500 REASONS FOR LIEBHERR

30 years after having started with the production of Liebherr Harbour Mobile (LHM) cranes, the Austrian crane manufacturer celebrates the order for its 500th LHM.

Whereas the initial set-up of the production of harbour mobile cranes has taken place in the mid -70s at Liebherr-Werk Ehingen/Germany (being the current headquarters for Liebherr’s highly successful range of mobile cranes), the first LHM has been delivered in 1986 ex Liebherr-Werk Nenzing/Austria, still being the main production facility as well as the technical and commercial headquarters for such highly flexible cargo handling equipment.

Yet, with the constantly growing demand for harbour mobile cranes, Liebherr has shifted parts of the production to its sister company in Sunderland/UK already in the late 90s.

With both Nenzing and Sunderland working at full capacity – whereby hav-ing no more space available for further expansion, Liebherr decided to open up a third production plant of 213.000 m in Rostock/Germany which offers direct access to the sea, thus providing extra advantages for the transportation process of such massive crane components.

Today the first models, comprising the crane types LHM 400 and 500 with lifting capacities of 100 tons resp. 140 tons, are already being manufactured and will be ready for their sea voyage by the end of the year.

Talking about crane models, in the “early days” (mid-70s to the mid-90s) Liebherr offered up to 30 different variations for all kinds of cargo handling. In 1996 the so-called new generation of harbour mobile cranes – consisting of the 5 models LHM 100, LHM 150, LHM 250, LHM 320 and LHM 400 – was introduced whereby numerous unique features were implemented into such state-of-the-art crane concept. Probably the most striking advantage was (and still is!) an undercarriage concept offering outstanding mobility to its operators as well as unique possibilities to comply with terminal restric-tions in terms of ground pressures.

With the tremendous response from ports around the world, it took just 5 years to double the LHM orders and to establish Liebherr as a leading company in the harbour mobile crane business. In 2000 (LHM 70) and 2002 (LHM 500) the crane range has been extended by two more models whereby especially the LHM 500, with a lifting capacity of 140 tons and a max. outreach of 51 meters being the ideal tool for the handling of vessels up to post-panamax size, got a tremendous response from terminal opera-tors and has established itself as the most popular model within just three years from its introduction to the market!

As a reasonable supplement to the LHM range, since 1998 Liebherr offers also a so-called Liebherr Portal Slewing (LPS) crane range, character-ised by a replacement of the crane’s undercarriage by a tailor-made portal solution to operate the crane on rails. From the slewing platform upwards each and every crane component as well as all the crane’s features and functions are identical to the LHM range thus assuring its operators of a hundredfold tested and proven technology that is entirely designed to fit its customers’ needs.

Encouraged by the outstanding success of the LHM concept, Liebherr is constantly searching for potential upgrades of the machines to offer its customers even more advantages and opportunities to boost handling figures. Amongst such improvements in the harbour mobile crane field Liebherr’s in-house developed and patented Cycoptronic® (Cycle Opti-mising Electronic) crane control system, the recently introduced fuel economy software (resulting in fuel savings of approx. 20%) as well as special grab applications to achieve handling rates of up to 1.500 tons/hour stand out as the most successful innovations to date.

The “anniversary crane” will be delivered to the Icelandic shipping line Samskip which has already purchased an LHM 400 some years ago. Due to a steady rise in container handling activities, Samskip opted for a second LHM 400, equipped with a fully automatic telescopic spreader, an economy software for an optimised fuel consumption as well as a motor grab control system for the crane’s handling flexibility.

Commenting on the anniversary, Leopold Berthold, sales director for the harbour mobile crane range points out: “To gain orders for 500 cranes within just 30 years is a tremendous mark of confidence and a huge reward for our continuous efforts to offer our customers the most suitable and reliable harbour mobile crane at an unbeaten price-performance ratio – after all it is unprecedented in harbour mobile crane history!”

Wolfgang Remlinger, managing director at Liebherr-Werk Nenzing, sums up: “We are very pleased with the positive development of the harbour mobile crane range, representing a perfectly balanced product line that optimally fits into Liebherr’s comprehensive port equipment range of con-tainer cranes, RTGs, RMGs, fixed and travelling cargo cranes, reachstack-ers as well as special cargo handling solutions. The LHM order numbers also confirm the necessity to establish another production facility at Rostock and we are confident that the LHM range will substantially contrib-ute to the full capacity utilization at such plant.”

For more information, please visit:

https://edir.bulk-online.com/profile...rk-nenzing.htm

Attachments

liebherr_news_29.07.05 (GIF)

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