The turning point?

As Cranes Today editor Will North commented in March, the latest results announcements and comments from industry leaders suggest there was an uptick in crane sales in the last few weeks of 2010. The question for the industry at this show was whether those sales had continued. Largely, it seems, they have. The manufacturers Cranes Today spoke to reported ongoing sales, and were calmly confident for the year ahead. That good news appeared to hold true through the supply chain; Manitowoc Cranes president Eric Etchart, for example, told Cranes Today that at least 60% of cranes sold to dealers had been retailed.

The show organisers, the AEM, described the event as a ‘resounding success’. It’s rare for any show organizer to describe their event as a terrible failure (although in recent years a few should have), but this time the claims are easy enough to believe. The show apparently attracted 120,000 registered attendees, making it the largest construction related event in North America since 2008.

Megan Tanel, AEM vice president of exhibitions and events, said, “The construction industry has been through some very tough times, with record unemployment, since the last ConExpo in March 2008. With these positive numbers and the industry support of the shows, we’re optimistic about the future and looking forward to seeing these new sales orders fulfilled.”

Mike Haberman, chairman of the ConExpo 2011 management committee and president of Gradall Industries, said, “There was such a tremendous upbeat feeling at the shows; it was really great to see our industry looking ahead with some enthusiasm after the recession.”

Cranes Today saw that optimism on its own stand. Over the course of the event the magazine’s stand saw a steady flow of visitors, almost all of whom had good things to say about the event and the magazine. While there was some variation in levels of confidence, much of the talk at the stand was of new projects and improving business.

We’ll be covering the event over two issues. We start this month with reports on products from Sany, Link-Belt, Liebherr, Terex, Altec, Broderson, Jekko, and XCMG. Next month’s coverage will include Manitowoc, Tadano, Kobelco and Manitex, among others, interviews with senior figures and product reviews.

Sany
Sany displayed a range of new cranes at ConExpo, including three new rough terrains, the SRC860 (first revealed at an event at the company’s Peachtree City, Georgia, plant), SRC860XL and SRC840 (both new at the show), and three new self-assembly crawlers, the SCC8300, SCC8200 and SCC8100.

One of the most striking products on the stand however was the company’s new crawler cab, designed by Porsche Design Studios, and featured on the 300t SCC8300 and 200t SCC8200. From the outside, the new cab displays striking curves. Inside, it appears comfortable and spacious, with well-designed ergonomic controls at easy reach.

One key element on the stand, but less obvious than the cranes towering over visitors, was a brigade of US crane industry veterans recently recruited to the Chinese company’s US arm. Sany has appeared at ConExpo three times now, so it is neither entirely new, nor fully established in the US. As a Chinese-owned business that is relatively new to the US market, investing in US facilities and staff is vital to making an impact on the market. Sany shows every sign of recognising this.

At the last ConExpo, the company announced its acquisition of a sizable chunk of land in Peachtree City, Georgia. The plant is well located both for reaching US customers in the busy Gulf Coast region, and for bringing in components from China via ports in New Orleans and by a nearby rail line. Earlier this year, it formally opened the first phase of the plant.

Production of excavators and concrete pumps is expected to start in the summer, with rough terrains and crawlers expected to come on line over the next year. The plant will be fabricating crawler lattices and counterweights, and assembling finished cranes using other components, like the carbody, fabricated in China.

Cranes Today spoke to two of Sany America’s US recruits, Richard Hunter, the product manager for cranes, and Jeff Dreger, product marketing manager for crawler cranes. Sany’s aim, Hunter says, is to be one of the top five construction equipment manufacturers in the world.

Part of that plan has been to focus on quality, while remaining competitive on price. Hunter says, “Sany made its mark in China by using high quality components in important areas. It has global partnerships with Cummins and Rexroth. Customers in China have been prepared to pay a premium for that. Sany has made a huge commitment to service, with GPS [and online condition reporting] on every crane allowing service technicians to diagnose almost every problem.”

The company has established itself as a global player by opening plants in Brazil, India and the USA. While the Chinese plant will continue to focus on its core competencies of robot welding, boom truck and rough terrain boom fabrication, overseas plants will contribute locally generated design, assembly, some fabrication of other parts, sales and service.

At Peachtree City, Hunter says, Sany will have space for up to 1 million sq ft of production under the roof, with more room outside for test areas. A 150,000 sq ft parts depot is opening soon, with a service training centre coming shortly after.

