Kiwi scene

The 29th annual conference of the Power Crane Association of New Zealand (PCA), held on 17-18 July in stunningly picturesque Queenstown (see front cover), drew its largest turnout for 20 years, with 160 registered delegates, including spouses and partners. The PCA is one of the oldest national crane associations in the world, having been established in 1975, and seems to be one of the best organised. There has been a significant shift towards deregulation in New Zealand business and industry in recent years, and the PCA, representing the crane industry, has been active in establishing industry self-regulation on issues such as training and certification.

As with any crane association, top of the list of issues that the PCA faces is safety, and the closely related subject of training. Given that New Zealand has a world image of probity, cleanliness and healthy living, akin to Scandinavia perhaps, many may be surprised to learn that both its construction industry and its highways are significantly more dangerous than the UK or Australia, for example. Its construction fatality rate is 11 deaths per 100,000 workers compared with less than nine in the UK and Australia and five in Ontario. The rate in the USA is 12.5.*

If you survive a day at work on site, getting your crane back to the yard has its risks too. New Zealand has 5.5 truck crashes per 100 million truck kilometres travelled, compared with 1.7 in the USA, 1.8 in the UK, 2.5 in Australia and 4.4 in France. Police statistics show that between 30% and 40% of all commercial vehicles on the road have some kind of safety defect, and mechanical faults cause 8% of crashes involving heavy motor vehicles.

Of the 180 inspectors that work for the New Zealand government's Occupational Safety & Health department (OSH), 25% are allocated to the construction industry. 'That's an indictment on construction because it should only have about 5%,' OSH national operations manager Roger Mortlock told the PCA conference. Mortlock was one of a panel of speakers from regulatory bodies, including the police and highway management authorities, whose presentations included the statistics above.

But while the crane industry is operating within a dangerous environment, it is doing everything possible to ensure that its own house is in order. Certainly Mortlock believes so, for he said: 'In our view, the PCA is a leading body in New Zealand… Your are one of the good guys. You are not uppermost in our concerns. We think you are pretty good… We like the work you are doing.'

The PCA set up its own industry training in 1997 as a registered training organisation, and became eligible for government funding. It had been part of a wider construction contractors' training scheme for a few years beforehand, but broke away in 1997. Over the past 10 years more than 200 crane operators have been certified and many others have passed enough 'units' or elements of the full certification programme to demonstrate that under law they are sufficiently qualified to operate the particular type of crane that they use.

Certain larger clients expect crane operators on their sites to be certified and, according to PCA chief executive Ian Grooby, by the end of this year it is likely to be a legal requirement that all operators will have to have passed at least the units relevant to their work, if not every unit that makes up the current PCA national certificate.

A dialogue between OSH and the PCA concerning the development of compulsory certification began in 2001, says Grooby, when a self-erecting tower crane fell across a road in Wellington. No one was hurt but the road was closed for three days. The new requirement is expected to cover operators of all types of cranes, including EOTs and truck loaders, except port cranes, Grooby says. The PCA will be the issuing agency.

The PCA is also a supporter of Site Safe New Zealand, a not-for-profit construction industry organisation set up in 1999 to promote safety. A four-hour basic safety training programme once a year entitles an operative to a Site Safe Passport card. Corporate membership of the organisation is 'rapidly becoming an industry requirement', according to Site Safe itself, whose Wellington region safety adviser Jeff Strampel addressed the PCA conference.

The conference had a full two-day programme, kicked off by the keynote address from Cranes Today editor Phil Bishop, who gave an overview of the international scene, focusing on how the crane manufacturers were responding to their biggest crisis for 30 years, and assessing the challenges facing them in a period of rapid change. It was a buyers' market, he said, and advised crane buyers to make sure they took full advantage of that fact.

