Yale was acquired by Columbus McKinnon in 1998, but according to Wolfgang Wegener, managing director of Yale since 1986, it is only in the past two years that CM in the USA and Yale in Europe have begun to adopt a more integrated and coordinated approach to product development. “If it is possible to have a global platform, we’ll do it,” says Wegener.
The first fruit of this global perspective and quest for improvement is a hand chain hoist, called the Yalelift 360, the cover of which rotates freely according to the angle of pull. This means that the operator can control it from any angle. It is a simple innovation, but could make enough of a difference to make a significant difference. As previously reported, the Yalelift 360 is being marketed in the Americas by CM under the name Hurricane.
The 360 is described as ‘a revolution’ by Yale’s marketing people. Wegener is rather more modest, saying it is ‘a small innovation’.
It is, however, the first of many innovations that we can expect from Yale under its new strategy. Wegener recognises that there is no growth in the market for standard manual hoists. The trend is towards automation. To create new demand and to increase market share for their manual products, Yale and CM are reinvigorating new product development.
“We are reviewing and re-engineering all our standard products to explore the potential for innovation,” says Wegener. Some of these products have remained largely unchanged for decades; improvements in manufacturing technology and metallurgy may have been exploited but the basic design principles are the same as they always were.
“The 360 is the first example of small innovations that we are working on. Our goal is to have one patent a year, not just for the sake of having patents, but to bring new products to the market.” Inspiration for the 360 came from the needs of the South African mining industry (Yale has a facility in Durban) where hand chain hoists are used in preference to ratchet lever hoists so that users do not have to stand too close to the load. Yale and CM put together an international team to develop a platform with global application. Design criteria included low production costs, competitive pricing and a lifting capacity to meet the needs of most of the market – up to 10t. Reliability, ease of use, maintenance needs and noise levels had also to be considered.
Although the company’s manufacturing costs are already competitive, the design team concentrated on ease of manufacture as well as product performance. In timed tests against the previous models they were able to reduce assembly time for the Yalelift 360 by half. If it can be made quickly, it can be sold at a competitive price. Simple design has also helped reduce the number of components, which means there is less to go wrong so it should lead to lower maintenance costs and more reliable performance.
The 360 may be modified for certain end markets. In South Africa, for example, a specially toughened case will be added to survive the particularly harsh treatment that hoists receive in the mines there, being dragged and smashed along the ground.
Yale’s sales force certainly seems excited by the new hoist. UK sales manager Steve Sherwin says: “We believe that the Yalelift 360 is unique in that it will enable users to carry out hoisting functions that until now have not been possible, either due to limited space or where lifting from below was not practical. In addition, by allowing the operator to work the hoist from any position, the Yalelift 360 makes any hoisting task easier and safer. Instead of having a new product that simply offers the usual improvements in performance and reliability, the Yalelift 360 opens up a whole new range of uses and applications in a way that no other hoist has done since hoists were first produced in volume. We believe that this new concept will appeal to the creativity of engineers and designers who will have the opportunity to use the new hoist for more productive, safe and efficient handling tasks.” Yale’s growth plan is not focused solely on reinventing or improving existing products. A second strategy is to grow the company’s presence in Asia, “where we can only grow if we differentiate our products,” Wegener says.
The third strategy, which is in its embryonic stages, is to branch out from purely producing and selling commodities to add a service element to the business by offering solutions that combine these commodities. Wegener emphasises that it is not yet clear how, or even if, this will take shape. He is clear that Yale will not compete with its distributors and go straight to end-users. Instead it will seek to work with certain distributors to help them offer added value to end-users. “We are trying to find out whether we can develop a concept of material handling technologies using, for example, KBK systems, jib systems, and balancers. We are not going into the crane building business but we are looking at packaging solutions for end-users. We have a lot of the elements but have never packaged them together before,” Wegener says. He suggests that a comparable model might be Verlinde’s network of crane builders, called Europont. “We are just testing the market at the moment. We are trying it in France.” Globally, parent company Columbus McKinnon’s strategy is focused on: improving its balance sheet, reducing debt and increasing equity; maintaining US market dominance; and increasing global presence and share. The third of these is achieved in Europe by new product development and by offering solutions as well as commodities, and in Asia by establishing more geographical power.
Wegener believes that there are limitations to the globalisation of lifting products. Different countries will always have different characteristics and different market needs, particularly for powered products. The dominance of two-speed and variable speed electric hoists in Europe is a result of high labour costs and the need for greater productivity, he says, while in Asia lower labour costs generally mean that less emphasis is placed on the importance of speed. In the USA solidity and longevity of equipment are more highly valued.
For this reason, he says, the electric chain hoist market is still largely dominated by regional players, except for niche applications, like entertainment, which CM dominates worldwide. Otherwise, US chain hoist manufacturers dominate the US market, Asians dominate Asia and Europeans dominate Europe, he says.
For manual products, including manual chain hoists, it is more feasible to produce a global product. So wherever you are in the world, whether you come to know it as the Yalelift 360 or the Hurricane, Yale’s innovation is likely soon to be on the shelves of a lifting gear distributor near you.
A heritage of innovation
The Yale trademark has a long and distinguished history and can be found today on three quite different types of products. Set up by Linus Yale in 1868, The Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company invented and marketed the revolutionary pin tumble cylinder lock which we know still as the Yale lock.
In 1875 Linus Yale invented the differential hoist which started the modern hoisting industry in the USA. In 1879 a Yale engineer, Thomas Weston, invented the Weston Screw Load Brake, a mechanical load control brake, of which versions are still the industry standard in the USA today.
In 1877 Yale acquired the patent for the Weston pulley block and started Yale hoist production in the English Midlands. In 1920 the company started to produce forklift trucks in Germany and England. In 1938 Frank Locke, an engineer recruited from the Krupp Works in Germany, developed the Cable King hoist. The Cable King was the first large capacity electric wire rope monorail hoist and is the predecessor of the modern Cable King line sold today.
In 1983 the then owners, Eaton Corporation, sold the Yale hoist product line, creating Yale Industrial Products Inc. Columbus McKinnon subsequently acquired the company in 1998. Today Yale locks, Yale forklift trucks and Yale lifting products all carry the world famous brand name, but as part of completely different organisations.
Yale Industrial Products is headquartered in Velbert, near Düsseldorf, in Germany and has locations in England, France, Spain, Austria, Netherlands, South Africa, Thailand and China.