Link-Belt
Link-Belt showed an impressive display of new cranes, including a third model in its telecrawler line, the 110USt TCC-110, a new 150USt lattice boom crawler, the 238 HSL, and an updated version of its 90t rough terrain, the RTC-8090 Series II.

The company also revealed its new total crane operating system, Link-Belt Pulse. Designed in-house, the system is built around a full colour display, combining rated capacity limiter, boom extend mode controller, self diagnostic capabilities, and continuous monitoring of multiple crane functions and conditions.

The highlight of the stand though was one truly groundbreaking crane, the company’s first in-house designed all terrain, the ATC-3275. The 275USt crane is the first modern all terrain crane to be designed and built in North America. In the early days of all terrains, Grove and Link-Belt had both built small (8t) all terrains for the US, but no one has yet designed and built an all terrain at modern capacities wholly in the US.

Link-Belt has sold all terrains with its branding in the US for a number of years. However, these were rebadged Tadano Fauns, sold under a distribution agreement. This agreement was terminated earlier this year, before Link-Belt announced its own range. Throughout their conversations with Cranes Today, Link-Belt’s managers spoke highly of the collaboration with the Japanese-German crane builder.

The extent of Link-Belt’s commitment to US production is impressive. Not only has the company invested in US design, it has expanded its production to allow it to produce key components in Lexington, Kentucky. Telescopic crane product manager Rick Curnutte says, “The work we’ve done on the Lexington factory is part of a plan to build our product line. We’re the only US manufacturer with our own boom forming facility. It was very difficult to get boom components when the market was busy, with everyone relying on one supplier. We were unable to achieve deliveries, and you can’t go to the customer and blame a subcontractor for that. So, now we have our own facility.”

Key to the crane though is its North American-focused design. It is often hard for outsiders to grasp how difficult it is to road a crane in the US. With no harmonized road transport rules over the US’s 50 states and numerous municipalities, one of the biggest challenges for US users is crossing borders between regulatory regimes.

Curnutte explains, “One of the biggest things in the design was the wheel base, making it more North American friendly. We talk about it as North American, but we’ve also looked at what the rest of the world wants. The counterweight and fly, have all been grouped into loadouts under 45,000lb.

“North America is one of the toughest places in the world to move cranes. In Europe, you can go on the road with axle weights of up to 14t. The minimum counterweight of German machines often takes up to six trucks here. This machine can do it in four trucks, as none of the counterweights weigh more than 22,000lb. The crane has been configured to get the best utilisation of loadout. On other machines, you always had to take the full loadout. This machine only needs the tray counterweight to be able to lift with the auxiliary winch.

“The ATC-3275 has a Cummins engine on the lower and upper. The lower engine is 2010 EPA certified, so it can be used on the road in California. The upper engine is 2011 Tier IV Interim.

“It’s fast. European all terrains often travel at 50mph maximum; this can run at 62mph, so it can keep up with the loadout trucks.

“We designed a one man driver’s cab. Customers told us that they often use the jump seat as a glorified storage box, so we replaced it with proper lockable storage with room for a ladder.”

The crane isn’t just designed for the US though. The next step will be making it ready for export. Curnutte says, “We do expect to bring it in and around Europe. The markets that are hot now though are Australia and Latin America. The next thing to do is to design an export engine, so the crane can be used where there is no ultra low sulphur diesel fuel.”

Liebherr
Liebherr lined up a selection of managing directors for its press conference at ConExpo, including board of directors member Winfried Boehm.

While each MD pointed to improving demand for cranes in their respective segments, Boehm picked out the highlights of a broadly positive 2010 for the manufacturer.

Liebherr Group added €620m to its turnover, which increased by 9% to €7.6bn last year. This increase was solely down to the performance of the group’s construction machinery business, which increased its turnover 16% to €4.7bn.

The lion’s share of construction machinery sales originated from Liebherr’s earthmoving and mining products division, and despite the mobile cranes business growing to €1.8bn in 2010, this accounted for less than 6% of the group’s total growth last year.

Maritime crane sales accounted for 9% of this growth, generating €724m.

Neither the tower crane or crawler crane divisions posted significant growth despite reporting increased market share in the tower crane market and an increase in crawler sales since Q4 of 2010.

Liebherr-Werk Biberach managing director Matthias Donner noted the presence of Liebherr’s production facilities in Brazil and India would help the firm to exploit the growing demand for tower cranes in emerging markets.

He also highlighted the tower crane market’s recent trending towards rental.

On Liebherr’s stand US delegates were able to get their first look at the 81K fast erecting crane, capable of semi-automatic ballasting, that requires only eight lifting movements to install.