There was also a presentation from Manitowoc Crane Group executive vice president Eric Etchart, who spoke about the crane scene in China, where he is based and where Potain has a factory. Etchart also spoke about the extraordinary Three Gorges dam project in China, on which two Potain MD 2200 Topbelt cranes are at work. (After the conference, Etchart took himself off for a bungey jump off the nearby Karawau bridge, the original home of bungey jumping.)

Another international guest was Christoph Schneider, project manager at Liebherr Biberach, who gave a presentation on special lifts carried out by tower cranes, which encompassed some of the world's major projects of the 1990s, plus a few lesser known ones which had required special adaptations of standard tower cranes.

Representatives of Manitowoc, Terex and Liebherr were all given 15 minutes or so to give an overview of new product development within their companies, and Jeff Brundell, president of the Crane Industry Council of Australia, reported on developments on the industry across the water in Australia. There were also workshop sessions on identifying hazards and on temporary traffic management.

Shape of the industry

It is quite easy to get a clear picture of the New Zealand crane industry because the PCA publishes a membership directory that includes a full listing of who owns what. All that is missing is the age of the machines, although given the limited production life of many models, it is possible to gain a general impression of age profiles too.

In general terms, the New Zealand crane hire industry depends on truck cranes in the 20t to 40t range, sourced from the Japanese used equipment market. The presence in the market of uncertified, or 'grey', imports from around Asia is an issue for the industry.

While not all crane owners are members of the PCA, more than 100 are, and Grooby reckons they represent the vast majority of crane owners and more than 90% of the crane hire business. PCA members, between them, own about 250 truck cranes, about 30 all terrains and 100-plus city cranes, rough terrains, industrial cranes, Frannas and the like.

The dominant sentiment among crane owners is that all terrain cranes are not really needed in New Zealand, and except for the larger capacity sizes, truck cranes are much more appropriate. However, the AT population has tripled in the past five years, so there are clearly a number of buyers who are ready for the more sophisticated machines.

Of the truck cranes owned by PCA members, just 12 have a rated capacity of 70t or more. Of the ATs, most are rated at 70t or more, with the biggest being Culham Cranes' 250t Krupp, followed by Titan Cranes' two 200t Demag AC 615s. Road regulations are major issue in New Zealand. Weight restrictions are based on axle groupings, under a formula that New Zealanders seem to understand clearly enough but appear complicated to an outsider. The result is that Culham has to take the boom off its 250t Krupp to travel on the roads. To transport the AC 615s, Titan has to swing the boom around onto a specially-made dolly.

In recent years Demag has dominated sales of the larger cranes, largely, it seems, because of the personal efforts of salesman Tony Bartlett, a New Zealander based in Australia. In the past year or two, however, it is Grove that has dominated the sale of new cranes in New Zealand, through its long-standing distributor Tidd Ross Todd (TRT), owned by the Carden family. TRT has represented Grove for more than 30 years and in the past, when protectionist tariffs made the import of fully built cranes not viable, TRT built carriers for Grove uppers and had a virtual monopoly for several years.

In the last couple of years TRT has sold five 100t GMK 5100s, including two to New Zealand Crane Hire, and one each to Todd & Pollock, Boyd Crane Hire, and Smith Crane & Construction. Both Boyd and Todd & Pollock have also each taken delivery of a GMK 3050 (50t), while New Zealand Crane Hire and McLeod Cranes have each taken a GMK 4075 (75t). TRT also sold a RT 530E (30t rough terrain) to Downer Construction and a TMS 875C truck crane to Waikato Crane Services.

Grove's success is due, in part, to the roadability of its machines in New Zealand, where axle loading regulations have more in common with parts of the USA than with Europe. Liebherr's 100t LTM 1100/2, for example, is too compact to be easily roadable. According to John Stewart, Manitowoc senior vice president Asia Pacific, just about the whole Grove range is roadable in New Zealand. Even the new 450t GMK 7450 can travel with the boom over the front if a hydraulic tag axle is used and the outrigger box taken off and put onto the back of the tag axle.

