Spotlight on the crane industry

Photo: Deane Manley.

As all industries struggle with uncertainty in the face of recession, Deane Manley, the President of the Crane Association, talks candidly with  Mary Searle Bell about the challenges for his sector.

What shape is the crane industry in, Deane?

We’re at the tail end of a significant lull. Fortunately, most crane businesses have weathered the downturn well but there have been redundancies. No one’s gone under – crane companies don’t usually fold; we seem to be able to manage somehow.

Those who have been in the game for a while have diversified their customer base and machinery to help manage the ups and downs of the construction industry cycle – this is just another quiet phase in the usual boom-bust cycle that we operate in.

However, the last few months of the year will be the toughest yet. I know in my business we’ve made massive cuts to the overhead structure to reduce costs. Other companies have used natural attrition to help downsize.

What has led to this lull in business?

It’s the same-old same old. We’re cursed by a short pipeline of projects, which means there’s no stability in the industry.

We go from a state of going well, where we’re furiously trying to catch up and save up for the next lull in the cycle, to having very little on. And unfortunately, particularly in Auckland, it doesn’t seem we have saved enough for this downturn.

It’s difficult having big infrastructure projects on one minute then off the next, and it leaves us scrapping over the small stuff.

Things boomed from late 2020 following the initial shock of the pandemic, however, in mid-2023, high-inflation and then the change of government, talk of austerity and managed spending saw work start to dry up. By November that year, some crane companies saw their workload drop by 30 percent from the three months prior.

We’re in a severe down cycle at the moment, with many businesses simply hanging out for 2025 when things should improve – ‘survive till 2025’ is the mantra for some, but that either just highlights the boom-bust mentality we are stuck in or our magpie-like attraction to shiny buzzwords like ‘pivot’ and ‘resilience’.

It’s a global issue, but in New Zealand, the crane industry feels it more as we’re connected to every industry. It’s not just the shortage of infrastructure and building projects – there are no movies being made, so no cranes hired for that; no cruise ships visiting, so no cranes needed to load supplies or service lifeboats; and the America’s Cup is not coming back, so no work there either. It’s not just our industry that’s suffering from a lack of long-term planning.

And it’s the same when we’re busy – we have a short-term boom cycle where we run around mad, being greedy, waiting for the next bust.

Following Covid, rather than having a government that stimulates the economy by investing in infrastructure, we had one that doled out stimulus cash. This was like a sugar rush – it was like giving the country a Red Bull – it felt good for a few minutes then it was gone.

Is it the same over the whole country?

Everyone is doing it tough, but some provincial pockets have been decimated. For example, Taranaki is screwed with the cancellation of all power projects; and in Hawke’s Bay, the rebuild work keeps getting turned off and on again.

Industry is also heavily dependent on a tendering at the lowest possible price model, and we know that’s just a race to the bottom. It’s been happening for years – I remember Ian Roebuck back when he was in short pants complaining about it. Nothing’s changed. (Actually, I don’t remember Ian in figurative short pants, that was before my time.)

While the up and down cycle is one we know well, honestly, it’s the worst it’s ever been. Some people are really hurting. One of my guys was at a truck wash recently and there was a guy there in his truck crying because things were so bad.

So, what’s the solution?

We need certainty and stability.

We need to follow the example Australia is setting. They have an overarching infrastructure programme, free from political whims and vanity projects, which allows them to build the things they need. As a result, the crane industry there is able to plan ahead and invest in people and equipment.

If I were to order a new crane today, it’s going to take 18 months to two years to get here, possibly three. That’s a huge investment, so we need to be able to look at a work programme that extends beyond next week.

We’re also wasting money by not doing projects fully the first-time round. Look at the Puhoi to Wellsford project. Here’s a project with huge set-up costs – tens of millions of dollars – and rather than continuing the project all the way to Warkworth, we stopped and dismantled everything and took it away. When we finally get around to finishing this road, we’ll have to pay all those set-up costs again.

But we’re in a hell of a mess and it’s going to take a while to sort things out – but no one’s really got the balls to make it happen in the short term. We simply need to invest in infrastructure and get on with building stuff.

The new government will start doing things, but nothing will happen this year or next for the crane industry. Announcements about large projects such as the Roads of National Significance have had minimal impact due to the significant planning that needs to occur before the projects get out of the ground and a crane gets anywhere near site. So much so that these projects will only exist on paper into the next government term and, without cross-party agreement, they are at risk if the government changes again

It’s going to be expensive to get these big projects going, but it’s money into the economy and money into communities. We need to invest in the country’s infrastructure – it’s in a shocking state – and we need to reduce the compliance requirements and red tape needed to do business.

What’s up with crane training?

Training is in a bit of a vacuum at the moment. The qualifications review has some exciting things happening after years of the crane industry being ripped off by years of poor training.

Years ago, the crane industry had its own ITO and, rightly or wrongly, we were railroaded into merging with other ITOs in the 1990s in the hopes of improving industry training as a whole.

Unfortunately, we didn’t see anything come out of it for cranes. No new training material was developed, and we didn’t even see our literacy and numeracy problems addressed.

The ITO was basically making money out of training and not re-investing all of it back into the industries it was supposed to be serving. When Skills was wound up in 2022, it had over $40 million in assets which was hived off into a ‘foundation’. They took our money and gave us the bare minimum, if that, and, in my personal opinion, that’s basically theft.

