Richard Howes speaks to Jim Robertson about his new role as Cattron Group International executive director, business development and his vision for the future of the overhead lifting equipment market.
First dismissed (by some) as a pie in the sky idea, one notion has moulded the way overhead lifting equipment will be marketed to the end user communities of the USA, Mexico and Canada. To Jim Robertson, it has always been obvious: combined forces are stronger than you can ever hope to be alone.
Take this pie chart, he says, and ponder this: “Overhead lifting equipment suppliers have a relatively small percentage of the overall ‘lifting and moving’ material handling market. Lift trucks alone have a much greater market share; when you add conveyors systems and automated guided vehicle systems the percentage becomes much less. Compared to these technologies and products offered to end users, OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and suppliers in the overhead lifting and moving sector have a significant opportunity to gain ground.” He has a point, the numbers are staggering.
To paint the picture, the chart he talks about is a three-dimensional pie, with various chunks representing product sectors within the market. The overhead lifting slice is small. In presenting it like this, Robertson, who has been involved in the remote control business for 30 years, and the overhead industry about as long, had outlined his challenge and mission statement to the overhead lifting equipment suppliers with clarity.
Of course, the very existence of the Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA), the trade association which represents the $156 billion US material handling and logistics industry, of which Cattron is a member company, suggests that this theme of togetherness should have inspired like-minded individuals.
In fact, the platform from which Robertson introduced this concept was only granted to one of the industry’s deepest thinkers three years ago.
Within the MHIA, there are industry groups or affiliated trade associations, three of which represent overhead lifting equipment manufacturers. The largest of those, the Crane Manufacturers Association of America (CMAA) recently changed its bylaws which allowed Robertson’s company, among others, to participate.
Following the group’s Spring Meeting in mid-April 2005, the trade association expanded the types of members who could join to include crane component manufacturers, which included remote control firms. Existing members, in particular OEMs that make integrated cranes, are executive members that serve on a board of directors and have exclusive voting rights.
Crane component manufacturers also included manufacturers of end trucks, cabs, electrification, below the hook devices and hoisting equipment; the group targeted by sister association the Hoist Manufacturers Institute (HMI). The intent was to provide better coordination to engineering relationships and more comprehensive specification development. For the record, the third overhead affiliated trade association is the Monorail Manufacturers Association (MMA) representing manufacturers of patented track and enclosed track monorail systems and workstation cranes.
The new members of CMAA gained access to engineering discussions, market forecasts, strategy discussions and other programming that members already received.
Its conception represented an open door for Robertson. And he darted through it with gusto.
He immediately consulted with MHIA executive vice president, business development Hal Vandiver, who is also managing director of the CMAA, HMI and MMA, to gain his insight and support in demonstrating to the members of the affiliated trade associations what a small portion of the ‘lifting and moving’ material handling pie they were scrounging upon and competing for and, moreover, the massive potential the overall ‘lifting and moving’ material handling market has to offer. Vandiver says “overhead lifting and moving technologies currently represent little more than 10% of the $16-18.0 billion ‘lifting and moving’ material handling market in the US, Canada and Mexico.”
To promote overhead lifting and moving solutions to end users, the CMAA, HMI and MMA formed an ad hoc committee in 2007 to formulate a long-term collective marketing campaign to represent the entire overhead industry, namely the Overhead Alliance.
There are clear advantages of, say, bridge, gantry and jib cranes over more widely used lift trucks, but the challenge is positioning the products in a way that convinces end users.
“End users need to be given a better picture of the materials handling movement within their plants,” says Robertson. Okay, it’s a cliché, but “end users and the organizations they consult with to help solve their material handling challenges are not looking up,” he adds.
The problem he identified long ago is the inwardly focused overhead lifting industry, the enemy within. He explains: “Most companies within any industry have a tendency to focus on market share within their industry; the overhead lifting equipment suppliers were no different. Manufacturers were too exclusively concerned with their own companies. They kept developed specifications and statistics that related only to their industry.”
