IN THE latter half of 2003, Hinspeter Cranes was the first company in Australia to order and take delivery of the new generation Tadano GT-550E. Over the years, the truck crane has been put to work on a range of industrial and construction projects.
Buoyed by an inflow of work, the company sought to purchase another truck crane and director Greg Hinspeter settled on another Tadano GT-550E. “The performance of our first has been excellent. And with our operator team already familiar with the Tadano’s capabilities, we decided to purchase the same model,” says Hinspeter. The new Tadano has already been assigned to work at a Nickel refinery in north Queensland. James Equipment delivered the new Tadano GT-550E stock standard, apart from state road regulatory compliance changes that they carried out prior to delivery. The GT-550E has a 55t capacity, 83 km/h ground speed and a 42m boom that is useful in servicing large loads on smaller worksites.
The increase in safety features on the Tadano GT-550E model crane was another deciding factor. “The difference in safety specifications between the Tadano GT-550E and some of our older fleet cranes is remarkable,” says Hinspeter. “Moreover, we don’t have to worry about allocating a specially-trained driver to use only one machine making it very cost effective.”
The first grandson to be president of the Tadano Company, Koichi Tadano, recently made his first official visit to meet first hand the team at Tadano’s Australian crane distributor. Koichi Tadano makes a point of visiting a different international Tadano dealership every month. When addressing the James Equipment team, Tadano mentioned his first visit to Australia 33 years ago when he embarked on a cycling journey from Sydney to Melbourne. Tadano expects strong growth in Australia with the delivery of a new range of all-terrain cranes this year. James Equipment forecasts sales growth of 20 to 25 per cent over the next three to five years.
Source: Construction Contractor
