Krandienst Schulz adds six Liebherr cranes, debuts LTM 1400-6.1

While much of the crane hire market is holding back on investment, the family-run Hamburg company is doing the opposite: expanding its workforce and renewing its fleet at the same time. Six Liebherr mobile cranes join the Schulz fleet this year, among them an LTM 1150-5.4 and, delivered at the end of September, an LTM 1400-6.1. The machines carry the company’s new slogan – ‘In Hamburg, they say Schulz’ – onto building sites across the region.

Krandienst Schulz has been in family hands for more than 50 years and now operates from three sites. Owner and managing director Günter Sichward took over what was then a small outfit with five cranes and sums up the strategy as tradition, continuity and flexibility, with staff retention – fair pay, accessibility and short lines of communication – given as much weight as the hardware.

A single-brand fleet

The company’s mobile crane fleet is exclusively Liebherr, a deliberate choice that simplifies operator training and lets dispatchers move drivers freely between machines that all work on the same control philosophy. Digital order processing and the MyLiebherr portal round out the setup.

“Service is crucial for us. If something breaks on a crane at a construction site in the middle of the night, Liebherr takes care of it straight away. Liebherr is also exceptionally well-positioned when it comes to the availability of spare parts. For us, this means short downtimes and satisfied customers.”

— Günter Sichward, owner and managing director, Krandienst Schulz

Maiden lift at the Fleethof

The new LTM 1400-6.1 showed what it can do on its first job in early October. At the Fleethof by the Stadthausbrücke, in the middle of Hamburg’s city centre, the six-axle crane replaced heat exchangers in the building’s air-conditioning plant – loads of up to 3.5 tonnes, handled on the luffing jib at a radius of 55 metres.

The units were concealed within the building’s substructure and had to be rotated on the hook before they could be eased out of position, while a high roof edge dictated the long reach. Space was just as tight on the ground: only two traffic lanes were closed, so vehicles kept flowing past parts of the site and the crane had minimal room for rigging and outrigger support.

With St Michael’s Church catching the evening light on one side and the Elbphilharmonie on the horizon, the maiden lift doubled as a statement of intent from a company that plans to keep growing from its Hanseatic home base.