20.07.2016

Terex Cranes to close Waverly

Terex Cranes has announced that it is closing its production facility in Waverly, Iowa, and transferring production to a Terex plant in Oklahoma. The sudden announcement was made to the local Waverly media last night.
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The Rough Terrain production line at Terex Waverly

The move will see around 175 employees lose their jobs, with 100 laid off this week and the others to go gradually as the plant winds up its operations. The plant produces Rough Terrain cranes, along with truck cranes and boom trucks largely for the US market. Production is expected to begin in Oklahoma City in September following the installation of new lines etc…

The Oklahoma facility covers 100 acres with around 65,000 square metres under roof, although originally a road equipment plant, it already builds Terex HC Series crawler cranes with capacities of between 72 and 258 tonnes. From September it will add Rough Terrains from 27 to 118 tonnes, 11 boom truck models with capacities up to 72.5 tonnes and four truck cranes ranging from 36 to 76.2 tonnes.

The official release said:“The company will close production of its Rough Terrain Cranes, Truck Cranes and Boom Trucks in Waverly, Iowa, effective July 19, 2016. Production in Oklahoma City of the lines formerly built in Waverly is expected to commence in September.”

Terex Cranes general manager, Dean Barley added:“The continuing objective of the global Terex Cranes business is to be the most customer-responsive company in the industry and our customers’ long-term sustainable business partner. To achieve this, especially in today’s challenging economy, we must carefully control our costs and ensure our manufacturing footprint is efficient, so we make the best use of our resources as we build for the future. The transfer of our Waverly product lines to our Oklahoma City location is consistent with our continuing strategy to win in the marketplace by optimising our manufacturing footprint, investing in the future and aligning our costs with market demands.”

Waverly was established by the Schield Schield brothers in 1941 and went on to build cranes and excavators in 1941 including the Schield Bantam product line, it was then acquired by Koehring which also owned Lorain Cranes, and became part of Terex in 1987.

Vertikal Comment

This is no great surprise, in that demand for some of the products built at Waverly, such as traditional North American truck cranes, has been falling gradually over the longer term, and more recently the other products - Rough Terrains and Boom trucks - have been hit by the slowdown in the oil& gas industry.

The plant in Oklahoma is closer to international shipping hubs and has plenty of space to accommodate the crane lines from Waverly, but sadly it brings over 60 years of crane production in Waverly to an end. But having said all that it does make sound commercial sense and consolidates Terex North American crane production into a single larger facility.