Tadano’s Strategic Initiatives Are All Positive for Customers

April 18, 2021 - On April 7, Tadano Ltd. announced a number of strategic initiatives that it believes will help transform the company into an even more prominent leader in the worldwide crane lifting industry.

They include selling German-made models in Japan and selling Japanese-produced models in Europe, consolidating all crane products under just the Tadano brand, and combining essentially all of North, South, and Central America under one Pan-American sales and support organization.

How will the changes affect customers in the United States and Canada?

Fortunately, not a lot in the short term, and with even better products and support down the road.

According to Christian Bartley, Tadano America’s vice president of marketing and strategic operations, Tadano customers here can count on continuing to see Tadano products deliver high quality and see Tadano support be just as responsive as it is now.

“These well-though-out strategic initiatives have been in planning for a long time,” Bartley said. “Tadano keeps customer benefit at the forefront of its strategy and thinks long term, not by quarters. We are always looking to get better so we can better serve our customers.”

Ingo Schiller, President of Tadano’s Pan-American Operations, said the company has been focused on transformation and growth over the past several years. New Tadano, Ltd. CEO Toshiaki Ujiie was brought in to accelerate that process and add new strategies while holding tight to the company’s core philosophy.

Schiller confirmed that Tadano will continue making most of its cranes at the factories where they have long been manufactured. Rough-terrain cranes will continue to be made in Japan. All-terrain and lattice-boom crawler cranes will be made in Germany. And nearly all telescopic-boom crawler cranes will continue to be made in the U.S. One notable exception is the GTC-2000, which is made in Germany.

That means U.S. and Canadian customers will continue to see the same high-quality products they’re used to receiving from Tadano.

“We already have worldwide collaboration when it comes to product development, making sure we build products that address local [SE1] needs,” said Bartley. “The new arrangement and single branding will make it even easier for us to share best designs and ideas across platforms. That will result in greater innovation and even better products over time. Over time this will give our customers access to a considerably broader and more complete portfolio of lifting equipment solutions under one brand.”

It will also, he said, make it easier for the company as a whole to gain efficiency and cost savings through economies of scale. “For example, all of the products use steel, hydraulic pumps and motors, control levers, and countless other similar components,” said Bartley. “Combining our buying power will give us leverage with suppliers to ensure high quality while maintaining cost control, all for the benefit of our customer.”

As for rebranding of current Demag, Tadano Faun, and Tadano Mantis products under the singular Tadano brand, “The immediate physical change is basically decaling and paint schemes,” said Bartley. “The cranes will continue to be the same high quality, offer the same performance, and carry all the brand attributes they always have.”

Along with harmonizing under the singular “Tadano” brand, the company announced new naming systems for all-terrain and crawler cranes. U.S. and Canadian customers will need to learn the new model names.

The new arrangement for all-terrain cranes will start with AC, followed by the number of axles, then the crane’s capacity in metric tons, and a version number. So the current 450-tonne, 7-axle Tadano Demag AC 450-7 will become the Tadano AC 7.450-1.

The names of lattice-boom crawler cranes will start with CC, followed by the legacy series, lifting capacity in metric tons, and a version number. So the current 650-tonne Tadano Demag CC 3800 will become the Tadano CC 38.650-1.

The name changes will be completed by October, when Tadano will roll out the first all-terrain model developed jointly by the Zweibrucken and Lauf plants in Germany. That model will be available in the U.S. and Canada, as well as other worldwide markets.

How will the consolidation of three brands into one affect Tadano’s U.S. and Canadian distributor organizations? That is still to be seen, since the process is still ongoing and is likely to keep evolving long into the future. Tadano America Corporation now coordinates the sales, marketing, service, and parts support from the northernmost point in Canada to the southern tip of South America.

“In our effort to continually improve support for our customers, we keep evolving our distributor network,” said Bartley. “The process of rationalizing distributors began as soon as Tadano acquired Demag in August of 2019. The process will continue with current Tadano Mantis distributors, too. We will do what makes sense and is best for our customers.”

With support unified and coordinated, one would expect that North American customers would see even better parts and service availability than today’s high levels.

Bartley emphasized that the recent announcement is part of Tadano’s ongoing program of continuous improvement to become better at everything it does. “We’re always looking for ways to improve everything: our products, the way we design and manufacture them, the way we support them, the way we keep in touch with our customers about what they want — everything,” he said.

“The recently announced initiatives don’t represent Tadano departing from the way customers are used to us doing business,” said Bartley. “They are really in line with Tadano’s philosophy of continuous improvement in everything we do.”