The demise of high reach innovator Rusch marks the end of an era
There was a time when it seemed like the party would never end. Work was plentiful, margins were healthy, and the global demolition industry looked ever upward. It was a trend that was marked most notably by the race for the biggest high reach machine; a kind of mechanical penis envy that saw machines rise from 30 to 60 and ultimately to 90 metres in just a few short years.
But the party did end. And so began the hangover.
The global recession invited upon us by greedy bankers and misguided politicians served up a large-scale reality check to remind demolition contractors that size doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as utilisation levels.
And the Rusch TUHD90, all 90 metres of it, personified that hangover. Lauded as an engineering triumph upon its launch, the machine ultimately did less work than a benefit scrounger. Engineering issues, a long-running wrangle between manufacturer and customer, a dearth of contracts requiring 90 metres of reach, and a scarcity of operators sufficiently competent to handle such a monster combined to make the TUHD90 a sad and overly ambitious mobile memorial to those heady pre-recession days.
Certainly, the TUHD90 was not perfect; far from it. But that is the nature of innovation. That is why the iPhone was not the first ever mobile phone; and that is why very few of us still drive Model T Ford motor cars.
Every field of human endeavour requires a person to push the envelope; someone bold, brave and even foolhardy enough to go where no man has gone before. Ruud Schriejer of Rusch is just such a man.
Want proof? While most of us looked on in horror as the BP Deepwater Horizon platform spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Schreijer was at his drawing board devising a submersible demolition shear that could shut off the gushing pipeline.
Sadly, with innovation comes risk. And although the machine that unexpectedly shed its counterweight killing fellow pioneer Ad Swanink back in January 2011 was not the same machine that originally rolled out of the Rusch factory, the mud stuck and the Rusch name was tarnished, perhaps irrevocably, from that moment on.
The company did bounce back with the launch of the RS 4500 high reach, a machine that promised to move Rusch from bespoke modifier to “volume producer” status. But, even though the machine was a contender in the 2012 Demolition Awards, the high capital cost price of the unit coupled with an ongoing global recession was ultimately to sound the death knell for the company that had come to prominence in markedly better times.
When the gates close for the last time on Monday, Schreijer and his family will have lost their business, and some very talented designers and engineers will have lost their jobs. And the industry will have lost another innovator and pioneer.
Demolition will be poorer for their demise.
