Machine transport specialist invests in customized compact heavy truck-mounted crane

That is sometimes around the corner, but more often further afield, even to the other side of the world. For more than thirty years Jan van Dam has been taking care of all the needs of its customers: transport by road via the Machine Transport department, sea freight and air transport via Global Machine Logistics (GML), but also customs and storage, even packaging and (dis)assembly of machines and production lines. The company with branches in Oudewater, Rotterdam and Bergen-op-Zoom recently invested in an innovative compact and heavy duty custom truck-mounted crane.

When Jan van Dam, great-grandfather of the current manager, started his company at the beginning of the last century, transport by road was still done with handcarts and by water with barges. After his death in 1927, his four sons expanded the company further and investments were made in a first truck. The current manager, also Jan van Dam, took over in 1989 and since then the company has specialized in machine and special transport. 

Unburdening customers completely

Today, the companies Jan van Dam Machine Transport and Jan van Dam Global Machine Logistics (GML) offer a total concept for machine logistics. The group has enjoyed steady growth for years and has built a strong reputation with customers in a wide variety of sectors, including machine building, metalworking, steel construction, industry, engineering, as well as the food industry, yacht building and civil applications. Jan van Dam strives for long-term relationships, based on qualitative and reliable handling of complete projects, in other words the complete unburdening of clients. "The establishment of GML allowed us to efficiently handle the transportation of machines worldwide. After all, this is often a big deal for customers. The machines are first transported by road to the port, where they are loaded onto a ship. After the boat trip, they are reloaded onto a truck overseas to be transported to their final destination. All phases of this transport are carried out by different partners, creating a lot of paperwork for the customer. We take over that entire transport process from them, which simplifies everything considerably," says business manager Jan van Dam. "But there is much more than that transport. We are equally responsible for packing and unpacking, even the disassembly and assembly of machines and entire production lines. Furthermore, we specialize in the complete handling of container shipments: stripping or stuffing, unpacking or packing of goods, including the transport of all possible containers. We even arrange all customs and fiscal formalities and have several spaces for temporary storage at our headquarters in Oudewater, in the Rotterdam port area, and recently also in Bergen-op-Zoom, allowing us to focus more strongly on the Brabant and Belgian markets."

Bespoke compact truck-mounted crane

Jan van Dam can count on a team of 45 experienced and enthusiastic employees for this purpose and has the most advanced trucks and techniques for transporting, loading and unloading machines. "About five years ago we invested in a new truck-mounted crane to further increase our range and flexibility," concludes van Dam. "Today, we have further expanded our fleet with an innovative compact self-loading crane with quite a large lifting capacity, which we designed and engineered together with the manufacturer. This truck is based on three steered axles and features a slewing crane. This innovative loading and unloading solution operates emission-free on site and can also run on a battery pack developed in-house. Our new self-loading crane is super low, which means it can pass under all possible bridges up to 2.95 m high and is allowed to cross borders with Belgium and Germany without further concessions. Thanks to this investment, we can guarantee our customers an even better service."