Manitowoc Expands Aftermarket Support with Rapid Response Shop
Manitowoc has bolstered its customer support operations by expanding its Rapid Response Shop in North America. The enlarged facility draws on the broader resources of the company’s largest manufacturing facility, in Shady Grove, Pa. It supports all of the company’s brands — Manitowoc, Grove, Potain, and National Crane — offering fast structural and component repair services for equipment that is too large or complex to handle in the field.
Offerings from the Rapid Response Shop include fabricated components; lacings for crawler cranes, tower cranes, and mobile crane jibs; and structural component repair and refurbishment. Same-day emergency lacing orders are available, while standard delivery times are 24 hours for unpainted lacings and 48 hours for painted lacings. Producing fabricated components via the Rapid Response Shop also means faster turnaround for customers.
Equipment at the facility includes expanded cutting capabilities, as well as machining, bending, prep, and paint capabilities. That means faster customer response for out-of-commission cranes and a clear option when weighing repair versus replacement.
“The expansion of the Rapid Response Shop gives customers direct access to Manitowoc’s factory expertise — the welders, technicians, engineers and support teams who understand these machines from the inside out. It reflects a broader commitment to supporting customers throughout the full lifecycle of their cranes, with factory-backed resources that keep their equipment working and productive long after it leaves the production line,” said Josh Garrington, director of product support for parts and EnCORE.
Expanded capabilities
The shop now has expanded lacing-cutting capability, with two machines staffed across two shifts, as well as large plasma, laser, and oxy-fuel cutting tables. Additional capabilities include CNC equipment, milling, lathe, and boring mill resources, press brake capability up to 900 USt, and multiple blast, wash, prep, and paint areas. The team at the facility combines decades of experience; the average tenure of Manitowoc employees in the Rapid Response Shop is more than 20 years.
The expansion has also helped Manitowoc make the repair process more efficient for customers. The Rapid Response Shop has more clearly defined workflows, while its location inside the Shady Grove facility gives the team direct access to the broader factory when additional resources are needed. The shop can operate as a dedicated repair hub, while still drawing on the people, tooling, fixtures, and manufacturing expertise of Manitowoc’s largest facility.
“We looked at what customers need when a crane or component requires more than a field repair, and the answer was to put more of Manitowoc’s resources directly behind that work," said Garrington. "We are giving our customers a direct path back to Manitowoc and the support only an OEM can provide.”
To learn more about the expanded Rapid Response Shop, contact your local Manitowoc Parts & Service team, or email [email protected].
Source: Manitowoc
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.