Sydney crane hire business Borger Cranes recently took delivery of a new 20t KATO City Cranes, thanks to the reliability and performance of other KATO models in the Borger fleet.
For nearly 40 years Borger Cranes have been providing lifting and rigging services to the greater Sydney, NSW and interstate construction sectors. With over 70 cranes and depots in Sydney and Newcastle, its fleet of crawler and all terrain mobile cranes is capable of lifts from 3t to 600t.
Employing 300 staff, the company is owned and run by the Borger family, and brothers Shawn and Nathan, who pride themselves on their fleet of cranes which features the newest models of most of the major brands on the market. “We work hard to provide the customer with the right lift with the right crane,” Nathan Borger said. “And, we have a wide range of cranes to be able to provide this service.
“We are also very safety focused and offer additional OH&S/EHS to our clients. We also have four full-time draftsmen/engineers managing our AutoCAD design specialist solutions in-house, and out clients benefit from these as well,” he said.
Borger cranes are operating somewhere in NSW every day in sectors including infrastructure, renewable energy, mining and general construction.
The fleet is continually being added to meet specific customer requirements and two recent additions were KATO 20t City Cranes. “Close to 20 years ago we had two 22t KATOs in the fleet and they performed well. Then a couple of years ago we added two new KATO CR200Rfs and, more recently, another two, so we’re now operating four KATO City Cranes. We use these for the smaller end of the infrastructure work we have, but we mainly focus them on the construction business,” he said.
“We’ve found the KATO to be a really reliable crane. We haven’t had any technical issues and we like the Japanese approach to engineering and manufacture of the crane, it’s full of traditional Japanese values.”
The KATO CR200Rf 20t city crane features a number of new technologies designed to make the crane more operable in city type applications. The newly developed jib system makes for an easy and efficient jib operation and the latest Automatic Crane System (ACS) and various monitor cameras (as optional extra equipment) are available to provide safer crane operations.
The KATO CR220Rf boom features six sections and is hydraulically telescopic, with a length of 6.5m to 28m and a maximum lifting height of 29.1m. It also has a fly and needle with a maximum lift height of 34.8m.
“It’s also a very handy crane for the Sydney market where we find many of the jobs have challenges like tight and compact spaces to operate in. The KATO has a tight tail swing and is a very compact crane. The operators like them and they are nice and easy to operate on site,” Borger said.
The cab is designed with the operator in mind with a roomy wide cab, comfortable reclining seat and wide foot space. The slanted boom provides a wider view of the work site. Various safety monitor cameras assist with safer operations and driving.
Features also include ACS with a touch panel, colour information display, which the operator can use to save on fuel consumption by checking the working time on the display. The ECO switch controls the engine speed during operation as well during driving. Up to 10% energy savings can be made compared with regular driving on flat roads. “The KATOs are out there all day everyday doing their job, doing what we bought them for and doing it well,” Borger said.