Crane industry news Archives | Page 8 of 37

Liebherr launches rental app

Manufacturer Liebherr has launched a Rental Services app to allow construction machines to be rented directly via a smartphone or tablet computers.

The company said the app could be used by Liebherr customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as France and the UK.

“The app provides a quick overview of the equipment available in the Liebherr hire park and of the Liebherr dealer network. The app can be used in English, German and French,” the company said.

The app was said to show earthmoving equipment and tower cranes available for hire in a product overview, with customers able to call up technical data, a short description and images.

The mobile app is also said to detect the user’s location and offer contact details of the nearest dealer.

“The Rental Services overview first flags up dealers near the user’s location. If deployment in a different area is planned, the dealer overview can be adjusted according to specific requirements. This makes it possible for the user to filter according to distance, post code or location in order to obtain the contact details of other Rental Services,” Liebherr said.

Liebherr added that the Rental Services app could be downloaded for smartphones and tablets with Apple, Android and Windows operating systems.

Profit spike at Kobelco Cranes

Kobe Steel, parent of Kobelco Cranes, has published its third quarter results, showing a sharp rise in profits within the crane business.

Total crane sales for the nine months to the end December were ¥51.7 billion ($440.6 million), an increase of 29.8 percent on the same period last year. Operating profit for the nine months leapt 75 percent to ¥4.5 billion ($38.3 million) with the rising trend continuing during the third and into the fourth quarter.

The company said: “The strong sales are due to higher shipments of crawler cranes in Japan due to continued strong demand from higher public investments and other factors. In overseas markets, sales increased in Asia, where demand continued to be strong, and in other regions.”

Kobelco Cranes expects the trend to continue and confirmed its full year forecasts of revenues of ¥71.6 billion ($610 million) – almost 27 percent higher than the previous year, while operating profits will be in the region of ¥5 billion ($42.6 million), 75 percent up on 2013/14.

Max Bögl builds Lahn Valley Bridge

German construction company Max Bögl used six Potain tower cranes to help with the construction of a new bridge on the A3 main road near Limburg, Germany.

The cranes were delivered by Max Bögl’s subsidiary company, Max Bögl Transport & Geräte. On site are three flat top Potain MDT 222 with tip heights up to 76.2 metres and operating radius up to 60 m. Two of them are mobile and one has been erected stationary, a spokesperson said.

Also on site is a stationary Potain MD 150 with a tip height of 29.8 m and radius of 55 m, and a Potain MD 235 J12 with a tip height of 35.4 m and a radius of 54.8 m. A flat top Potain MDT 268A J12 with a tip height of 63.1 m and a radius of 60 m has also been erected and is being rented from Manitowoc’s fleet for 15 months.

The construction of the new Lahn Valley Bridge also includes rerouting the freeway and installing a noise barrier.

“The foundations of the new bridge are bored pile foundations, but the abutment head will be poured, so two auxiliary piers are needed for this,” a company spokesperson said. “They will be erected by a slip form method next to the future structural piers and after completion of the abutment head, two shoring structures will be built on it.”

The new road is being built in both directions. Once the track towards Köln (Cologne) has been completed, the Potain cranes and auxiliary piers will be used to construct the second bridge’s superstructure. For the track towards Frankfurt, the cranes will be moved on to a rail system.

Herbert Wieseckl, department manager for structural engineering technology at Max Bögl Transport & Geräte, said, “Due to the special job site conditions here with a busy freeway and a railway at the south shore, all cranes had to be equipped with an operating limit system.”

Manfred May, site manager in Limburg, said, “At such tip heights, the load duty cycle performance is important. Therefore, the cranes have been equipped with the high performance 75 LVF hoist and all cranes have a system for rescue from height. Each crane operator has been trained for this to ensure safety. Also, concrete pumps can only be utilised up to a certain construction height so some concreting work was done by the cranes. With Potain cranes, we could pour up to 18 cubic metres of concrete an hour. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

The old Lahn Valley Bridge was built in 1964 and is about 400 m long and almost 60 m tall. It is used by more than 100,000 vehicles a day. Once the new bridge has been built, the old Lahn River Bridge will be demolished.

Revenues at Manitowoc Cranes continues to slip

Revenues at Manitowoc Cranes continues to slip, but order intake has boosted the year end backlog by 28 percent.

