Demag, which is part of Konecranes Group, has signed a contract with Daimler AG for the maintenance of four automotive plants in Germany. The contract is effective as of 2017. It includes more than 10,000 cranes and hoists, and over 23,000 load handling attachments.

The service agreement covers regular inspections and maintenance in the car plants in Sindelfingen and Bremen, and the power train assembly plants in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim and Hamburg. In these plants, more than 10,000 cranes and hoists with load capacities from 80 kg to 63 tons are used for important lifting applications along production lines and in final assembly. The safety inspections will also cover the inspection of more than 23,000 load handling attachments and lifting accessories.

The contract also includes the maintenance of car lifting platforms on the production lines in Sindelfingen and Bremen. In addition, Demag Service provides first-level support for passenger and load lifts as an option at the four plants when the lift service provider or staff are not available.

Before the contract was awarded, Demag Service presented a maintenance concept of end-to-end support and availability of the equipment in shift operation.

“This service contract is extremely important for Konecranes, which Demag now is part of,” says Panu Routila, President and CEO of Konecranes. “The service business makes almost 40 percent of our net sales and we aim to increase this part even further. With a joint Konecranes and Demag service organization we will have even stronger teams that can take care of the service of our customers’ equipment in the future.”

Harald Valler, Head of Demag Service Germany: “We are delighted about the confidence placed in us by our major customer. A service package of this size can only be delivered by a strong and experienced organisation as part of a global service network. Our highly qualified Demag service technicians will help maximizing the availability of the facilities.”
 

Konecranes is a world-leading group of Lifting Businesses™, serving a broad range of customers, including manufacturing and process industries, shipyards, ports and terminals. Konecranes provides productivity enhancing lifting solutions as well as services for lifting equipment of all makes. In 2016, Group (comparable combined company) sales totaled EUR 3,278 million. The Group has 17,000 employees at 600 locations in 50 countries. Konecranes class A shares are listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki (symbol: KCR).