IN FOCUS / HUMMA AND FREO GROUP
HUMMA’S DEVELOPMENT PLAN FINALLY PAYS DIVIDENDS Over the past 25 years, DRA Engineering has continued to develop the Humma range of pick and carry cranes following customer feedback. The Freo Group (Freo) embraced the early model Hummas, but after trialling them for some time, they were returned and it would be close to two decades before Hummas were back in the Freo fleet. Cranes & Lifting finds out. FREO IS THE LARGEST CRANE HIRE business in Australia with over 430 assets and 24 branches strategically situated around the country. The company also operates the largest fleet of articulated pick-and-carry cranes. Brothers Mike and Nic Celenza were amongst Freo’s first employees, starting with the business over 40 years ago. Here they discuss the history behind Freo’s relationship with articulated pick-andcarry cranes, including the Humma range, designed and manufactured by DRA Engineering. Mike is General Manager – Fleet and Nic is Executive General Manager within the organisation. Nic provides background information relating to Freo and to the relationship with DRA Engineering and the Humma product. “Over the years we’ve seen the Freo fleet evolve from a JEC / BHP mobile
known as, ‘Wobbly’ crane, and that’s how we first met the Linmac family; they were manufacturing and distributing the model. “The Linmac family went on to manufacture a range of pick and carries until they were forced to close their business in 1995. At that time, we had as many Linmacs in our fleet as we did Frannas. When the Linmac business closed after 30 years of building cranes, Franna took the opportunity to develop and quickly became the dominant brand,” said Nic. “Over the years, we established a good relationship with Linmac’s John Sandstrom. John advised he and a Linmac design engineer had joined the DRA Group and were working on a new range of pick and carry cranes. That’s when we were introduced to the Humma range,” . The Humma project
was launched by the DRA Group in 1996 with the first model the Humma 18. At that stage it was referred to as Road Crane (RC) 18. Peter Dalla Riva, Operations Director for DRA Engineering, takes up the story. “Freo was showing interest in the RC18 and they took three units on hire for two years. They could see Humma was a good lifter with a long boom but we knew we needed reliability to go with the performance. Each Humma 18 released was better than the previous model and Freo wanted to be part of the development process. Both Mike and Nic were initially involved with Humma 18,” said Dalla Riva. Mike Celenza speaks about the early Hummas. “Freo’s association with the product dates back to 1998 when we had Hummas in the fleet over two years.
Freo noticed a vast improvement in the Humma 35t pick and carry. 92 / CAL September 2021
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