ANNIVERSARY


CRANE HISTORY Ӏ NOVEMBER 2022


At Bauma ’98 Liebherr again


extended its technical talents with the introduction of ‘Litronic’ – a frequency converter crane control and management system which has initially made standard on its larger top-slewing tower cranes and subsequently proliferated across the Liebherr crane lines. That year’s show was dominated


by the introduction of Liebherr’s largest telescopic to date – the 500-tonne capacity LTM 1500-8.1. This eight-axle crane would go on to become the best-selling large mobile crane of all time with 626 units sold until the end of 2021 when it was discontinued and superseded by the 650-tonne LTM 1650-8.1. In 2001, when Ameco won the


project to extend the Syncrude oil sands plant in Western Canada, it ordered 100 Terex machines. Clearly, oil has always primed the crane industry’s pump. Even as demand and sales


soared, the Japanese were constrained by component shortages, stretching delivery times to six-months and longer. By then Kato’s production was


60% rough terrains and nearly 40% truck cranes. Unlike Europe, all terrains featured marginally in Japanese mobile crane production. Nevertheless, the Japanese were able to tap into the fast-growing markets of Asia and SE Asia. As demand had stabilised and then declined in the Middle East, the markets of the Pacific Rim and ultimately China compensated. But this growing demand was not simply in the traditional 15-to-50-tonne classes but also for so-called ‘mini cranes’. These were the small rough terrains and tele boom crawler cranes of up to 4.9-tonnes capacity which proved perfectly suited to Japan’s congested urban infrastructure. On the other side of the world, crane makers were preoccupied with local issues. The all terrain


crane started to become a significant factor during the late 1970s and early 1980s and, by the mid-1980s, it had replaced the truck crane as the preferred crane hire tool throughout most of mainland Europe. The German manufactures also made their first tentative steps into the North American and Japanese markets. Of particular importance in these new market entries were the larger capacity telescopic truck and all terrain cranes of 80 to 300 tonnes capacity. By this time, both the American and Japanese crane industries had lost their early leadership in the design of competitive large size telescopic cranes. In 1978 Gottwald again upped the ante with the 200-tonne AMK 200-103 tele truck crane, only to re-double its challenge with the 400-tonne AMK 400-93. While the 200-tonner was a significant success, only a handful of 400-tonners were sold.


DEEP RECESSION


The ravages of the deep and long recession of the 1980s took a severe toll on the crane and construction equipment manufacturing industries of the US and Europe, burdened by massive over-capacity. By the late 1970s there were about 150 manufacturers of mobile cranes in the world with upwards of 75% of these based in North America and Europe. From 1982 through 1987, about one third of the companies ceased crane manufacture and every other manufacturer in the industry either made dramatic cutbacks or closed some of their plants. During this period the Japanese intensified their export efforts in order to maintain employment. The relative strength of the dollar made US exports expensive and imports cheap, opening the market to the Japanese and


In 1990 Liebherr


won a major order from the Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement for the supply of 459 mobile cranes with a total value of almost €140 million


German machines, as well as making US cranes too expensive in export markets. This double-edged sword closed down much of the US industry, stifling new product development investments in the US and eroding the US industry’s hard- earned share of the depressed world market. So harsh was the downturn in US crane production and so daunting a challenge to compensate for the strength of the dollar that America’s leading crane makers were driven to survival strategies. In 1983, Harnischfeger P&H decided to close its US factories and made an agreement to transfer all of its mobile crane production to its Japanese licensee partner, Kobe Steel (Kobelco) or to its subsidiary in Germany. In 1982, Kidde Inc., declared its subsidiary, market leading Grove Manufacturing, a discontinued operation but later decided to retain it and, in 1984, acquired one of Europe’s leading manufacturers – Coles Cranes of the UK, whose parent Acrow had taken the group into receivership. In 1986, FMC Corporation sold its Link-Belt subsidiary to its Japanese licensee partner, Sumitomo Heavy Industries. In 1987 the French Legris


industrial group acquired control of Potain. As the market


f CRANES TODAY 57


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