Liebherr’s delegates explained how semi-automatic quick-connection locking between the tower, slewing platforms and jib guying rods significantly reduce set-up times. Featuring driveline and control-system technology, along with the Micromove fine positioning system, the 81K allows efficient handling of loads, even allowing loads to be lifted in two-part mode to eliminate time-intensive re-reeving.

With a maximum 40.4m hook height, this crane can lift 1.4t at its maximum working radius of 45m.

Also making its US debut was the 285 EC-B 12 Litronic flat-top tower crane.

Its modular design emphasizes transportability for easy shipping in sea-freight containers, while the ‘Connect&Work’ assembly system facilitates quick assembly of the counter jib at ground level.

The LiConnect system aids speedy attachment of the jib section so that one lift later, the central unit is in position and the crane is almost fully erected.

A maximum reach of 75m allows the lifting of loads up to 2.6t at the tip end.

Representing Liebherr-Werk Nenzing on the stand was one of Liebherr’s outstanding performers in the global crawler market, the LR 1600/2.

Liebherr-Werk Nenzing managing director Gerhard Frainer expects the 600t crawler to continue selling well during 2011, following signs of a slow recovery for the crawler market.

Frainer commented: “In the lift crane range there have been signs of a recovery, especially from the crane rental companies. However there is a stronger trend for the medium sized, 150t to 300t, or the big cranes, 300t plus, rather than smaller sized lift cranes.”

For mobile cranes, Liebherr-Werk Ehingen managing director Cristoph Kleiner noted that his division had sold and shipped 1033 mobile cranes last year, despite the crisis “still biting hard” on the mobile crane market.

He highlighted that growth in emerging markets had managed to offset some of the problems experienced due to the all time lows within US all-terrain crane, rough terrain crane and truck crane markets.

As Liebherr’s order book grows gradually but steadily, with orders like ALL Erection and Crane Rental’s recent purchase of an LTM 1250-6.1 and LTM 1200-5.1 coming in, Kleiner forecasts moderate growth for Liebherr’s mobile crane division in 2011.

Terex
After a painfully poor 2010 for the crane industry, Terex CEO Ron DeFeo is quick to point out that the industry is drawing nearer to the light at the end of the tunnel, albeit slowly.

Sharing the cautious optimism of many ConExpo exhibitors’ forecasts for 2011, DeFeo said: “We are in a recovery mode, we expect recovery in our businesses in most markets and sectors in 2011, with cranes probably being the laggard.

“We’re happy if the crane market is more positive, but I don’t want to get enthusiasm ahead of intelligence.”

Last year Terex managed $4.4bn in net sales, and the firm predicts an increase of between 14% and 23% for 2011.

And following on from this the manufacturer is targeting a 12% operating profit and $8bn in net sales by 2013.

Compared to several years ago, when sales to customers outside of Europe and the US constituted around 26% of Terex’s profits, the company is increasingly looking to emerging markets to form a significant portion of the firm’s sales figures.

That said, despite the current record low demand for cranes in the US market, Terex still managed to take large orders for 22 Terex cranes from US distributor Cropac Equipment, and for 40 cranes from US firm Empire Crane.

Over a third of the units ordered by Cropac Equipment were new Terex Roadmaster 9000 truck cranes.

The Roadmaster 9000 has its outriggers configured in an X-type arrangement that, according to Terex, helps it out-perform its closest rivals in terms of lift capacity.

Although this may add somewhat to its popularity, the real selling points for US buyers are the single cylinder hydraulic boom which reduces gross vehicle weight without drastically affecting set-up times, and the third of its five axles being a liftable ‘pusher axle’, giving the truck crane the ability to comply with all state regulations across the US.

The Roadmaster 9000 features a 164.5ft boom, with a maximum system length of 242.8ft, and a 100USt lifting capacity.

Despite the depressed American truck crane market, Terex also decided to introduce two vehicles for the boom truck market, the BT 28106 and the Crossover 6000 truck-mounted crane.

While the BT28106 is an updated version of Terex’s 26106, with a 106ft boom and 28USt lift capacity, the Crossover 6000 is so named because its design is intended to let it to fulfil the traditional role of boom truck in addition to its standard duties.

Again the Terex five-axle truck-mounted crane is not restricted by differing US road regulations, and has a maximum lift capacity of 60USt, with a 110ft maximum boom length.

Like the Roadmaster 9000, it features the X-type outrigger arrangement to provide greater stability and dispersion of load forces.

It will eventually be available with a range of carriers, in addition to the Freightliner chassis, including Kenworth.

