worked on. The 603 is road legal with 1t of counterweight and a 10m swingaway jib.

Two sales early in the year, finally signed at the show, see the model 904 going to contractors Ready and Bertoli.

Rigo offers RTs with capacities 25t, 35t, 45t and 60t, but in spite of a few export successes has not been able to crack the Italian stranglehold of Bendini and Locatelli in the is segment. Daniele Rigo admits it is hard to produce a competitively priced machine because of economies of scale.

Rigo survives, he says, by going for small markets neglected by competitors. It has five cranes in the Gulf state of Qatar, for example. With this strategy, it is able to maintain a turnover of about $9m to $10m a year.

The nature of Italian engineering production means that there are always other manufacturers pushing to break into the market. One such is Pontenure-based Corradini, which exhibited one of its ATs at Samoter. Corradini offers the two-axle 35t-capacity 808.2, the three-axle 30t-capacity 808.3L and 50t-capacity 808.3, and at the top of the range the four-axle, 80t-capacity 808.4. All are powered by Iveco engines and, according to the specification sheets, they meet all European standards and comply with 12t per axle weight restrictions. The 80t model has a 39.3m four-section boom with 9.6m fly and 10m jib.

Terex family planning

The biggest presence among the crane sector at Samoter, perhaps inevitably, was the Terex family, including product from Bendini of Italy (an A350) and PPM of France (an ATT 400), plus newer members of the group: Italmacchine (pronounced Ital-makkinnay) and Gru Comedil, both Italian companies acquired last year, the former producing telehandlers, the latter tower cranes.

According to Terex vice president Steve Filipov, the output of Bendini, which produces RT cranes and telescopic crawlers, rose 40% in 1998 to 125 units. The 35t RT model is the most popular, he says, but this year production of the 50t/55t range is forecasted to double to about 35 units. Among the buyers is Belgian rental company Kranen Michielsens, which has bought four.

Eight units of Bendini’s telescopic crawler, the 60t-capacity A600C, were sold last year: four to Germany and four to Spain. Three were sent to the USA to compete against SpanDeck’s top of the range Mantis but they failed to find buyers and were eventually sold to the Australian rental company Bowers Crane, based in Sydney.

The Italmacchine range of telehandlers was displayed to full effect. With booms of 13m to 22m and 360O rotation, many of these can effectively be fitted with hooks. “We are still selling it as a handler,” says Filipov, “but we are looking to push the rental companies in France to see if we can promote the crane version.” Italmacchine produces about 400 units a year, behind Manitou, JCB, Merlo and Dieci. But under Terex ownership there are big plans. “We need to manufacture 2,000 a year to be productive,” Filipov says, “because the market is probably 14,000 in Europe alone. It’s a really, really hot market. We see big growth.” He estimates that the market grew 30% last year alone.

From Comedil, part of Terex Towers along with Peiner of Germany, the self-erecting CBR 32 was exhibited at Samoter. As reported in last month’s issue of Cranes Today, Terex Towers is to sell self-erecting tower cranes in the 14tm to 28tm range manufactured by Ferro of Italy, to complement the larger models in the Comedil and Peiner ranges.

There was a notable lack of larger towers at the show: no FM Gru, Carlo Raimondi, Gru Dalbe or Alfa. But many of the smaller self-erecting tower crane manufacturers were there, including Ferro, Cattaneo and Gelco with its Clever Crane. Liebherr-Werk Biberach and Potain also had self-erectors on display, a reflection of the fact that the tower crane market is dominated by the self-erecting concept. According to Steve Filipov, the tower crane market in Italy is about 7,000 units a year, mostly self-erectors. According to Pierre-Yves le Daeron, Potain’s marketing director, this is a considerable under estimation, but he is not prepared to disclose his own figures.

Eugene Torello Viere, managing director of Carlo Raimondi, says that not only has the export business improved in Europe but since the end of last year the Italian market has also become “very lively”. He explains: “The demand comes mainly from the private sector of residential apartment building. The Italian people are again investing in housing since state bonds and bank savings yield very little and the stock exchange is felt by many to be too volatile and risky after the good profits of the last two years.”