An optimistic look at the future: Tadano can point to good integration results and promising business prospects. Customers are increasingly seeing the results of the integration process between Tadano companies.
In the spring of 2021, Tadano announced that all of the group’s cranes would be sold exclusively under the Tadano brand name in the future as part of its OneTadano strategy. This announcement is now in the process of being implemented worldwide, and the company has also made significant progress in its other integration projects.
The starting point for the OneTadano strategy was the integration of Demag into the Tadano Group around two years ago. Since then, the Zweibrücken company has grown closer and closer together with the Tadano plant in Lauf as part of the overall integration process.
A process, it is worth mentioning, that is not yet complete.
Even if a lot has already been accomplished in the past two years, Tadano still has plans in store. One of them is the company’s announced innovation push, which will see 15 new crane models come onto the market in the next few years.
Customers will have the opportunity to take a look at a number of these products at bauma.
The announcement comes with a promise for the company’s customers:
“Your passion. Our DNA.”
CEO Jens Ennen explains what is behind that promise.
“For our customers, cranes are more than just a product we sell. They are their passion, as well as ours. Our employees often say that cranes run in their blood – they are part of our DNA. In addition, we also want to convey an exclusive sense of purpose and dedication: No other manufacturer is as undividedly focused on lifting equipment as we are, and this goes both for our company as a whole and for each individual member of our team. For us, every single lift that is performed out there is just as important as it is to the customer carrying it out.”
During the development of these new cranes, Tadano has been able to rely on the unrivalled know-how of its companies, which are incorporating their biggest strengths into each product. There is also undeniable progress in this area: “We’re very proud of the fact that we’ll already be able to showcase our first product with this combined DNA, a two-axle crane, in January. It will already come with the IC-1 Plus control system, the standardized cab, and numerous features that will be found on all upcoming Tadano models,” says Ennen while piquing the industry’s interest.
Interview With CEO Jens Ennen
“We have achieved a lot, but there is still a lot more to do!”
Against this backdrop, Tadano sees itself as well-positioned for the future. Especially since the company’s efforts in three essential areas will be redoubled, as Jens Ennen explains in an interview:
Question: What are these three areas specifically, Mr. Ennen?
Answer: On one hand, our overarching OneTadano strategy. On the other, our products and our service, both of which are a particular focus for us right now.
“OneTadano combines the best of both worlds.”
Question: Let’s start with OneTadano. What is the idea behind that, and how is the concept actually taking shape in real life?
Answer: Everything we do revolves around lifting. And when I say “everything,” I mean that. Our whole team is working on that with the goal of positioning us as a leading industry supplier of premium lifting equipment solutions so that we can become our customers’ business partners of choice.
We realized that in order to accomplish this, we had to realign our operations and restructure our organization to get standardized structures. So we chose the term “OneTadano” for this transformation process internally. It also involves the idea of taking the best solutions from both companies and combining them into joint new products.
As part of this process, for example, we’re merging our local branches in all markets into joint Tadano teams. These branches used to act independently of each other, but this change will enable them to provide more comprehensive offerings to our customers along with better service since it will cover all their equipment.
One of the biggest changes we’ve made with our OneTadano strategy involves the production of our AC cranes: In the future, the carriers will be made in Lauf, while the superstructures and booms will be made in Zweibrücken. By distributing the main components between these two centres of excellence, we’ll be able to eliminate duplicate production, testing, and delivery structures. We refer to this process as OneProduction, and it will ultimately result in shorter throughput times and, accordingly, shorter lead times.
“We have started an unparalleled innovation push”
Question: This brings us to the next focus: products.
Answer: That’s right. We’ve achieved quite a bit there. It’s well known that we made the promise of launching 15 new and solidly innovative machines in the next few years. And we’ve already introduced eight of them: Five AC all-terrain cranes, two HK truck-mounted cranes, and a Tadano GTC telescopic boom crawler crane, which has received a lot of interest from our customers.
In addition, we successfully brought all AC cranes into compliance with EU Stage V emission standards without exception. Moreover, we successfully launched our IC-1 Remote telematics system and, at the same time, brought back our made-in-Japan GR rough terrain cranes to Europe. Also, as an aside, we’re the undisputed world industry leader in this market segment with our GR cranes.
Another focus of our innovation push is the development of technologies that are environmentally friendly. Based on the recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the Tadano Group has set for itself the clear goal of reducing CO2 emissions from its business activities worldwide by 25% and from its products by 35% by 2030, as well as becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
This includes, for example, the option of operating our vehicles with alternative fuels with reduced CO2 emissions, as well as the E-Pack, which makes electric, zero-emission, low-noise crane operation possible. We’ll be showcasing additional solutions in the area of environmental and climate protection at next year’s bauma.
“Our customers will be able to count on significantly improved service.”
Question: Sounds exciting. And that brings us to the third and last aspect in the form of service.
Answer: Exactly. This area is particularly important to us since we know that we can only be successful if we also provide industry-leading service for our products. Accordingly, we’ve already massively expanded our offerings in this area and made them more attractive than ever before – this includes new financing options and comprehensive training for our employees at Support.
If you contact a Tadano Service technician today, they’ll be able to assist you with all your concerns, regardless of whether they involve a crane from Lauf or Zweibrücken. In addition, we’ve also restructured our used crane organization to improve its performance and established an exemplary maintenance concept for customer cranes.
But our customers can expect even more for the near future: We’ll be reinforcing our on-site customer service and offering new services such as maintenance packages, remote services, and online training courses.
Another important item for us is our plan to comprehensively digitalize our customer service operations all the way from resource and assignment planning to the bill. Needless to say, integrating our companies in terms of service is also an important aspect that customers will benefit from noticeably. Accordingly, we’ll be running a joint service centre and a centralized spare parts warehouse for all Tadano cranes in Lauf in the foreseeable future.
Our customers will then be able to easily order the spare parts they need through a joint webstore. I can promise you that we’ll be introducing a whole series of new innovations to the industry by the next bauma in October 2022. In fact, we’re already looking forward to showing visitors our new Tadano then.
