OCEANIA | REGION REPORT
“Mining, defence, and infrastructure
seem to keep on going,” he says. “China and Korea import a lot, and it is changing from the days when they were cheap and cheerful and poorly made. Now the European manufacturers are making things there, and their products are perfectly acceptable. At the end of the day a crane is something that goes up and down and as long as it does that the customer is reasonably happy. Which obviously leaves a problem
for local manufacturers such as Sam Technology: “We get involved in the more heavily engineered side – that’s the only way we are going to survive.” They clearly do survive, and even
weathered the pandemic successfully. “The pandemic was not as disruptive as I thought it would be” says. Schmidt. “It has not been that flattening, and everyone
seems busy.” It has not had to furlough staff, or lay anyone off. Instead, it is facing the reverse difficulty. “Our main problem is getting the personnel. Australia isn’t importing people any more.’ It is the same for the smaller companies as well. “Business is booming, everyone is busy,” says Bruce McKay, director, Global Track. “That’s the way it has been during the big lockdown times and after.”
Based in Geelong, Victoria, Global Track could be said to typify the independent, go-it-alone entrepreneurial side of Australian business. It is not quite a one-man outfit, “I have a guy who helps me, he has his own business as well,” says McKay, “and I have an apprentice. I sell Kito equipment and we make hoists, mostly light rail gantry systems for people doing light to medium engineering;
AUCKLAND GOES AUTOMATIC
Auckland is New Zealand’s busiest port, handling around 900.000 TEUs a year. Badly congested, it needed to increase its capacity to around 1.4million TEUs annually. No land area was available for expansion; instead, the port is automating its terminal. rather than three and stacking them close together via a navigation system called ‘Locator’ storage capacity will be increased by 80%. “When the automation system is fully implemented, our straddle “This interaction of manned and automated machines, without any
system, also from Locata, so their operations can be monitored and
steering wheel. The system then autonomously guides the straddle
of operations in real time, something never possible with previous automated systems using transponders embedded in the ground. With Locata, this map can be changed as often as needed without having to alter the infrastructure. This, plus the extreme accuracy of the system, allows stack potions to be changed, almost imperceptibly, over time, to even out wear and tear on the pavement
Besides almost doubling port capacity the automation will give
lower operating costs, with up to 10% lower fuel consumption, and considerable reduction in noise, light and exhaust pollution. 26 container ships had been successfully serviced by the blended
there’s less paperwork when you stick to the light stuff. I pass the big-capacity inquiries on to JDN.” JDN Monocrane, also based in Victoria, has around 17% of the Australian heavy hoist market. “My customers are a bit scattered,”
says McKay. “At the moment I am doing a job for agricultural equipment makers; they make sprayers and that kind of thing. There’s another job for AKD Softwoods, who are big in Australia; and at Ford, who withdrew from making cars in Australia some years back but kept a development plant not far from here when they shut down the big one. They have a testing track at Geelong which I supply. “Life is not too bad, at the moment. Since Covid came along the government has put a lot of subsidies into business. It waived the quarterly tax bill, to pump money into the economy and business;
40 | July 2021 |
www.hoistmagazine.com
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