Product Focus SPMT - John Skelly

45APRIL 2015 ACT
SPMTS PRODUCT FOCUS
John Skelly speaks to
manufacturers and users
about the versatile nature
of the SPMT.
the dock where they will be picked up
and mounted on the vessel. Once on the
vessel, the cranes will be used to load and
unload cargo and support the day-to-day
operations of the offshore company who
purchased them.
Berard’s new Generation 4 Scheuerle
SPMT was 2.4 meters wide with 1.4 meter
axle spacing, complete with electronic
steering and remote control operation.
The 44 axle lines used were a lot more
capacity than they needed. The gross
capacity of 44 axle lines is far more than
the 600 tons the pedestal crane weighed,
but the crane had a tremendously offset
center of gravity. As a result, Berard added
some length to the transporter to keep the
load secure.
“We wanted to diversify our fleet and
we’re pretty happy with it,” said Braedon
Berard, COO, Berard Transportation.
“We welcome Scheuerle’s fleet. We’ve been
utilizing them quite a bit.”
When it comes to modern marvels,
Berard holds the SPMT in high esteem.
“It’s the best piece of heavy transport
equipment that’s ever been invented,” he
said. “For as diversified as it is, anything
L
ast December Berard
Transportation purchased
their first fleet of Scheuerle
self-propelled modular transporters, or
SPMT for short. The new Generation 4
Scheuerle SPMTs were put to use almost
immediately, transporting the first two
of four 600-ton MacGregor pedestal
cranes to a storage facility at the Theodore
Industrial Port in Theodore, AL by the
end of February.
To move each crane, Berard’s crew used
44 axle lines of Scheuerle SPMT and two
power packs. The cranes were loaded onto
the Scheuerle SPMT and then traveled a
quarter of a mile to the storage facility.
There they were jacked down using 12
of Berard’s 200-ton climbing jacks. The
transport took about an hour to complete.
The third and fourth cranes will be
transported by Berard during the month
of May. Once all four cranes are in storage,
they will remain there for roughly 12
months while the vessel they’re to be
loaded on is finished being constructed.
When that time comes, Berard will
be involved in transporting the four
cranes back out of storage and over to
you can transport on paper, you can move
with an SPMT.”
Origins
Scheuerle is regarded as the inventor
of the SPMT. That is, what has become
known as the standard dimension SPMT:
8-feet wide and either four or six axle
units. According to Roland Fischer,
area sales manager for Scheuerle, these
dimensions make up about 90 percent of
the market currently. Scheuerle came up
with this model in 1983. The electronic
steering capability they became known
for was actually born out of a different
transportation innovation, shipyard
transporters, which are much wider and
longer.
The idea was to create a bigger
transporter out of small pieces to
accommodate different sized loads. One
hundred axle lines together could move a
whole oil rig, coupled end-to-end or side-
by-side, and a few axles lines could move
something much smaller.
“Anyone can build a transporter for one
need, but the idea was to have it in small
segments and put it together as you need
it,” said Fischer. “Then, as usual, different
customers came to us with different ideas.
The breaking point was people wanted to
have the technology but needed to be able
to move it, to mobilize it at a low cost, and
that was the key to success.”
The more people started to see what
the SPMT was capable of, the more it
caught on. It developed its own market,
and as cranes continued to advance
technologically, the two pieces of >46
Berard Transportation moves
a 600 ton pedestal crane at an
Alabama industrial port.
More lines,
larger capacities
24 axle lines of Goldhofer’s
PST/ES/E.
ACT 04 2015 Product Focus - SPMTs Final.indd 45 24/03/2015 12:25:00

