Newsletter #142 (View other news stories)
THE WORLD ATTACHMENTS MARKET - PART TWO
BRISBANE, Australia
Thursday, 29 Jan 2004
Welcome to Forkliftaction.com's second and final part of this month's series on the market for forklift attachments. We've tried to cover as much of this huge market segment as possible, with the help of several industry experts and other sources.
Thank you to the experts who lent a hand, and thanks to the companies that took advantage of the opportunity to share the spotlight by advertising their products and services.
The world forklift attachments market, at its most basic, can be broken down into two categories: forklift attachments and container handling attachments.
Such a definition may be functional for the purposes of this article, but the attachments market is so varied that some manufacturers could be insulted by the generalisation.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of attachments for sale around the world for every conceivable application. If you're moving broken table legs for a living, it's likely a purpose-built attachment is somewhere out there.
A quick (and very broad) list of what's available includes sideshifters, fork positioners, toplift container spreaders, side-picking spreaders, paper roll clamps, drum handlers, carton clamps, lateral clamps, push-pulls, log clamps, rotators, bale clamps, multi-pallet handlers, and all manner of combinations of two or more of these.
All forklift attachments are borne of convenience. Manufacturers save you time, weight, money and back-ache by providing application-specific machinery suited to the needs of forklift buyers and users.
The saturation of hydraulics all those years ago meant attachments were stronger and more precise, and removed the need for manual adjustment. Similarly, the advent of computer-controlled machines and all manner of sensors mean today's attachments are smarter, safer, faster, more precise and more reliable.
Quantifying the world market is impossible without the full and honest cooperation of all manufacturers. Usually, figures like total market sales, market share and units moved are compiled and released by associations representing the market. No such organisation exists anywhere in the world for attachments companies.
While the "big three", Bolzoni Auramo, Cascade and Kaup, usually dominate the spotlight, companies like ATIB, Durwen, Hoist-Liftruck, Totall, Elme, Roncari, Liftek-Elecar, Meyer and others, also deserve a mention. See part one of Forkliftaction.com's attachments feature (link) for more information on the major companies' developments.
In the container handling forklift attachments market, the biggest privately-held company is Elme, a Swedish company established in 1974, which manufactures more than 500 spreaders a year, or 12 a week, for customers all over the world. In this market, there are plenty of products: twinlift spreaders, spreaders for 20 foot to 40 foot empty, full and partially-full containers, reachstacker spreaders, rail-mounted and rubber-tyred gantries and straddle carrier spreaders.
Elme makes forklift, reachstacker and crane spreaders, and competes mainly with forklift manufacturers, some of which manufacture their own product-specific attachments, such as Kalmar Industries. Elme has OEM arrangements with several companies, meaning its products are sold new with some Hyster, SMV, Svetruck, Fantuzzi and Clark Australia heavy forklifts.
Other manufacturers in the heavy market are Ram, Stinnis, Bromma and Toplift.
Toplift, bought out by Belgian Kalmar agent Catracom in the late 1990s, used to send 80% of its production to the USA for use on Taylor forklifts. The majority of its business remains in the USA, but Catracom does not actively market the brand, according to internal sales manager Pol Lenaerts.
"We bought the drawings, the rights to the name and some assets, and were able to manufacture a few Toplift spreaders from the machinery we bought, but it's not a focus of ours at the moment," he said.
The world forklift attachments market, like many other major manufacturing industries, is in a state of consolidation. Companies are joining others, with some being swallowed up and disappearing.
Forkliftaction.com sources suggest customers are moving towards "pallet-less" materials handling, which means a shift to clamp-style attachments and push-pulls
Buyers are also warming to time and space-saving initiatives, such as multi-pallet handlers, which are now capable of lifting and moving up to four pallets, side-by-side, simultaneously.
Push-pulls are gaining popularity, as products can be moved on thin, light, inexpensive plastic sheets, rather than pallets, saving on height and weight.
Read Forkliftaction.com News this year for developments in the world attachments market as they happen.
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