Terex will not use its ‘Simple, available and cost effective’ slogan for Demag and appears likely to drop it for a range of its more sophisticated crane products.

Fil Filipov, executive vice president of Terex Corporation and CEO-designate of the re-formed Terex Cranes told Cranes Today. ‘We are moving beyond the simple, available and cost effective. It’s a different game now.’

The slogan will be retained only for those machines that go out as bare rental machines, without operators, such as rough terrain and truck cranes in North America.

Terex acquired Demag, Filipov said, because it wants to take on Liebherr and Grove’s GMK line head to head. ‘We had to buy ourselves into the technology,’ he said. ‘There is no other way to go in against Liebherr and Grove.’

Filipov rejected suggestions that Demag’s technological excellence might be eroded by the Terex style of management and tight cost control. He insisted: ‘There will be no cutting costs in selling cranes. There will be no cutting costs in product support. There will be no cutting costs in providing customers with the parts required. There will be no cutting costs in providing new models quicker than anyone else.’

He added: ‘I see Demag continuing and accelerating new product development in both lattice booms and hydraulic all terrain cranes.’

However, costs would be cut in sourcing material by using Terex’s purchasing power. Terex also plans to improve the management of production to reduce the amount that Demag spends on transporting materials between its two factories in Zweibrücken. There was room for ‘business savvy’ at Demag, he said, without compromising its engineering reputation.

Filipov regards Demag as another turnaround case for him. Although he says the existing Demag management will stay in place, he himself will implement his 100 day turnaround programme that was employed at previous acquisitions including American Crane and Atlas Weyhausen.

‘I have to get $20m savings out of it and I will,’ he said.

That the ‘simple, available, cost effective’ slogan that so succinctly embodied the Terex culture is to be pushed into the background is evidence of an attempt to reinvent Terex as a manufacturer of products that don’t just simply ‘do the job’ but actually are as good as anything on the market.

‘Terex is not what it was and it’s not what it is going to be. It will continue to evolve,’ said Filipov.

That said, Filipov – who happily likens himself to a corporate dictator – is clearly not planning on changing his style.