Revenues for the full year were $2.3 billion eight percent down on 2013, mainly due to lower sales of Rough Terrain cranes and boom trucks. Operating profits for the 12 months were $163.9 million – 25 percent lower than in the previous year.

Looking at the fourth quarter revenues declined six percent to $663.2 million for the same reasons as the full year numbers, but also compounded by Euro revenues translating into fewer dollars, thanks to the weak Euro and strong dollar. The order book at the end of the year was 28 percent higher than at the end of 2013, and up over three percent on the quarter.

Chief executive Glen Tellock said: “Uncertainty among our customers remains at the forefront of their purchasing decisions. Ongoing global softness in the Rough-Terrain and boom truck markets, coupled with declining oil prices, created a challenging environment for the segment. However, we continue to focus on the areas within our control, such as cost optimisation strategies which include lean initiatives and capturing savings through sourcing and purchasing initiatives. As we enter 2015, we anticipate that worldwide crane demand levels will remain very challenging in the near-term, but we are encouraged by our improved order intake, a strengthening backlog, and the strong market acceptance of our VPC crawler crane technology. As a result, we continue to position the business to capture the upside for significant cyclical growth with key investments to drive additional new product innovation, speed of new product introductions, and aftermarket product support initiatives.”

The group as a whole, which includes the Food service business reported revenues of $3.89 billion, five percent lower than in 2013. While pre-tax profits dropped 25 percent to $169.4 million. The fourth quarter saw revenue growth but a more significant fall in profits. The company also announced that it is now looking at splitting into two publicly traded companies by 2016

Allegiance Crane has used a Liebherr LTM 1400

American crane service provider Allegiance Crane has used a Liebherr LTM 1400-7.1 mobile crane to lift the largest bronze horse statue in the world at a theme park in Florida.

The bronze sculpture, named the Pegasus and Dragon, measures 33 metres high and 63 m long. It weighs 650 tons, 250 tons of which is bronze and 400 tons of which is the internal steel construction. The sculpture is welded together from 1,250 individual bronze plates.

The sculpture has been created for the Gulfstream Park on Hallandale Beach, Miami, Florida, USA by German art foundry Strassacker. It took eight months to construct and is part of the $30 million Gulfstream Park theme park project, which is close to the internationally renowned Spring Racecourse.

The bronze cast was made at the Strassacker Chinese foundry, south of Beijing. The sections were then shipped to Miami and assembled on site piece by piece. Engineering agency Stark Ingenieure was responsible for developing for the technical planning, including licence and permit application, support structure planning, workshop and assembly planning. The production and construction of the steel structure on site was carried out by Wendel steel construction of Donzdorf.

In order to securely fix the bronze parts of the steel structure, a flexible mounting system suitable for the Florida climate was engineered. The system was designed to compensate for the different ways in which steel and bronze react when exposed to heat (bronze expands and steel remains rigid). The sculpture was also designed to withstand hurricanes.

The 400 tonne capacity LTM 1400-7.1 was used to install the bronze components. It was configured with Y-guying system and full ballast. The heaviest component of the Pegasus was the left wing, which weighed 58 tonnes and was lifted at a radius of 22.3 m. The head of the Pegasus is made up of sections weighing between 45 and 50 tons.

To overcome any potential problems during the task, the lifts had been planned on a simulator using 3-D data for the LTM 1400-7.1 supplied by Liebherr, a spokesperson added.

Michael Stark, owner of Stark Ingenieure and Günter Czasny deputy CEO, said, “Adam Cote, the manager of engineering at Allegiance Crane, and his team were extremely professional on the site. We worked extremely well and closely with each other. And the crane produced an absolutely amazing performance. It has a compact design and has excellent setup processes coupled with enormous load capacities which meant we didn’t even have to move it between the various hoists. This saved us around half the time which was very important to us.”

The theme park is due for completion by summer 2015.

Stevenson Crane adds 9 Terex RTs to fleet

Stevenson Crane Service has nine new Terex rough terrain cranes available for nationwide rental as of Tuesday, Jan. 27. The new additions include three 30-ton Terex RT 230s, two 55-ton RT 555s, two 70-ton RT 670s and two 80-ton RT 780s.

The new equipment will provide enhanced performance and allow for increased availability to better serve contractors and users in need of the most advanced lifting equipment.