JEDDAH, 3 October 2006 — In 1947, a German master builder had an idea. It was that life would be far easier for builders if they could take a crane to a building site and erect it without all the crew and fuss that accompanied the operation in those days. In the no nonsense way that engineering geniuses have — especially those who do not think they are geniuses — he designed one.
Thus was the era of the self-erecting mobile tower crane was born and with it Hans Liebherr laid the foundations for a 5.3 billion euro group of 100 companies which now employs over 24,000 people on five continents. Currently the group constructs high quality engineering products ranging from domestic refrigerators through aircraft landing gear and heavy earthmoving and mining equipment to — yes — its hallmark self-erecting and mobile cranes. Truly a global operation Liebherr products and components are developed and produced at 29 locations in 12 countries on four continents.
The tall spindly but impossibly strong tower cranes are now a familiar sight around the world. Dubai, for example, is home by one estimate to one third of all the tower cranes on the planet. A large proportion is made by Liebherr. The largest tower crane ever built by Liebherr began operating in mid-2006 at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. Ltd. in South Korea.
With a load moment of 4,000 meter-tons it is designed to move ship sections weighing up to 70 tons. This huge crane is capable of lifting 41 tons at a working radius of 80.0 m, which can cover an area equivalent to 10 football pitches. To maintain the high quality standards with which its products have to comply, Liebherr attaches great importance to in-house control of key technologies. To keep the companies’ specialist skills inside the group, major sub-assemblies also come from in-house development and production. They include the entire driveline and control technology for construction machinery, including the electrics, electronics, transmission, hydraulics and diesel engine product groups.
Other examples are hydraulic rams and anti-friction bearings, which are increasingly used in products of other makes as well. The mobile cranes — technically the wheel mounted cranes as opposed to crawler cranes which are track mounted — dominate the world market. Last year more than 40 percent of the world’s all terrain mobile cranes were made by Liebherr.
The crane factory is in the small Swabian town of Ehingen near the cathedral city of Ulm in southwest Germany. Surrounded as it is by lush green fields, herds of contemplative dairy cows and arable farms, it seems a most unlikely place for a major industry.
Heavy engineering factory it is, but it reflects the company’s ethos that addressing challenges, either engineering or environmental, should be done with equal dedication.
In the factory, which is opened to guests once every three years, workspaces and engineering workshops positively glisten with gleaming clean benches, swept floors and regiments of spanners and tools precisely arranged as if on parade. The visitor gets the feeling that absolutely nothing leaves the care of the engineers without the personal seal of approval from Isolde Liebherr herself.
And they would not be far wrong, because Liebherr is a family firm and has been since its foundation. The quality of engineering and design that goes into Liebherr’s output has established it as a world leader in several fields.
Mobile and crawler cranes, heavy earth-moving and loading machines and concrete batching equipment are but a few. The company’s expertise spreads much wider. Air-conditioning plants, aircraft flight systems and landing gear are among the less obvious places you will find the company’s engineering expertise at work.
For example, in June 2006, Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse SAS signed a memorandum of understanding with The Boeing Company to supply the air-management system for the new 747-8 airplane. Liebherr’s air-management system bleeds air from the engines and conditions it for the passenger and crew cabins.
With the building boom in the Kingdom under way, and with the huge Economic Cities at Hail, Rabigh and Makkah offering new construction challenges, Liebherr’s experience and quality will be at a premium in the supply of cranes of all varieties, concrete batching and mixing equipment and earth moving equipment.
Established in the Kingdom for over 30 years, the mammoth mobile cranes and earth movers are a familiar sight on the Kingdom’s roads and construction sites along with the slow-churning mobile concrete mixers.
With their long working life, toughness and advanced technology, these reliable servants of the construction industry look set to stay a familiar sight in Saudi Arabia for many years to come.
