25.05.2007

Record results for Instant/Zip-Up

UpRight International, the alloy tower business that manufacturers Instant, Zip-Up and UpRight access towers has increased its revenues by 60 percent in less than two years.

Sales of the company’s towers and other light alloy access products, has reached €24 million for the 12 months to the end of March 2007, up from €15 million for the fiscal year ended June 30th 2005.

The company is forecasting €30 million of revenues by 2008.

General manager, John Nevin says that the company is in the process of gearing up to handle the projected growth levels while sustaining lead times that are acceptable to the marketplace.
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The UI senior managers: L-R (Back) Paul Elson, Arne Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Pat Kennelly and Noel Corcoran (front) Frank Thornton, Liam Geraghty and John Nevin

The changes include investment in new equipment, an additional 20 production staff and a second shift at the company’s Dublin plant. As a result if this output capacity of scaffold tower frames has risen from 8, 000 a month to between 14,000 and 16,000.

The company is also aiming to build up a “buffer stock” of tower components by the third quarter in order to both satisfy unscheduled orders and to reduce its lead times to between two to four weeks throughout the year.

UpRight also says that demand of its powder coated rental company brand of towers has increased to the point where it now represents almost 50 percent of production. Series production of painted towers only began in 2003.
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Around 50% of UI's towers are now pre-painted in customer colours

UpRight and UpRight
UpRight International sold its powered access business to Tanfield in June 2006, that deal also included the company’s distribution companies, in the USA and Japan. Since then Tanfield has become a UI tower distributor in those markets. Nevin says that this relationship is proving to be beneficial to both parties, with orders for over $1.5 million received from Tanfield in the past quarter.

Vertikal Comment

It is amazing to see how strongly the market for alloy scaffold towers continues to grow, UI is clearly enjoying a very prosperous period now that it is focusing on non-powered access.
Other companies, such as Youngman, Eurotower and Eiger/Pop-Up are also experiencing excellent results.

All this as the powered access market achieves record production levels and new levels of market penetration. On the surface it would be easy to assume that new low level access products, such as the Pop-Up push-around lift, Bravi Leonardo and Genie Runabout not to mention UpRight TM12 and JLG 1230ES are replacing scaffold towers.

Sales of towers are though at an all time high, while a strong economy and high levels of construction combined with work at height directives has created a larger ‘access market’ this does not explain the boom in tower sales.

The fact is that users must be moving away from standing on chairs, ladders and steel scaffold to more efficient and in some cases safer forms of access. The big question is how many users will then move on from towers to smaller powered access machines mentioned above?

Anticipating these trends must be at the top of the tower producers concerns as they add capacity.