26.07.2006

Hewden crane strategy

Following the announcement on July 20 that Hewden will change its crane hire strategy in October this year, Pam Penny of Vertikal.Net spoke with Mark Hierons, Hewden’s head of cranes about what lies ahead for the company’s crane hire business and its employees.

Mention ‘reorganisation’ and people think ‘cut-backs’, so is the new Hewden crane strategy simply a case of ‘cutting the cloth’ or a new focus for sustaining business growth?

The practice behind the theory.

From October this year, Hewden will centralise its crane rental business with the introduction of three Regional Operation Centres in Edinburgh, Castleford and Heathrow. Each will be headed up by a regional operations manager and according to Hierons, a “robust hire desk”.

The Edinburgh operation will cover the North East of England and Scotland, Castleford will cover Birmingham and the north, while the Heathrow operation will cover the South of the country.

Until now of course, Hewden has operated its crane business from twelve depots each with its own depot manager and hire controllers. Whilst redundancy seems likely for a number of the staff, Hierons is keen to point out “there will be no depot closures”, in fact “cranes will based out of more locations”.

Hierons is fully engrossed at this time in the consultation process with staff and in recreating three senior positions and a number of supervisory posts. He says that he is keen to ‘empower’ people who can relocate and take up posts at the three regional centres.

So how will the customers fare?

What does the new strategy mean for Hewden’s customers? Will its crane business now be merged with Hewden Rental Stores?

“No, the crane hire business will not merge but continue to run as ‘One Hewden’ and run from three hire desks instead of twelve” responded Hierons.

Obviously for customers sourcing cranes over 100 tonnes, re-hire partners of Hewden come to the fore. Commercial agreements are in place according to Hierons but there are too many partners to name.

Hewden to place new crane order.

Although as at 4pm today, “no deal for new cranes has been finalised with suppliers”. Hewden customers look certain to benefit from the addition of new equipment during 2006. Details of the order placed will be announced shortly.