DAMMAM, 16 February 2006 — The German construction machinery manufacturer Liebherr opened its first full technical service center in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom last week. Built to service and maintain the growing volume of Liebherr’s heavy equipment in the Kingdom, the center is, said Hans-Georg Frey, managing director of Liebherr mobile crane division, a natural response to the booming construction industry and a demonstration of the family owned company’s confidence in Saudi Arabia.
The company has been a presence in the Kingdom since the Saudi-Liebherr company was founded here in 1982. Initially the company was known for earth moving equipment and tower cranes - Dr. Hans Liebherr, the company’s founder, patented the first self-erecting tower crane in 1949. Mobile cranes and concrete production and transport machinery followed on. “The market in the Kingdom has fluctuated, but as a group,” said Joachim Strobel Liebherr’s export manager, “We always had a relevant product for the country at each stage of development.”
The business cycle had turned a complete revolution, thought Strobel. With the advent of the Saudi mining industry, earthmoving equipment was building in a big way as were the concrete mixers and batching machinery. Liebherr makes some of the biggest excavators - capable of 36 tons per bucket load - and tipper trucks, able to carry 300 tons - on the planet.
The Liebherr group is still a family firm with no external shareholders. “We relate to and understand the strong sense of family in many businesses here,” said Frey. Family connections, like their mobile cranes, last for years. “We started making mobile cranes in 1969 and most are still running somewhere in the world,” said Frey.
Christoph Kleiner, general manager of EA Juffali and Bros, Liebherr division said that world wide, mobile cranes represented the biggest turnover. “We make 44 percent of the all terrain mobile cranes in the world,” he said.
He saw the future of his market as intimately linked to the Kingdom’s development. “The forward projects here are so specialized that we have the chance as top quality manufacturers to enter this field again.”
Strobel saw the new prospects for the company as a result of pioneer work in the past.
“Previous Saudi customers now have a different perception of quality,” he said. “They have found that to produce quality work, they have to have quality machines. This was the base on which we built our sales ñ one of trust and reliability.” The key was quality. It means our customers can reliably deliver to their customers and depend on us to provide the after sales service to maintain it.”
Frey concurred. “The most expensive machine is not the one that costs most when you buy it, it is the machine that, when it has a problem, cannot get a service or a spare part.” Liebherr had the quality he continued, “But it is in the nature of machines that they need servicing or spares, we can supply efficiently.”
The company looks to train young Saudis on the job. Kleiner said that the machinery is complex and technologically advanced and that finding the right people had been a challenge. “We have some good local guys now,” he said, “And I see the need increasing.”
The Saudi market is responding to the idea of quality as opposed to initial cheap price. The expansion of the oil industry, which has very high safety and reliability standards, has driven this trend. One task that has brought the need for reliability to the fore is the rebuilding of the Jamrat Bridge in Makkah. “Downtime here,” said Frey, “Simply is not an option. The time constraints are severe and work must be continuous. You have to buy quality and this is where it counts.”