City of cranes

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Equipping Dubai: Waiel Manfalouti has seen 160 tower cranes go through the door in a year and is finding the market for demand expanding from around the region.

"There are so many companies in Dubai, that require our needs - and we have been supplying products to them directly and through the Modern Emirates Heavy Crane Company. Our partnership with Modern Emirates Heavy Cranes has also helped boost our company a lot," added Park.

There's no doubt there's plenty of business to be had. Rough figures from House of Equipment (HoE), a UAE-based construction equipment supplier, show the scale of the region's market, with this one supplier accounting for 160 tower cranes in a year. And, judging by HoE's experience, demand comes by the dozen.

"We are very busy and the volume of work we are executing in the market is tremendous, whether new deliveries, erection or dismantling, we're hardly covering our customer needs," said Waiel Manfalouti, general manager, HoE. "Actually customers are not asking for one tower crane, but for six or 12 and they all need the equipment right now.

HoE supplies tower cranes from a Chinese manufacturer Fushun Yongmao, a business formed in 1996. HoE deals with customers' need for speed by keeping cranes from the most in demand capacity range in stock on a speculative basis. As a result HoE can carry up to 30 tower cranes in the 6-12 tonne range in stock at any one time, avoiding the long lead times that can plague projects.

"Where it is a common size, we know the market is hot for it and we always keep it in stock," said Manfalouti. "We don't wait for customer orders to come in, but take stock ahead of time.

In other capacity ranges HoE still experiences some delays, but not on the scale of the two years De Boer warns of elsewhere in the world. It's 18 to 24 tonne delivery times are approximately four to six months and 16 to 24 tonne luffing-jib cranes typically take 6-8 months.

Cost-wise HoE's Chinese-manufactured cranes offer an attractive package and can come with anti collision systems and variable drive winches. Recently the company won a US $5.4 million contract to provide tower cranes for the construction of Dubai's US $1.3 billion Meydan racing, tourist and leisure complex.

The contract involves HoE supplying twelve, 80m jib Yongmao tower cranes, each with a lifting capacity of 18 to 24 tonnes.

"We were competing with six major suppliers and were judged on both technical and commercial aspects. The Yongmao tower cranes have CE approval, meaning they meet all EU requirements, and the CE mark was a key reason why we won the contract," said Manfalouti. "We have installed 8 out of 12 and this equipment has already been commissioned, tested and made operational.

The company has also had a good response to its launch of an anti collision system, made by Singapore-based SK Group.

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