Since Grove joined the Manitowoc Crane Group, TRT has also been acting for Potain and to add to its list of successes has sold a Chinese-built ZJG Potain MC 310 and three HD 40A self-erectors, a concept that is new to New Zealand but has really taken off across the water in Sydney, where there are about 70 units at work.

New to the mobile crane market, but yet to make its first sale, is Liebherr Ehingen. Morrow represents Liebherr Biberach (tower cranes) and recent sales include a 224 HC-L luffing tower to Fletcher Construction Fletcher's second 224 HC-L but the first tower crane in the country with PLC controls. Morrow has sold a 32 TT self-erector in New Zealand too, which coupled with TRT's sales of Potain self-erectors indicates growing interest in the concept.

Morrow also represents Liebherr Nenzing and has sold five mobile harbour cranes to various ports in New Zealand. But there are no Liebherr all terrains or crawlers in the country. Ehingen is now being represented by Liebherr New Zealand, the construction machinery division. Mike Quin, manager of Liebherr New Zealand, says that planned wind farm developments offer good prospects for the sale of large cranes in the months ahead.

A notable crane deal this year is Linton Transport's purchase of the southern hemisphere's first Kato KA 900, a 90t all terrain launched five years ago. That deal was done by Kato's local representative, Titan Plant Services, sister company of Titan Cranes.

Titan Cranes is really the only national player in New Zealand, with North Island depots in Auckland, New Plymouth and Wellington (or, more accurately, in neighbouring Lower Hutt), and South Island depots in Christchurch and Dunedin. With about 50 mobile cranes that return to base every night, it is by a large margin the biggest taxi crane rental company in New Zealand.

Other major players include Todd & Pollock, which has 20 mobiles, and New Zealand Crane Hire, which has 18 mobile cranes, as well as two of the Potain HD40 self-erecting tower cranes mentioned above. While Titan is the established leader in the NZ crane hire industry, New Zealand Crane Hire might be seen as the up and coming force. It was created by the bringing together several businesses, starting with the acquisition of Central Cranes in 1999. It has a relatively high proportion of new machinery and a third of its cranes are ATs, including two GMK 5100s. Since 2000 it has also developed a fleet of Genie access platforms, approaching 50 units.

Other players with more than 10 cranes include Smithbridge, Waikato Crane Services, Ian Roebuck Crane Hire, C Lund & Sons and the Smith brothers' two companies. Tim Smith's company, Smith Crane & Construction, has 18 machines. Daniel Smith Industries is a foundations and groundworks contractor that hires out its machines, on a longer term project basis, when they are not needed on the company's own contracts. Daniel Smith took over Titan's crawler fleet a few years ago when Titan decided to concentrate on the taxi crane business model. Daniel Smith's fleet of 30 cranes includes 14 crawlers, of which about half are 100t to 200t capacity. Hitachi and IHI machines predominate.

The shape of the industry, with many small companies and just a single national player, might suggest that it is ripe for consolidation. But this is to forget how sparsely populated these islands are, and how the Cook Strait between the North and South Islands acts as a barrier for moving machinery around.

For the taxi crane business, hourly rates are in the region of:

• NZ$80-120 for a 20t truck crane (US$45-70)

• NZ$140-170 for a 30t truck crane (US$80-100)

• NZ$270 for a 50t truck crane (US$155)

• NZ$450 for a 100t truck crane (US$260).

Rates listed on New Zealand Crane Hire's website are higher still. NZ$200 for a 30t truck crane, up to NZ$570 for a 100t AT.

While these rates appear good, particularly when compared with the UK for example, utilisation rates are not always so good, and there are costs that rental companies elsewhere do not face. Chief among these are road user charges for heavy vehicles, on a per kilometre basis, on top of road taxes.

That said, the mood at the PCA conference was that these are pretty good times in New Zealand, and the high turnout is a testament not just to the attractiveness of Queenstown but also the relative health of the industry.