The crane firm from Fürth, in Bavaria, replaced a competitor’s 55-tonne machine with an LTM 1060-3.1, and now runs one brand across the yard
Richard Kölch & Sohn, a family crane company based in Fürth, near Nuremberg in Bavaria, has taken delivery of a Liebherr LTM 1060-3.1. The 60-tonne machine replaces a 55-tonne crane from another manufacturer, and with it the firm completes a switch of its entire mobile crane fleet to a single brand, carried out in about two years.
That last detail is the interesting one. Individual crane purchases say little; converting a whole fleet inside two years is a deliberate strategy, and the reasons a crane hire firm gives for it are usually more revealing than any load chart.
The three-axle crane carries a 48-metre telescopic boom, and the company describes the 60-tonne class as indispensable to its work: precast construction, general building, industrial projects and machinery assembly inside production halls.
“In our view, a crane in the 60-tonne lifting capacity class is now indispensable. The new crane fits perfectly into our range of services and enables us to carry out jobs even more efficiently and flexibly,” says managing director Alexander Kölch.
The combination cited is the familiar one for this segment: enough capacity to be worth mobilising, compact enough for confined sites and inner-city work, where a bigger machine cannot be set up at all.
The reason given for standardising is not price. It is the control system. Liebherr’s LICCON concept is shared across its mobile cranes, which means an operator moving between machines in the fleet finds the same logic in the cab.
For a company running four mobile cranes with a pool of operators, that removes a daily friction: any operator can take any machine without a familiarisation period. Kölch also points to more efficient maintenance, which follows from the same standardisation.
“We are impressed by the overall package, from expert sales support and high product quality to reliable customer service,” says Alexander Kölch.
Single-brand fleets are a recurring pattern in crane hire, and this is a clean example of the mechanism. The first purchase is decided on the machine; the second and third are decided on operators, spare parts and service already being in place. Each new crane raises the cost of switching back.
Founded in 1977, Kölch will mark its 50th anniversary in 2027. Its fleet of around 40 vehicles includes four mobile cranes: the new LTM 1060-3.1 alongside an LTM 1090-4.2, an LTM 1230-5.1 and an MK 88-4.1 mobile construction crane.
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