09.09.2016

Palazzani to provide Palfinger spiders

Palfinger Platforms Italy and Palazzani Industries have signed a technical/sales agreement which will see Palazzani provide Palfinger branded spider lifts to its sales and distribution network.

The deal will see Palazzani modify some of its existing large spider lifts in the 27 to 52 metre range to suit Palfinger’s requirements an, one assumes provide some product differentiation. Palfinger, which exhibited its first spider lift – the 15 metre P150 AJTK at Bauma - will quickly gain a full product range, allowing its distributors to fully participate in this growing market.
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Palfinger Italia's first spider lift, the P150 AJTK unveiled earlier this year

Palfinger Italy will continue to develop its own spider lift range up to 27 metres, in many cases using the lift mechanisms and components from its 3.5 tonne truck mounted line – albeit with modifications to suit the differing demands of spider lift applications. And Palazzani will provide the larger models.
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Palazzani will build Palfinger versions of its spider lifts, such as this 48m XTJ 48

The contracts was signed a few days ago at the Palfinger headquarters in Austrian, between Paolo Balugani, the managing director and part owner of Palfinger Italia, Thomas Perkmann, managing director of Palfinger Europe and Davide Palazzani.
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(L-R) Davide Palazzani with Thomas Perkmann and Paolo Balugani of Palfinger

Vertikal Comment

This is something of a surprise, although given the rivalry between Palfinger and Ruthmann - which acquired Italian spider lift manufacturer Bluelift earlier this year - it is understandable. The net result is likely to be that the two big German based truck mounted lift manufacturers become major players in the spider lift market, which is continuing to grow in many of the more developed access markets.

The deal with Palazzani will fast track Palfinger into the larger spider lift market and help encourage its distributors, and customers to seriously consider and start promoting all Palfinger spider lifts. The manufacturer will need to give serious consideration however to product support for its Palfinger branded Palazzani machines, not because Palazzani does a poor job in this area, but because Palfinger customers will expect the same Palfinger product support, documentation and parts supply for these machines as its others, and that takes time and a lot of hard work to achieve when the machines are built by a third party.

JLG has also followed the badging route for its spider lift range, working with Italy’s Hinowa, and while Hinowa has a very good reputation for product support, JLG has still had to invest heavily to ensure that all of its after sales related departments support JLG spider lifts in exactly the same way as for the products it manufactures itself. Palfinger could well learn from this.

Although some Palazzani dealers will understandably be nervous, this looks like a very good deal for both Palfinger and Palazzani. And the good distributor should have little to fear, while Palazzani ought to benefit from higher production volumes, which will then have a knock on benefit for its own dealers.