Swiss civil engineering company JMS RISI has added three new Liebherr machines to its fleet, including the first LTM 1100-5.3 mobile crane to be delivered in Switzerland.
The family-run company secured the equipment package at the Bauma construction machinery exhibition in Munich. Alongside the crane, JMS RISI also purchased an LB 45 drilling rig and a 110 D-K crawler concrete pump. All three machines are now in operation.
The new five-axle crane was handed over at Liebherr’s facility in Reiden, Lucerne, and then went straight to its first job at a site in Hagendorn in the canton of Zug.
“At the start of August, our crane operators spent three days at Liebherr, learning about the equipment,” said Werner Brunner, construction manager for pile drivers and hydraulic engineering at JMS RISI. “We’ll be using the mobile crane exclusively for work done within our own company. We are not a classic crane hire company. We will be using the LTM 1100-5.3, among other things, for loading and unloading work, lifting ships and pontoons and for any other recurring crane work on our construction sites and in our gravel plants.”
The LB 45 drilling rig has already been put to work on a major construction site near Laufenburg, on the Swiss-German border. The project involves drilling around 600 piles to a depth of 32 metres with diameters up to 1.2 metres, in preparation for excavating half a million cubic metres of soil. The site will house a technology centre featuring a large battery store and an artificial intelligence data hub, which will play a key role in supplying power to Switzerland and Europe.
“Not only is our new LB 45 drilling rig working on this major construction site,” said Daniel Schuler, construction manager at JMS RISI, “but an LRB 355 and a HS 850 cable excavator from Liebherr are in operation here too.”
Daniel said the company now relies exclusively on Liebherr for deep foundation projects. “Since the start of 2024 alone, we have purchased two new LRB machines and two LB machines. Since we had to replace the last drilling rig from another manufacturer a few years ago, we have only had Liebherr machines in our fleet for the major drilling projects in special civil engineering.”
JMS RISI is one of the largest civil engineering and deep foundation contractors in Switzerland. The company’s services also include demolition, concrete production, transport, landfill operations, and hydraulic and river engineering. It employs around 370 people across its various Swiss locations.
