
Hiab opened a sales and service depot on Halesowen Road in Dudley, West Midlands, for business on Tuesday (3 July) – a key part of its plans to take a larger share of the UK tipper grab sector.
The 1,860m2 site will initially be home to 10 staff, with plans to increase this number to 30. It will carry an inventory of spare parts.
Hiab will also offer a range of services out of Dudley, from equipment inspection to preventive maintenance and breakdown support, across contracts ranging from three to eight years. It means Hiab can service equipment either directly from Halesown Road, or via its fleet of field service technicians based at the same site.
Rogier van der Linde, MD of Hiab (UK and Ireland) - pictured centre left alongside Dudley service manager Chris Griffin - said the decision to invest in the sales and service depot was led by its strategy of delivering products that rise to “the challenges of delivering in urban environments”.
“Our customers must keep their equipment on the road to stay competitive, and our job is to maximise the uptime of that equipment and to make sure the customer is safe to go on the road.
“We are ambitious to grow our business, and our new West Midlands depot will play a very large part in that growth strategy,” he said.
Two apprentices from Dudley College will also be based at the depot, with van der Linde saying he hoped they would be the first of many as the industry met the challenge of the skills shortage.
This is the second sales and service depot opened this year by the UK market leader in truck-mounted lift trucks, skip and hook loaders and truck-mounted cranes.
In May Hiab opened the first of eight planned centres in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire.
In April it launched its Moffett M5 NX truck-mounted forklift, with a lifting capacity of 2,500kg, at the CV Show.
- Francy grabbing hold of some Hiab? We've got plenty mounted to a whole variety of trucks!