While it’s another cliché, the more water that’s put into the pond, the more everyone within it will rise. For example, if the overhead firms collectively market the features and benefits of their products over competitive technologies it’ll be far more fruitful than competing against just each other, especially when the percentage of the overall market they are tussling over is so comparatively small. It begins with understanding who the real competitors are for your prospects and customers’ ‘lifting and moving’ material handling capital spending budget.
Ironically, the remote control industry is guilty of the same shortcomings, it could also learn from this collective approach.
But Robertson is far more than a remote control guy, even though the backbone of the Overhead Alliance marketing initiative goes hand in glove with his own. After all, few products are better suited to remote control operation than overhead cranes and hoists.
Robertson goes as far as to say that plant and facilities managers are used to working with the “disadvantages” of floor-based lifting products. Forklift trucks, for example, take up floor space, lead to congestion and are slow and cumbersome, in my words not his, but the point is the same.
“The overhead lifting industry hasn’t gained enough exposure to the people designing new and rebuilt plants,” says Robertson, whose new role will provide even greater scope for pressing forward this message.
But he warns that it must be preached carefully and correctly. As Robertson says, and OEMs would not disagree, we live in cost driven times and matching up against competitive disciplines which appear on the surface to be cheaper can be dangerous. “There’s more to the overall cost of an installation than the purchase price,” says Robertson. He talks about increased safety, productivity, and efficiency; the total overall cost of ownership, including the green concept.
Robertson was named Cattron Group International (CGI) executive director, business development earlier this year, and is based at the firm’s Sharpsville, Pennsylvania headquarters.
CGI subsidiary companies have operations in the USA, Canada, UK, South Africa, Brazil, Europe, and China and are supported by an extensive sales and distribution network throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
Over the last several years, the industry stalwart has been managing CGI material handling sales, as well as industry association relationships, one of which we have explored.
He has also worked closely with the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) and the Aluminum Association. It is clear when tracking his career that Robertson has long been a believer in forging links with end user communities. The success he has had should provide overhead lifting equipment suppliers with the greatest incentive of all to pursue this mission with equal tenacity.
Robertson was in the employment of Motorola prior to moving to Cattron in 1977 as sales manager, a year after Cattron bought the patent and manufacturing rights for wireless remote control equipment from his former employer. One coincided with the other, he says.
Cattron works in three key industries, namely overhead lifting, rail and mining, but Robertson has been working with overhead cranes since the late 1970s, he recalls.
There are synergies between the development of remote controls and the acceptance of Robertson’s initiative to collectively promote overhead above all other forms of ‘lifting and moving’ material handling. Both, you could say, were slow starters. The first remote controls, for example, were primarily fitted to cranes in the primary metals, aerospace, automotive and other industries with large cranes, mainly due to their cost and, moreover, size of the systems. Put simply, it took a big crane to house the kit. Even when units became smaller and more affordable, the jury was still out.
Remote control became more and more feasible and affordable as time progressed but there was a natural reluctance to embrace its use, just as it took time for Robertson to earn his place within CMAA. And, in turn, so has it taken a while for the companies within it to broaden their vision.
It is difficult to determine exactly what percentage of new cranes are remote controlled because no reliable statistics are available but Robertson estimates that at least 20-30% of new cranes supplied to the North American market are fitted with remote controls. One CMAA member says that 80% of the cranes he ships are fitted with remote controlled operating equipment. Trends are similar in Europe, while around 25% of new cranes in China are controlled remotely and, while the percentage is less in Brazil, the growth rate could well be higher.
With such equipment being whole-heartedly embraced, even in developing markets, and with the concerted efforts of the Overhead Alliance, expect the portions of the pie Robertson tossed before that landmark meeting in 2005 to change.
“We’re starting from very little so we can only improve,” he says. As I said at the outset, he has a point.