46 ACT APRIL 2015
PRODUCT FOCUS SPMTS
equipment paired nicely on increasingly
heavier and more difficult jobs.
“Engineers would say hey, there’s this
equipment out there, there is a way to
move it,” said Fischer. “So really, together
as cranes got stronger and stronger, the
SPMTs allowed the industry to build
bigger and bigger. And they’re still
growing. Since hey, no problem, put eight
SPMTs under it instead of six.”
Reliability is what Scheuerle depends
on. If one transporter doesn’t function,
the complete system doesn’t function.
Software, then, is where SPMTs will
continue to get more advanced. As Fischer
said, you grow with your customers.
“It’s all about the software,” he said.
“You have a computer system and your
customer comes to you and says ‘Hey
we want to use it this way or that way,
we have an SPMT here and here, how
do we program them to talk?’ Software
development goes on and on and we learn
from our customers. They come with the
needs, we find a solution.”
Scheuerle has built 12,500 axle lines
of the 8-foot SPMT. Fischer, who has
been in the industry eight years, guesses
that’s about 80-85 percent of the market.
Recently they came up with an “arctic”
version that can operate in -40 F as well
as tropical conditions and a “fast” version
that can travel up to 14 mph, depending
on the payload. As well, they’ve about
doubled the capacity the 8-foot SPMT
since the 1980s.
Scheuerle is one of three companies
that belong to Transporter Industry
International (TII Group).
60 tons per axle
Cuneo, Italy-based Cometto manufactures
a line of three SPMTs, with a fourth
currently in the works. The MSPE 40T,
MSPE EVO 50T and the MSPE EVO2
60T have 40, 50 and 60-ton capacities,
respectively, and a 70-ton model has
undergone testing. All models are
interchangeable and linkable complete
with electronic steering and two options
for wireless remotes.
The MSPE EVO2 60T was released
in 2012 and is unique to Cometto.
They’ve sold more than 1,000 axle lines
of this model in three years. It offers the
maximum capacity per the 1.4mm axle
spacing configuration: 60 tons per axle.
These SPMTs are currently being used on
the Panama Canal expansion project.
Cometto MSPE EVO2 60Ts will
transport 16 new gates, each one roughly
100 feet high, 200 feet long and up to
4,000 tons. The move will cover a little
over two miles per trip.
According to Trey Little, an agent for
Cometto in the U.S., Cometto is branching
out with a handling technlogies product
line called “Cometto HT.”
“These will be smaller units, same
sort of design, but lighter capacities for
indoor spaces like warehouses,” said Little.
“Some are completely automated, they’ll
follow white stripes on the ground and
things like that. They even designed an
explosion-proof model.”
Cometto has been producing SPMTs
since the 1980s along with Scheuerle and
Goldhofer.
Flexibility pays off
Last year Goldhofer introduced electronic
steering to their 8-foot wide SPMT.
“The higher bending moment,
additional side stability, the higher speed
of operation and the usage of standard
components like tires and rims are some
of the key features of this equipment,”
said Rainer Auerbacher, area sales
manager, heavy duty modules, Goldhofer.
“Besides that, Tier IV final engines and
all the related standards are also available
nowadays.”
The SPMT market is truly global
according to Auerbacher. The demand
for equipment in Europe is comparable
to North America. As well, there are
some units in Latin American and South
America albeit far less than Europe and
North America.
“Nonetheless, huge transport companies
based in Europe and North America are
Berard purchased a fleet of Scheuerle Generation 4, 8-foot wide SPMTs in December, 2014.
>48
Cometto MSPE EVO2 60T transporting a
new gate for the Panama Canal.

48 ACT APRIL 2015
PRODUCT FOCUS SPMTS
acting worldwide,” he added. “Thus the
final work destination is not so easy to
identify and due to the long lifetime of
the equipment, the equipment is working
everywhere during its utilization period.”
Transporting SPMTs across the globe
became a bit of an issue in the 2000s.
Due to reclassification of Customs codes,
SPMTs were being charged a 25 percent
duty tax upon arrival in the United States.
This caused all sorts of problems for the
importer and exporter alike because it
wasn’t clear who was on the hook for
that large sum of money. Just recently
was it resolved and SPMTs can again be
imported duty-free.
“Luckily the change of the harmonized
code of the self-propelled equipment is
now sorted and the new code gives more
stability into the process again,” said
Auerbacher. “The unclear defined code
over the last years caused an uncertainty,
which made some decisions slower and
held back a few investment plans.”
In the past, some of these big moves now
carried out by SPMTs were done with
traditional trailers. In this day and age,
contractors have more options. The more
complicated a move is, the more likely it
is to be done by SPMT, as long as it’s not
going too far.
“The flexibility of modular systems
is unbeatable and as soon as flexibility
is required, there is no different option
for real heavy moves,” said Auerbacher.
“Surely there are different types of
equipment available in the market, which
however serves different applications and
has different requirements, but there is a
certain development that more and more
transport tasks are done with modular
equipment, which was done with different
trailers in the past.”
The SPMT technology essentially
sells itself. Goldhofer’s domestic and
international markets continue to grow.
Their axle lines can be seen all over the
world.
“The high quality of the equipment with
all its technical features together with the
performance of the people working at
Goldhofer is what sets apart Goldhofer
equipment,” said Auerbacher. “For each
transportation task, Goldhofer has an
individual solution to make the customer
successful.”
Another manufacturer pushing flexible
solutions is Faymonville out of Belgium.
Their new PowerMax modular vehicle fills
in where traditional heavy-load tractors
no longer have sufficient pulling force
to move extremely heavy loads. They
offer two different systems, the APMC
Enerpac entered the SPMT market seven years ago.
>50

