Talking to Cranes Today, Vanwinkel echoed warnings from Liebherr and Wolffkran at Cranes Safety 2007. He said, “There were counterfeit MCG crane parts at Bauma. We’re aware of counterfeit components including fixing angles and mast sections being sold as Potain parts. From a visual point of view, these are lookalikes, but from a qualitative point of view they are quite different.
“This is a rough guess, but the lifetime for these parts may be half that of genuine parts. The main issue is that if you have a mast made up of ten sections, with nine that are genuine and one that is fake, it will be qualitatively the same as one that is completely made up of counterfeits.”
“The origin for many of these counterfeits is China. There are also counterfeit manufacturers in Korea, but they seem to be making more Liebherr parts, while the Chinese make Manitowoc.”
The parts aren’t limited to developing markets, however. Vanwinkel added, “There are also some parts, mainly fixing angles, being made and sold in Spain for use on Potain cranes, which are not genuine Manitowoc parts. At least there, they are covered by Spanish law and, if we can prove the quality is insufficient, we can have a lever to do something about it. It’s hard to see a visual difference, so a customer could have a crane serviced and not know the parts used are not genuine Potain.”
Vanwinkel recommend that customers who buy parts, such as fixing angles, use the MCG distribution network. He said, “They then have our guarantee of quality. If customers suspect that they have been sold counterfeit parts, they should inform our dealer network. We can then send out one of our specialists to come by and check them. We don’t need to use destructive testing; for most of these materials, we can go back and check if the part is genuine, when it was made and where.”
Vanwinkel said Manitowoc was working with other manufacturers such as Comansa and Liebherr to tackle the problem. Working with governments in many of the producer countries is more of a problem, he said, “They’re not quite helpful. The markets where they’re mainly being sold, such as the Middle East and Asia, are not so transparent either.”
Vanwinkel emphasised the role magazines like Cranes Today can play in tackling the problem. “It’s important for us to have the chance to communicate with customers on this. I’d like to say to them, ‘Please, make sure you use the homologated MCG distribution network’. The second way to check for counterfeits is the price.”
