we expect the market to peak in the next 2-3 years
Prashant Suryawanshi, Managing Director, Manitowoc Cranes Potain India, speaks on the role of safety in using tower cranes.

What is the current market size of tower cranes? Which segments are driving the demand for these products?
The market si ze of the tower crane has been around 350-450 tower cranes from past seven to eight years. It has reached its peak during 2014 of up to 600-650 tower cranes. We expect the tower crane market to reach back to it new peak in next two to three years. As the main driving factor for tower crane sales is real estate market, we see a good development in this sector. Government policies has been helping real estate market to see a new potential. The new FSI/TDR policies has let builder/developers build taller buildings and hence the need of tower crane at site is increasing.

What are the new products offered by your company?
As a part of our strategy for moving on from Hammer head models to flattop modular version like we did for MCT85 (which replaced MCi85) and MCT205 (which replaced MC205) in past we have developed and started manufacturing new flat top model to replace MC125 and thus offer a better model to market. The modular flattop design helps customer to save installation and dismantling time. It simplifies the storage and transportation problems of a tower crane by minimising number of loose components. The LVF technology offer smooth operation and reduces running cost. Our cranes, before launching, undergoes through extensive life cycle testing at various design stages at our Manitowoc product verification centre and thus last for 20-30 years.

What is the role of safety in tower cranes? What are the added safety features in your tower cranes?
Potain has been pioneers in India for introducing tower cranes in India way back in 1980. Since then, we have developed a culture of high safety and quality standards in India. Our customers trust our brand and knows Potain is a product of gold standards.

Safety plays an important role in the whole process of designing, manufacturing, installation and operation of tower crane at Potain. Our parent organisation Manitowoc has implemented the various HSE policies like SLAM techniques and “The Manitowoc Way” across all our global eight factories including our Pune works. This process has been managed and operated very efficiently and has helped inculcate higher safety values amongst all the employees. We pass on this safety values to our stakeholders – vendors, customers, crane operators, plant and machinery teams.

What are various challenges faced in the sector you are in?
Till recent past, tower crane was not considered as a must equipment at site by builders/developers/contractors but over the period time everyone have realised the true potential of usage of tower cranes. The kind of support it offer at site to handle all the logistics is unmatchable. It ensures the project is completed with ease and in time.

How do you envisage your company’s future in the next five years?
We have successfully localised three tower crane models MCT85, MCT135 and MCT205 in India. We have 60+ tower crane models in our portfolio to offer and we look forward to localise and develop more models in India at our Pune factory. Customer will need faster and bigger cranes in coming future and if market support we would like to localise the bigger model of 12t, 16t and 20t range. We will continue with the market share of more than 50 per cent for the next five years.