I was interested to note in your August edition that Terex Peiner is developing the Peiner cranes.
However I was somewhat surprised that a magazine as serious as Cranes Today, so widely read and respected by all of us in the crane industry, should see fit to publish claims that the machine in question is “the most powerful crane in its class”. Now just what does this mean? What is a class of crane? How do you define “powerful”? The tendency to ‘classify’ tower cranes is misleading in the extreme and, I feel, only leads to confusion, or even mistrust, particularly amongst ‘traditional’ building contractors, either using or contemplating using tower cranes for the first time. This is potentially harmful to all tower crane producers.
Undoubtedly unintentionally, even the denomination of the new model can be misleading. If it lifts 4.1t at 80m, it has a jib-end capacity of 4.1 x 80= 328 tonne metres. So what does the ‘575’ mean? Perhaps the maximum load multiplied by its maximum load radius with a 40m jib? Or maybe the jib-end load with a 35m jib? So what do we have here? A 328tm class crane or a 575tm class crane? Somewhere in between? Does it lift the 4.1t. at 80m with a two-part hook/trolley with a maximum load of 6t? Or four-part hook/trolley capable of 18t or 20t at a suitable radius? To confuse it even more, Cranes Today has not asked Terex Peiner to clarify if it lifts the 4.1t at 80m according to DIN 15018 or FEM ratings, and if its free-standing height is one or the other.
Please, cannot Cranes Today, from its well-earned, privileged pulpit in the industry, please encourage all of us to speak of apples and pears, and forget, once and for all the, over-simplified so-called ‘classification’ by tonne metre capacities which, I am certain, does no favours to any companies in the tower crane business. Quite the contrary. It leaves behind a bemused, confused, baffled and frustrated series of tower crane users.
Keep up the good work. We all appreciate it!
