Sign of the times
The global economic crisis, which began toseriously impact on the manufacturing industry last autumn, has left many suppliersscratching their heads to identify where new orders might come from. Howtimes have changed.
In 2007, La Luz container terminal on the island of Las Palmas began negotiations with a number of manufacturers to supply it with two quayside gantry cranes and six rubber-tyred gantries (RTGs), which were needed to handle a Maersk service it was confident it could attract to its facilities in 2008.
While domestic supplier Paceco España scooped the order for the two gantry cranes, it signed the contract with an order book already full to bursting. It actually built some 15 ship-to-shore cranes that year, which was quite some achievement in an era when ZPMC had come to dominate the market.
Having previously manufactured yard cranes for the terminal, it was the obvious choice as supplier of the six RTGs, too. However, Paceco simply lacked the capacity to get the RTGs to La Luz in an acceptable time frame, so the order was instead reluctantly placed with Konecranes.
Had Paceco known then what it knows today of the more rarefied business market, it would doubtless have clung to that six-strong order. Hindsight, as they say, is a beautiful thing.
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