Grove Worldwide has laid off a further 135 employess at its Shady Grove, Pennsylvania facility in the USA. ‘With the current economic conditions, there simply is not enough work to keep everyone totally productive,’ said chairman and chief executive officer Jeff Bust.

The layoffs began on 17 May and are continuing in stages through June until the relocation of customer support operations to Shady Grove from nearby Chambersburg is completed.

Bust said that the layoffs were being implemented to balance production schedules with product demand, and were not related in any way to Grove’s recent Chapter 11 filing (reported in last month’s Cranes Today).

Despite the latest round of job cuts and the Chapter 11 filing Grove remains very bullish about its prospects. ‘Market conditions in North America are strong and remain unchanged from the beginning of the year,’ a company spokesman told Cranes Today.

‘Comments heard at the recent Specialised Carriers & Rigging Association meeting in Florida indicate a high level of confidence among crane owners for plenty of work for the remainder of the year. Grove market share increased almost 10 percentage points in 2000 and we expect to maintain and further grow market share through the remainder of this year in North America.

‘Our new product development continues at record pace and we will be showing two new, innovative top end of range machines at Conexpo in Las Vegas next March. We just introduced the very successful GMK 4075 (4090 in North America) at Bauma and continue to win new orders for this exciting model throughout the Americas.

‘Our Latin America markets are also growing very fast and continue to be strong.

‘Our operations in Europe are stronger than ever. Deutsche Grove has been operating at capacity for the last three years.

‘We are continuing to increase our share in the AT market. In 2000 we increased sales in Europe, Africa and the Middle East (EAME) by more than 10%. However, the true measure of our success has been in the growth in sales of larger (four axle and above) GMK cranes. Shipments of these higher value units of up to 300t capacity, rose sharply – by 52% – on the previous year’s sales.

‘The success in EAME is not all in the AT market. In the RT sector we have seen the impact of the new E Series Shady Grove built product. This growing family (currently five models) of high performance, price competitive rough terrain cranes is set to help double sales of rough terrain and industrial cranes this year.

‘Success is attributable to a product led approach – aggressive not only in terms of features and benefits for the customer but also in the manner in which development timescales have been compressed, evidenced by the 15 new and enhanced models launched in the last 18 months. Combine this with increased capital expenditure and increased capacity at both our Shady Grove and Wilhelmshaven facilities and we feel justified in claiming that we are stronger than ever.

‘We have just completed a very successful showing at Bauma, which resulted in $30m in new orders at our stand. We have been proud of the long-term relationships that we have forged with discerning smaller- to medium-size rental companies over the years. Bauma 2001 proved the significant progress that we have made in supplying the majors, with customers’ machines on show from many of the top rental companies within EAME and beyond.’