Aerial access is a market segment that makes different demands, and in many countries aerial access operators have a litany of niche requirements. The Middle East market is a little less complicated: the region’s aerial access players cater to construction and oil and gas, and they like bigger and better.
For JLG, these demands sit well with the company’s pre-existing efforts to deliver its machines ever higher, exemplified by its preview at this year’s Bauma exhibition in Munich of the 1500AJP — the world’s tallest articulating boom lift to date, with a working height of 48m.
In terms of JLG’s favoured metric, the 1500AJP has a working envelope of more than 74,000m3 of reachable space — a reflection of the machine’s aggregated functional reach in all directions — which is 60% more than the next closest articulated boom lift on the market.
Ewan MacAngus, market development director at JLG, notes: “By the nature of the work that the product is being asked to do — mainly in the construction and oil and gas sectors — the rental companies are constantly being asked to improve on their product offering, especially in the Ultra Boom range.
“The ratio of product over 18m compared to a similar developed market is high, due to the nature of the work being performed — so at the moment, it’s Ultra Booms: the 1250 is a popular model, we’re seeing success with the 1350 and 1850, and we expect a high level of success with the 1500AJP.”
The 1500AJP also has impressive horizontal outreach of 23.5m, and, critically for an articulated boom lift, an up-and-over height of 18.3m and a platform capacity of 270kg throughout the working envelope, or 450kg within a restricted working envelope.
Moreover, rhe machine’s 2.4m jib can meanwhile raise or lower through 135 degrees to provide additional reach, up-and-over capability, and position the platform independent of the main boom, as well as pivot 125 degrees horizontally to provide extra manoeuvrability.
MacAngus continues: “If you leave the market to its own devices, people pick up on an articulated boom straight away, and to that end having a 48.1m working-height articulated boom is fantastic: it is a very clever product and we expect quite a lot from it.
“The first units have still to roll off the production line, but to date we’ve taken a significant forward order on the product. Especially in the rental sector, if you’re first to the market with a product that has a big enough advantage, then you ask top dollar for it.”
The 1500AJP boom’s Quick Stick feature enables the lift to move from the ground to maximum platform height in two minutes 15 seconds and return to the ground just as quick.
The machine is also four-wheel drive with 40% gradeability and continuous 360° turntable rotation, and will be available for shipment to customers later this year.
High minded
Supporting its quality and industry leading product, JLG’s aftersales coverage in the Middle East, based out of Dubai, is an equally important pillar of its success in the region.
MacAngus notes: “Product support is a big part of our business, not only from a customer satisfaction perspective but from an income generation point of view as well — so we focus heavily on that, and I would say that, as an AWP manufacturer based in the Middle East, we have one of the largest product support teams in the region.
Jean-François Sourdoire, aftermarket director for Europe, Middle East, Africa & Russia at JLG, notes: “We have a very good presence thanks to our own team plus the team of our distributors. We are also working with customers on long-term projects to lower the cost of ownership.
“We also try to stay close to our customers to support them with training and refurbishing on the second-hand machines that end up in the Middle East market — and to make sure that machines bought in different regions comply with the local regulation and offer the lowest cost of ownership by making sure that they have the latest upgrades and updates.”
JLG is also hot on its safety, and while MacAngus admits the safety context in the region is still embryonic, he caveats that the industry in the Middle East is only 20 years old, while the process in Europe has been going on for over 40 years and is still not the finished article. Nonetheless, he notes that safety organisations like IPAF are having a positive impact with their efforts to lobby regional governments to get behind safety requirements such as operator training and mandatory machine inspections.
MacAngus adds: “We are investing heavily, adding people and systems, upgrading and working close to our customers. Safety is a work in progress anywhere in the world, and in particular in the Middle East, where we have such a mix of customers and applications, but we are in the safety industry and apply the same standards in the region, and support our customers in the same way as we do in the rest of the world.”
Expanding horizons
Beyond the high and mighty machines in the construction and oil and gas — a segment that JLG undoubtedly already has covered — the key areas of opportunity for the manufacturer are the sectors that the market is neglecting, like the industrial sector, warehousing and logistics and facilities management in structures with expansive internal spaces, like shopping malls, hotels and airports.
Jonathan Dawson, senior sales director for sales Europe, Middle East, Africa & Russia at JLG, adds: “Things like compact crawlers are having some success — they’re a good maintenance tool for shopping malls, hotel atriums and that kind of applications that are omnipresent in the region.”
JLG employs two main routes to market: traditional third-party distribution, and the equipment rental sector.
Looking up
MacAngus notes: “In the rental sector, recent market feedback has been good: utilisation appears to be picking up, there’s the solid indication of an increase in rates in the market and rental companies are looking to exit old product, necessitating new purchases, and I see that as being an investment through to 2020, when the units will be coming up to five years — so they’re long-term investments.
“The feedback we’re getting from the UAE, Kuwaiti and Qatari markets is encouraging, and there are project-based opportunities in Oman that traditionally get covered by UAE-based companies.”
JLG has also witnessed recent signs of shift into smaller aerial access products, promoted by rising labour costs and a definite move away from labour-intensive access methods like scaffolding towers.
Another successful JLG product in Europe is the Toucan range, and it has recently been arriving in the Middle East, where the major supermarket chains like Carrefour and Géant are using the product.
The combination of vertical booms and horizontal jibs can exceed the horizontal outreach of smaller Z-shaped boom lifts in confided spaces, like shops and warehouses.
MacAngus comments: “We’ve got a really broad range of products that can assist in these and other facilities management applications, and it’s really just a case of getting the customer in front of the product. And that’s best done through the people who are already touchpoints in the market.
“Now the rental companies have picked up on them, as the T12 plus has actually got more outreach than some articulated booms in the same height category.