In the last couple of years our qualifications have had a revamp, but we still have a lot of people in our industry who haven’t had any training since they got their outdated National Certificates back in 1997.

We’re currently setting up a PTE (private training establishment) with the port sector. PCANZ (the Port and Crane Academy of New Zealand) is NZQA registered and has the primary purpose of delivering high-quality and industry-relevant training programmes for cranes, ports, and allied sectors.

A new board of directors and a chief executive have been appointed, and training has begun, but it’s early days yet. We’ve had lots of support from WDC (Waihanga Ara Rau) on the revamp of qualifications and on addressing quality issues in training.

Our industry needs the gold standard in training, not the previous training that was inflicted upon us.

Once again, we need to look across the ditch to see how it’s done. For many years we sat on our laurels and watched Australia take off, developing operator competency assessments and creating proper training materials. Here, we have a bunch of volunteers giving hours and hours of their own time – it’s not the same. It’s like the difference between a local league team and an NRL team.

For years, I’ve been staggered that you don’t need a license to operate a crane. All you need to meet the ACoP is a couple of unit standards, and you can drive a crane. There’s a lot of people out there with the minimum qualifications but not the base knowledge, experience, and competency they really need.

You need a forklift license to drive one of those, but there’s no crane license? That’s insane.

We’re fortunate technology is on our side. You no longer need to know what’s on the end of your hook – the computer is doing all the work for you. So many operators don’t really know what’s happening and their on-board computers are saving them from themselves.

Previously, cranes would tip over or have structural failures, but now a lot of this is prevented by electronics. This means more people with less training can theoretically do stuff, and some of the shorter-sighted crane owners will exploit this and chase the immediate dollar.

But this is more reason to have a crane license; no licensing is just stupid. The world has evolved in so many ways that you can’t just always assume that because the cranes cost so much money, you’d have to be stupid to let an unqualified operator drive one.

Some people in the industry have preferred to let things be as it’s much easier, and to be honest, the government couldn’t handle having to license all crane operators. I’m trying to get my truck license at present and I’ve been looking for somewhere to sit my test. I started in Kaitaia and worked my way down to Palmerston North and I couldn’t find a spot available until December 2 – a three month wait.

What about health and safety regulations?

Along with crane licensing, health and safety prequalification is my personal bent. When I was asked to become association president, I told the board that this is a key area that I want us to focus on.

The health and safety regulations for the sector, PECPR (Pressure Equipment, Cranes and Passenger Ropeways), is out of date – they were written in 2001 and last reviewed in 2009. They’re simply not fit for purpose, given the technology advancement in the crane industry and the significant development in the variety of lifting devices available now.

We were promised changes – these were announced five years ago, and a huge effort and input was given by industry – but nothing has happened. The government has consistently missed its own deadlines and industry has been left waiting.

The Approved Code of Practice for Cranes also needs something to supersede it and has done for years. We were due to review it but the new regulations around plant and structures and working at heights were coming up, but then that didn’t happen, so that’s something else that’s been missed.

Health and safety is a huge priority for industry, but there’s a difference between the rules and how they are put into practice.

The out-of-date regulations make compliance difficult and complex. It’s easy to push the envelope if you want to. If you want to subvert the system you can – of course, this will seriously jeopardise safety or allow someone an unfair advantage if they want to work the system.

Despite all the motherhood statements being made about health and safety, the noise around it is often distracting from good practice or giving people a false sense of security and the belief that paperwork is going to save them.

However, having a crane industry prequalification to grade a company’s health and safety capability would help flush a lot of this dodgy practice out. Everyone would then be working on a level playing field and the health and safety of our people would be prioritised.

Our industry would have the opportunity to develop relevant, mature, and robust safe working cultures together through continual improvement and best practice. It would also save businesses a huge amount of time, money, and effort by not having to comply with every customer prequalification.

Clients are imposing prequalification on suppliers regardless, so the Crane Association has decided to go ahead and provide updated guidance to the industry based on best practice, where possible (i.e., doesn’t contradict out-of-date regulations).

We hope to combine this with crane-specific qualifications, like a safety system with a crane endorsement. That way we have the gold standard for safety that should trump any prequalification requirements imposed on us.

Deane Manley

Deane has spent over two decades as Managing Director of NZ Crane Hire, one of the industry’s leading crane hire specialists. 

He holds a NEBOSH International General Certificate in Occupational Health & Safety and is well-versed in all aspects of workplace health and safety. In addition to setting up ‘Risk Ready,’ Deane is a Director and the owner of Rendertech, Australasia’s leading manufacturer of waste processing equipment for the meat and dairy industries. Since 2009 he has also been a Director of Kawerau Engineering and helps to run a medium-sized logging operation in the Bay of Plenty with his daughter and son-in-law.

Prior to founding NZ Crane Hire, Deane spent 14 years in the financial sector heading up senior roles with UDC and GE Capital, including five years as New Zealand Manager for GE Capital. Deane has kept an active interest in the financial sector through involvement with Armillary Private Capital, and his boutique finance company Equipment Capital, which is a licensed broker for Speirs Finance.

Deane has also served on Executive Councils of the NZ Contractors Federation of NZ, Wellington, Hawkes Bay, and Auckland Branches; the Elevating Work Platform Association of NZ (Founding President); Certification Board for Inspection Personnel (EWP’s); SiteSafe NZ; and Opportunity ITO – Crane Industry ITO.