PRODUCT FOCUS
F
or aeons, people have used
revolutionary methods to lift really
heavy objects and move them to
where they are required. The crane’s
history, therefore, is closely affiliated
with the history of the limits of man’s
strength.
While cranes remained hand-powered
for centuries — from as far back as
the late 6th century BCE, when the
Ancient Greeks invented the crane for
lifting heavy loads — hydraulics were
steadily improving. But it was not until
the 15th century that after studying fluid
hydrodynamics and hydrostatics, Blaise
Pascal ushered in a new understanding
of hydraulic principles like fluid density,
pressure, and incompressibility. He
invented the hydraulic press — the
building block of modern hydraulics and
the power behind the modern crane.
Crane Link Zoomlion South Africa mainly
stocks truck cranes, ranging from 25-, 30-
and 55-tons, and rough-terrain cranes with
35- and 55-ton capacity.
Variations on this simple leveraging of
fluid movement have allowed engineers
to create behemoths like the modern
Liebherr Mobile Crane.
Spoilt for choice
The notion that a skyline of tower
cranes denotes a construction boom is
misrepresented, according to players
in the construction sector, who point
out that many of the tower cranes on
view are in fact not in operation, as the
construction sector has skidded to a
halt, with incomplete projects waiting
for the sector to reignite. The cost of a
non-productive tower crane is immense.
The focus, therefore, has moved rather to
mobile cranes, which are more versatile
than their stationery cousins.
While there are four principal types of
mobile cranes — truck-mounted, rough-
terrain, crawler, and floating — there are
as many manufacturers from east and
west, each claiming to have the better-
quality machine. Ultimately, however,
both have features that substantiate
their claims. What it boils down to,
is application, length of project and
ultimately, operational and running costs.
As cranes come with hefty price tags,
no matter what configuration or type,
purchasing is only really an option if the
construction company purchasing it has
regular, consistent work of the same
type. Very few companies can afford
to buy a varied fleet unless they have
a strong pipeline of diverse projects
that would offer satisfactory ROI on the
equipment.
According to Mark Bate, CEO of
Crane Link Zoomlion South Africa, the
company is the sole agent for selling
and servicing truck, rough-terrain, and
crawler cranes on behalf of Zoomlion,
an established Asian crane manufacturer
that has made its mark in the country
over the past decade. He says that Crane
Link Zoomlion South Africa mainly stocks
truck cranes, ranging from 25-, 30- and
55-ton, and rough-terrain cranes with
35- and 55-ton capacity. “We mainly sell
into crane hire companies, steel erection
business, and general manufacturing
and construction, while the rough-terrain
cranes are mainly sold to the mines and
also to crane hire companies,” he adds.
One such crane hire company is Johnson
Crane Hire (JCH). Sales executive, Peter
Yaman, observes, “If you consider
the kind of equipment we provide, it’s
very expensive, highly capital-intensive
machinery. To buy a crane to do a one-off
lift is therefore unfeasible. It therefore
makes sense to provide the service,
without the client worrying about the
wear and tear and maintenance issues.”
For companies that are doing
continuous construction work, purchasing
their own fleet of cranes makes sense,
he points out. “It’s challenging to
maintain and upkeep them, as well as
being able to offer a wide variety of
different cranes for a variety of different
client needs,” he says.
Operating a crane is generally a high-
pressured, high-profile task and therefore
having a reliable piece of machinery
is critical. “There is the accompanied
urgency to get the work done, as cranes
are normally brought in on projects with
a tight timeline, or onto a site where
there is a breakdown or maintenance
is required during a shutdown and
operations cannot be offline unduly, in a
petrochemical plant, for example.”
JCH’s preference, therefore, is
for two established OEMs, namely
reliable Japanese manufacturer Tadano
and Germany-based Liebherr. Both
manufacturers enjoy the lion’s share of
the mixed fleet, which also includes a
couple of 30t Grove rough-terrain cranes.
“We need assurance that the cranes are
reliable with dependable backup service,
so this is why we have opted for these
two established OEMs predominantly,”
over what is increasingly becoming an
industry move to Chinese brands, Yaman
comments.
With a vast 220+ fleet, the company
provides a range of cranes, from
8-tonners to gigantic 750-tonners. The
fleet comprises from the smaller truck-
mounted variety to rough-terrain cranes
and all-terrain cranes, as well as crawler
cranes and some specialised cranes,
with the fleet split about 50-50 between
the truck-mounted cranes and the all-
terrain cranes.
“With its smaller wheels, the truck-
mounted crane is better suited to an
urban environment that has established
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