REGION REPORT | AMERICAS
process to get quotes and drawings take only a few minutes.” Matt Downing is sales manager of Ohio
manufacturers David Round. A speciality of theirs is stainless steel hoists, which can be sterilised for food, medical and similar applications. Again, the pandemic if anything increased demand for their products: “Very many of our customers are in the pharmaceutical industry, the Pfizers and Modernas of this world,” he says; “and for that reason we were classified as a vital industry during the pandemic. So business was strong for us during that time. We had some delivery issues: some
of our suppliers had problems along the supply chain, and our own delivery lead
times sometimes became a little longer. “We had staffing issues also, and our
own suppliers had their own staffing issues too; trying to get some of the components that we use to build our cranes and winches therefore became difficult. So of course deliveries were impacted. And steel prices have gone crazy high. So I wouldn’t say things are great, I wouldn’t say things are bad; overall we are holding our own.” Vida Novak is president of Air Technical Industries, which makes custom cranes, booms and handling equipment. He echoes the point about shortages. “Overall, we have seen our industry recover from the pandemic slow-down,” he says, “but the worst effects have
actually come in the past few months as activity tries to return to normal. It is the supply chain disruption and the related effects on costs that have had the most detrimental and long-lasting impact. After everything shut down last year the demand came back more quickly than expected, but we didn’t really start seeing the problematic effects of that until 2021. It seems that the extremely difficult hiring problem is one of the major sources, if not the key factor, of this lingering effect of the pandemic. That is certainly the case for us. We would be manufacturing at full capacity right now if it were not for the labour shortage.” A major promise and priority of the Biden administration is massive investment on infrastructure. Does Novak see this as comparable to the Roosevelt ‘New Deal’ of the 1930s in getting America moving again? “Infrastructure investments are usually beneficial,” he says, “although indirectly, to our business volume. Many of the suppliers to those projects will be needing our equipment in their processes and so we’re optimistic about that.” Throughout the pandemic Air Technical Industries has been able to work on a new product, an over-sized portable shop crane that lifts 2000lb (1t) up to 12 ft (4m) high; it launched just last month at the end of June. It builds on the company’s core products of easily-transportable hoists with small footprints and simple designs, but with increased height and capacity. “And we have seen a noticeable increase in demand for our Zero-Low Dock Lifts” he says. “This is a stationary, floor level lifting platform that is sometimes used as a loading dock when a dock bay is not available. However, we have seen customers using these for in-plant material movement as well,” he says. Digital automation, another major change, not to say step-change, in the industry (see page 31) has not quite hit his customers. “We are getting a little bit of increased demand for automation and advanced control systems, but not a huge boost,” he says. “I think there are a lot of customers just trying to improve their efficiency and safety at the moment and who are not at the point where they are thinking about going ‘all-out-automated’ yet.” But the customers are out there, and
R Air Technical’s self-erecting crane fits into a 20’ container.
they are wanting to buy hoists, and if the makers of hoists can only find the staff to make them, and the steel to make them with, then their main problems, it would seem, would be solved. ●
www.hoistmagazine.com | August 2021 | 41
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