With the Hamburg metropolitan region offering a whole lot of work for heavy-duty and crane service providers, Fricke-Schmidbauer Schwerlast GmbH has made the decision to purchase a new ATF-220-5.1 from Tadano for its city-based branch. This flexible, high-performance crane offers exactly what Hamburg and the surrounding area need.
Headquartered in Braunschweig and together with Schmidtbauer-Gruppe, Fricke-Schmidbauer Schwerlast GmbH is one of Germany’s leading providers of lifting and heavy goods vehicle services in Germany. The addition of the Hamburg site to its branch network is a relatively recent development.
In its quest to expand the fleet at the new branch and meet the requirements of the metropolitan region, the company had been looking for a flexible and reliable crane for a variety of applications. As it turned out, the ATF-220-5.1 from Tadano was a perfect choice.
A positive experience
Fricke-Schmidbauer has been relying on cranes from Lauf an der Pegnitz across its group of companies for quite some time. “We are convinced of the Tadano technology, and when you’ve worked with it for as long as we have, you really can be confident about the quality and efficiency of the machines,” explains Dr Mitja Schimek, technical managing director at Fricke-Schmidbauer.
The company ordered the ATF-220-5.1 complete with a hydraulically offset able, 18-metre boom extension. In combination with the 68-metre main boom and a variety of variable counterweight configurations and asymmetrical outrigger base, the crane covers a wide range of lifting capacities and applications.
Flexibility trumps all
“We bought the crane for Hamburg, which is an industrial metropolitan region with a huge demand for short-term assignments, often in confined spaces. With this in mind, we knew we needed a compact, high-speed crane, and so the Tadano 220-tonne ticks all the boxes,” enthuses Mitja Schimek. After all, the ATF-220-5.1 can handle heavy-duty work even without the need for additional transport. With just a hook block and sling and no counterweight, it remains within the 12-tonne axle load. And even in this configuration, the crane is capable of lifting up to 11.7 tonnes with the boom at full stretch. It is precisely this kind of performance, combined with a length of 15.2 metres and width of 3 metres, that make the ATF-220-5.1 the optimal taxi crane in the Hamburg conurbation.
Equipped for the future
Another plus for use in urban areas can be found in the crane’s new generation of engines. Both the 390 kW (530 hp) carrier power unit and its 150 kW (204 hp) superstructure counterpart comply with the EU Stage V emission standard and are equipped with the latest exhaust gas treatment technology. This is a real advantage in inner-city applications, where emission limits are now playing an increasingly important role – even on construction sites.
The ATF-220-5.1 has already successfully completed its first tasks in Hamburg for Fricke-Schmidbauer: its debut assignment saw the crane lift a boiler cover into place at a district heating power plant. The cover weighed in at 32 tonnes and had to be lifted at a radius of 15 metres. “This job was by no means a major challenge for our compact powerhouse. We are already looking forward to taking on even more heavy-duty tasks with our new Tadano,” concludes Mitja Schimek.
Learn more about Tadano ATF-220-5.1.