50 ACT APRIL 2015
PRODUCT FOCUS SPMTS
PowerMAX and the SPMC PowerMAX.
The APMC has three modes, trailer,
assist and SPMT, while the SPMC is more
of a classic self-propelled unit. The SPMC
system is based on a user-friendly system
that includes a customizable remote. Each
operator can monitor the data that is most
important to them by configuring the
remote the way they see fit.
The newcomer
Enerpac entered the SPMT market
about seven years ago to fill a need in the
industry for compact SPMTs capable of
maneuvering in tight locations. Enerpac
SPMTs have been sold globally and
are being used in both developed and
emerging markets. They currently have
SPMTs in North America, The Middle
East, Africa and Europe.
“SPMTs are such a versatile tool and
as heavy lifting and transport projects
become more complex, new applications
are always evolving,” said Tony Johnson,
integrated solutions product manager,
Enerpac. “For example as Accelerated
Bridge Construction (ABC) has gained in
popularity so has the use of SPMTs.”
The Enerpac SPMT features a
minimized height and slim design, which
makes it easy to operate in confined spaces
and makes it a good solution for in-plant
applications. Enerpac’s SPMT customers
come from a variety of markets including
oil & gas, power generation, infrastructure
and manufacturing.
They recently updated their Intelli-Drive
wireless control system to offer greater
flexibility when customizing SPMT
configurations, as well as upgraded the
SPMT to meet strict standards for use in
nuclear power plants.
Although Enerpac is headquartered
in North America, their primary
manufacturing facility for building
Cometto’s MSPE EVO2
60T SPMT is involved
in the Panama Canal
expansion project.
The story goes like this
Importing self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs) into North America hasn’t always
been a breeze. There are Customs rulings on SPMTs going back to the early 1990s.
Initially, they were classified under the heading 8709 (the first four digits of the Customs
code), the same heading as work trucks, or trucks that are not fitted with lifting or
handling equipment. As such, SPMTs were duty-free.
In the late 1990s, Canadian importers brought forth an inquiry regarding the 8709
heading to the World Customs Organization (WCO), specifically the bit about not being
fitted with lifting or handling equipment. SPMTs actually are fitted with lifting equipment,
and when the WCO revisited the topic they reclassified SPMTs under a new heading
labeled 8427. This is the same heading used for things like fork lifts and other trucks
fitted with lifting equipment.
SPMTs remained under the 8427 heading until 2011 when once again their status was
revisited by the WCO. This time around, the WCO came to the conclusion that SPMTs
were designed to move heavy things from one place to another, and therefore should be
under the 8704 heading, for motor vehicles for the transport of goods. Unfortunately for
anyone trying to import an SPMT, this new heading brought with it a 25 percent Customs
duty.
“This posed a particular problem because Customs is supposed to give the public
a period of notice when they change the classification of these things,” said Michael
Snarr, attorney and partner at BakerHostetler in Washington D.C. “This came as a huge
surprise to the members of the SC&RA. Suddenly you’ve got a small business that’s
trying to pay a $1 million Customs duty on the spot without any notice it wasn’t going to
happen.”
Snarr approached Customs on behalf of his client, an SC&RA member, to challenge the
classification of SPMTs in U.S. ports. “We told them they didn’t have the classification
right and in addition, you’re required by law to give public notice on a change in
classification,” he said.
Once Snarr and the SC&RA raised these issues, Customs basically told them they
weren’t sure what the heading for SPMTs should be but they definitely didn’t give the
proper notice for the change. For the time being they would revert back to the old, duty-
free heading until a decision could be made.
“So I worked with Joel [Dandrea] and we got some members together and went to
customs to explain why these things aren’t motor vehicles,” said Snarr. “We showed them
a video of how SPMTs work and I think at that meeting they really saw what we were
talking about.”
So two and a half years later on Feb. 4, 2015, after all the litigation, research and
rumination, Customs issued a document that spelled out their final decision. The way they
saw it, SPMTs belonged under heading 8427, the same duty-free heading as forklifts that
they were classified under for almost a decade between the late 1990s and late 2000s.
“At a time when the country was still trying to shake off some of the economic recovery
problems, it was hard to understand why the government would put this 25 percent
tax on these machines,” said Snarr. “The SC&RA is a lot of small business, so if you’re
supporting small businesses as the backbone of the economy, you had to get this right.”
And they did. For now.
Goldhofer’s PST/ES/E.

51APRIL 2015 ACT
systems used in heavy lifting applications
(including SPMTs) is located in the
Netherlands.
“Most of our customers purchase our
SPMT for their own use but some are
open to rental,” said Johnson. “We see
this as an opportunity to build brand
awareness and to have customers
familiarize themselves with our products,
which we hope leads to greater sales.”
Enerpac is keeping a close eye on the
reclassification of the SPMT’s duty code
as well.
“Regarding the tariff charges, U.S.
Customs has decided to classify SPMTs,
for the time being, under a duty-free
code,” said Johnson. “The unique features
of SPMTs make interpretation of which
tariff code to use an interesting debate.” ■
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