The last of Terex’s new product offerings unveiled at this year’s ConExpo is the 100USt RT 100 rough-terrain crane.

Boasting a maximum boom length of 174ft, Terex claim the RT 100 has the longest boom length in its class.

Compliant with EN13000 and ASME B30.5 standards the crane also features the same ergonomically designed cab as the Roadmaster 9000, which was made for operator comfort by an experienced German sportscar manufacturer.

All of this investment in fully-roadable cranes for a US market that is still struggling may seem risky, even with many optimistic that the long-anticipated Highways Bill will soon be signed.

However DeFeo says that this bill, which he dubs ‘the non-stimulative stimulation bill’ is well intentioned but destined to be ineffective.

He predicts that, as a broad awareness of the need for infrastructure investment spreads through the US Congress, consensus will eventually evolve into practical measures.

Altec
At Conexpo, American boom truck manufacturer Altec demonstrated the tilting cab on its AC23 95B hydraulic telescopic crane. The tilt was introduced as an option on all of its mobile cranes that have a swing seat, a range encompassing cranes with lifting capacities from 26–38t.

The AC23 95B has a 21t lifting capacity with a 29m boom. In the cab, the electric hydraulic outrigger control allows for upper or downjack control in the cab with a large bubble level. It allows operators to adjust the levelling from inside the cab. ‘If you’re level from the centre pin, that allows you to have control,’ said account manager Ron Risch. “Automatic transmission is attached to the boom as opposed to the table. We’re the only ones that do that. You’re looking down, while other people are looking to the side.

“We have sold half a dozen orders, to a customer in South Carolina.”

While the range improves, attention to safety standards remains a constant, ‘We’ve had things which comply with the new OSHA rule for 6 years,’ Risch said.

Altec further expanded its range to include a pressure digger, which is notable for its ergonomic controls, a spokesperson said. The digger was on display at the booth for Kenworth, which manufactured the chassis.

Broderson
American pick-and-carry crane manufacturer Broderson showed a prototype of the brand new I-C 400, a 25t capacity industrial crane for outdoor use.

The I-C 400 includes a range of features that are new to Broderson, including new joystick controls. The crane also has videos on the winch and on curb side outriggers.

“This is unique for this size of crane. Larger cranes often have it,” said Steve Burton, chief brand officer. Like its predecessor the 15t I-C 200, it has four-wheel steering and four-wheel drive. The developing range is working upwards in capacity.

“We haven’t released it yet. We plan on going into production in Q4. We protype tested it and are here to receive customer feedback,” said Burton. “We don’t want to take an order until we’re ready to release it.”

When the crane reaches a production stage, it will be distributed globally. In addition, Broderson announced that its new export head is Nelson Morris, who formerly managed the parts replacement.

Jekko
Jekko, the Italian crane manufacturer specialising in minicranes, introduced its SPX 1040 minicrane for the North American market. The crane was first introduced for the EU market at Bauma in April of last year. Australian Crane Distributions officially launched it in Australia and New Zealand that May.

Following a client requirement for increased capacities, the SPX 1040 was designed to have a larger lifting capacity than other Jekkos, despite its small footprint, a mere 4m. “1040 is our biggest to date,” said Keith Shank, distributor for Jekko and owner of C4 cranes, a hire company out of Minnesotta. The 4t capacity and 23m tip height makes it the tallest and largest in the range.

The new crane will be useful for applications that require heavy lifting in tight spaces. “These are more suited for steel and petroleum plants. Our competitors need 6m to bring in a 200t crane, but there is the restricted access in these plants. The first one is going to Hawaii, we had interest from the US and Canada,” Shank said.

XCMG
XCMG, the Chinese equipment manufacturer located in Xuzhou, showed its 70t QY 70K and its 130t QY 130K truck cranes at Conexpo. Introduced five years ago, they are distributed worldwide.

“These are very popular in South American Countries, especially in Brazil. The market share in Brazil is almost 30%,” said Shi Wei Dong, vice president of XCMG.

XCMG’s products generated interest from customers based in the US, Canada and Asia. “They’re interested because our product is competitive on price and reliability,” Dong said.

The company produces 20,000 units per year, which is around 60% of all cranes manufactured globally, XCMG says. Sales revenues have kept apace with production. Following Conexpo the company announced a record breaking daily sales volume of 133 units, and last month’s highest daily sales volume was 100 units.

China remains XCMG’s largest market, with demand generated by construction and railway projects for its crawler, truck, all terrain and pick and carry cranes, in addition to its earth moving and excavating equipment.