What's in a name?

It has come to the editor's attention that the distinction may not always be clear between the names of some crane manufacturers.

Confusion has arisen due to the similarity between the names of three Chinese crane companies that include “Fushun.” Compounding the issue is that two of the companies manufacture lattice boom crawler cranes and both paint them red.

A common way to name companies in many parts of the world is to include the name of the town where the company is based: New York Crane, London Tower Cranes, etc. It is the same in this case with name of the Chinese city of Fushun. The two crawler crane companies are Fushun Excavator Corporation Ltd and Fushun Engineering Machinery Company Ltd.

Fushun Excavator Corporation is China's largest manufacturer of crawler cranes by number of units and its claimed output of around 450 units last year put it in second or third place in the world.

Fushun Engineering Machinery Company is a smaller crawler crane manufacturer most recently in the news (www.khl.com 18 January) as the subject of a takeover – and this may compound things even further – by Chinese tower crane manufacturer Fushun Yongmao Construction Machinery Company Limited.

So, in summary, Fushun Excavator Corporation Ltd is the second or third largest manufacturer of crawler cranes in the world by number of units, while Fushun Engineering Machinery Manufacturing Co Ltd is a smaller manufacturer of crawler cranes that has been acquired by tower crane manufacturer Fushun Yongmao Construction Machinery Co Ltd.