09.05.2007

MinnPar buys Grove-Manlift parts business

MinnPar, a subsidiary of PartsZone LLC, has agreed to purchase the rights to manufacture and sell service and replacement parts for all models of Grove Manlift aerial work platforms from Manitowoc. Manlift parts will be handled with the help of the company’s sister company, Parts for Lifts in Pennsylvania.

Manitowoc will transfer all blueprints, engineering drawings, parts inventories, customer and supplier lists, and transactional records to Minnpar and refer all customer requests in North America directly to it. Minnpar will source and stock purchased parts and manufacture or outsource Grove built items.

MinnPar has been offering manufacturers an aftermarket parts management service for non-core and discontinued product lines since 1982. In total around 75,000 Manlift booms and scissor lifts were built, originally by Selma Manlift, in California which became part of Grove in 1979 with all production moving to Grove’s Shady Grove facility in 1985.

Manitowoc sold the Manlift product range to JLG in 2004 which promptly discontinued production of the Grove models, but continues to produce the Toucan mast boom range, built in Tonneins France and the Lift-Lux heavy duty scissor lift line which is now built in the company’s Belgian plant.

Since then Manitowoc has continued to supply parts for the Grove machines, with JLG tending to handle the Toucan and Lift-Lux parts through its ongoing production.

We understand that in Europe the Manitowoc parts operation will continue to stock and offer Grove-Manlift parts, sourcing them from MinnPar. While in North America all buyers will automatically be referred to MinnPar.

"Our value proposition is a true win-win for Manlift customers and for Manitowoc," said PartsZone CEO Shirish Pareek. "Our main business is to cost-effectively manage the service parts business for industry leaders such as Caterpillar, Allis Chalmers, Borg Warner, and now Manitowoc for its Grove Manlift line of aerial work platforms".

"Our focus on service parts allows the OEM to focus its attention on improved performance and customer service for current and core product lines. We provide exceptional technical and parts support to our dealers worldwide."

"We chose to partner with MinnPar because of their proven track record for customer service," said Larry Weyers of Manitowoc. "Their technical and customer support expertise ensures that current or future generation owners of industry-leading Grove Manlift aerial work platform equipment will have continued availability of genuine OEM replacement parts they have come to expect."

Vertikal Comment

This move makes sense for Manitowoc, three years on from the sale to JLG, business for consumable bought-in items would have started to drift away to other parts supplliers leaving Manitowoc to produce the captive parts, largely structural components. Producing and stocking such items with ever smaller volumes is both expensive and - given demands on production space - disruptive.

With a number of its crane customers also owning Manlift booms, any slip in performance on captive Manlift parts would have refelcted poorly on the company overall. By passing the responsibility on to a well established reputable third party Manitowoc will both satisfy its customers and exit a business that would have eventually become an irritant by which time it would have also had no commercial value.

For MinnPar with its aerial lift business already offering parts for obsolete lifts such as Simon, Calavar and Marklift it could introduce a new range of customers which might have an interest in its other offerings.

As MinnPar says, this is probably a Win Win situation for all interested parties.