Heavydrive provides customised solutions for lifting and transporting heavy loads indoors and outdoors. The company offers glass installation accessories for rent and sale worldwide.
Their solutions, comprising high-quality products and reliable service, are perfectly tailored to customers’ needs. Heavydrive offers a broad range of installation equipment, which they are continuously expanding and improving.
Interview with Günter Übelacker, Managing Director of Heavydrive.
What are the most common challenges your clients face before turning to your solutions?
Günter Übelacker: Modern architectural concepts make use of large, curved or coated glass elements, as well as prefabricated façade modules. Since these panes cannot be installed using standard equipment, the customer needs a tailored installation solution that is both efficient and cost-effective. Moreover, construction site conditions are often challenging, involving overhangs, limited access, or extreme weather conditions.
How do you typically discover and define a client’s productivity problem before offering a solution?
G.Ü: The following criteria are generally key considerations for customers: They seek short setup times, reduced personnel requirements, and minimal logistical complexity – all while keeping costs as low as possible.
We work closely with the customer as early as the planning phase of the construction project. This gives us precise information about the installation components and enables us to gain an accurate understanding of the site conditions. This is the only way to develop an efficient solution tailored exactly to the customer’s needs.
https://en.heavydrive.com/customized-solutions
In what ways do your products directly address these challenges and remove barriers to efficiency?
G.Ü: For many types of projects, it makes financial sense to hire rather than buy specialised equipment. With its extensive rental fleet, Heavydrive is able to provide suitable equipment at short notice, including systems designed for extreme weather conditions (temperatures as low as -20 °C) and extensive on-site support. All rental equipment is also serviced and inspected in the company’s own workshop, ensuring that customers always receive systems in top condition. All this reduces capital commitment, reduces storage costs for the customer and shortens the project duration.
Heavydrive also offers modular rental packages – for example, lifting device combined with suction systems and transport trolleys – as well as comprehensive services ranging from project planning and country-specific equipment testing to customs and transport documentation, custom designs, assembly, and equipment training. The benefit is fewer organisational interfaces for the customer and faster cycle times during installation. This allows us to efficiently overcome typical challenges such as installations behind pillars, beneath overhangs, or involving extremely large or curved panes.
Also, our innovative lifting technology minimises the risk of errors during tricky installation processes. There is no need for heavy loads to be installed manually by a large team. Instead, the components can be positioned safely and precisely with minimal manpower and reduced physical strain on the installers – for example, by using a vacuum lifting system mounted on an assembly crane or telescopic handler.
What role does innovation (in design, materials, digitalization, automation, etc.) play in transforming client problems into measurable results?
G.Ü: Robotics and process automation on construction sites play a key role, enabling installations to be completed more quickly and with fewer personnel, saving customers both time and money. We offer assembly aids such as the GMG glass robot, which allows a single operator to lift, transport, and position loads of up to 1,400 kilograms via remote control. Our 7-axis manipulator also enables one fitter to move panes weighing up to 2,000 kilograms precisely in seven directions using a remote control.
https://en.heavydrive.com/index.php/products/overhead-assembly/glass-assembly-device
How do you ensure a smooth transition from problem recognition to implementing your solution at the client’s site?
G.Ü: Close communication with the customer during all phases of the construction project is crucial for ensuring that the installation runs smoothly. In addition to traditional communication channels such as telephone and email, we offer our own Heavydrive app in four languages and a WhatsApp service. This means that problems or questions can be discussed and resolved immediately via video chat.
An experienced Heavydrive equipment operator can also be booked to handle the installation on site. If this service is not required, the customer will still receive thorough instruction in operating the system.
https://en.heavydrive.com/our-services
Do you adapt your products to specific industries or customer needs, and if so, how?
G.Ü: Our systems are modular, flexible and can be adapted in just a few simple steps. The suction cups, for example, are easily interchangeable so that stone slabs or wooden elements can also be transported. Our assembly aids, cranes and transport trolleys can also be used for various types of goods. Our services also include the transport of artworks, among other specialised items.
If installation cannot be carried out using our standard solutions, we adapt the systems individually to the customer’s requirements in our in-house workshop. The installation equipment is then tested in a mock-up, and the systems are optimised as needed to ensure the best possible solution.
https://en.heavydrive.com/complete-solutions
What key metrics do your clients use to measure productivity improvements after adopting your solutions?
G.Ü: Instead of ordering equipment from different service providers and spending a great deal of time and manpower on operation, Heavydrive offers customers a simple and flexible installation solution from a single source. Ultimately, the project can be completed more quickly and with far less organisational effort, while significantly reducing the number of fitters required. This is reflected in the final cost balance sheet.
Can you share a concrete example where your product significantly boosted a client’s productivity?
G.Ü: One example of Heavydrive’s perfect all-round service was the glass installation at the Brâncuși Pavilion in the Craiova Art Museum. For the glass pavilion designed by renowned architect Dorin Ștefan, six panes from Finnglass measuring 2.4 by 12.5 metres and weighing 2.8 tonnes had to be set vertically into grooves. Plus, the elements had undulating contours and were narrower at the bottom than at the top.
During the installation process there was very little stability, only the finished work of art was stable. The panes could not be suctioned straight on because of the crossbars and special shapes.
To resolve the problem, we developed special spacers on the suction cups to bridge the distances to the crossbars over the width of the glass pane. This allowed the adapted VSG 4000 KM H vacuum suction system to install the panes safely and without incident, despite the strong wind.
In the second construction phase, Heavydrive supplied the equipment for glazing the outer façade and encapsulating the work of art. Here too, installation was carried out smoothly and on schedule.
https://en.heavydrive.com/index.php/news/heavydrive-installs-glass-art-in-the-craiova-art-museum
Ho do your solutions not only solve immediate challenges but also support long-term operational efficiency and sustainability?
G.Ü: Renting individual installation systems enables customers to reduce long-term expenses related to the purchase, storage, and maintenance of multiple types of equipment.
Since being founded, Heavydrive has placed particular emphasis on sustainable, environmentally friendly solutions and continues to develop emission-free assembly cranes and indoor-compatible equipment. At our main warehouse in Tapfheim, Bavaria, we use electricity from our own photovoltaic system to charge and operate our equipment.
As we have our own workshop and qualified staff, our motto is: Repair over disposal. Systems can be modified, repaired and tested and individual parts replaced. This increases the equipment’s service life.
What future client challenges do you anticipate, and how are your products evolving to address them?
G.Ü: For construction companies, façade builders and project managers balancing deadlines, quality and safety, modular, combinable installation systems offer a major boost in productivity. Heavydrive has a wide range of material lifts, mobile cranes and powerful vacuum lifting systems, offering exactly the right components to integrate narrow, curved or heavy components efficiently and safely into the construction process. The company’s strength lies in the combination of standard modules, customisation and rental services – an all-round efficient offering.
