PALFINGER crane Austria, Germany, USA, United States, South-Africa, North-America, Asia - manufacturer and distributor of hydraulic lifting, loading and handling systems worldwideGwechenberger/Oberreiter

What role did the service division play in the development of the new High Performance crane
generation and what impact has the new crane series had on PALFINGER's worldwide service?

KO: In a regular quality circle of service, development and quality assurance staff, we discuss requests and ideas from the market, pass them on and integrate them in continuous product development. Thus as direct representatives for the market, the service team was always on board during the making of the new crane series. Our requests in respect of ease of servicing and maintenance were incorporated as expected in the design of the "High Performance" generation.

With regards to the provision of spare parts, well-thought out development of the parts' structural design was a major concern for us so that we could guarantee to keep the parts in stock and ensure a gap-free supply of spare parts vis-à-vis our partners atsensible prices, in sound quality and in sensible packaging – within 24
hours.

BG: The top priority in the development of the new "High Performance" crane generation was that the operability
of the models would remain as easy and manageable, as self-evident and intelligible as possible despite the
enhanced technologies.

The new cranes represent new challenges for us in the areas of documentation, software and training:
The new crane series goes hand in hand with a new type of documentation. The operating instructions have
been given a face-lift; their graphics and processing will be reduced, simpler and thus easier to understand.
In future, the spare parts catalogue will be generated according to model version and not crane type as before. It will be possible to call up all documents by serial number in the Extranet.

The necessary data will be available at the same time as the model launch in our customer-oriented PALSOFT
software products (these are our online documentation Patis-Online, our calculation programmmes PacWin.NET and PAF in addition to our diagnostic software PALDIAG).

This will ensure that our dealers and customers have access to a complete range of information.

Furthermore, the new crane series will bring in its wake a wave of training courses relating in this case
primarily to the new technologies, especially in the area of new electronics for large cranes. These will be
delivered in our demo centres or on site at the dealer's premises. We are prepared!