25 years ago, a company started making maritime cranes at a former Wearside yard that had built ships for the world. Business Editor Andy Richardson looks at how the Liebherr Sunderland works is keeping alive a proud tradition of engineering.

“THE sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.” Those words, written by the novelist Joseph Conrad, who served as second mate on a Wearside-built ship, neatly sum up the perilous allure of the deep.

Few places have greater reason to celebrate and curse the sea than Sunderland.

Once called ‘the biggest shipbuilding town in the world’, records of Sunderland shipyards date back to Thomas Menville’s yard which opened at Hendon in 1346.

By the mid nineteenth century almost a third of all vessels built in the UK hailed from Wearside. In the early 1900s more than 12,000 men, a third of the town's adult population, grafted in the shipyards.

Liebherr’s crane works started moving onto the southern bank of the Wear in the same year that the last Sunderland yard closed. By 1988, an industry which a decade earlier employed 7,500 people, had become yet another North-East titan brought to its knees by a combination of neglect, short-sightedness and competition from the Far East.

Family-owned Liebherr, which this year marks a quarter of a century of manufacturing offshore and ship cranes in the North-East, took over parts of the Wear Dock and later the Deptford Yard where workers in 1875 had built the magnificent clipper The Torrens - the last sailing ship on which Conrad would serve before embarking upon his writing career.

When production started at Liebherr its workforce numbered a modest 18. But its investment was symbolically important; regarded by civic leaders as a much needed fillip to a town mourning the demise of its icon industry.

By 1989, shipbuilding on the Wear was a memory. The former yards were cleared to eventually make way for a University campus and the National Glass Centre. The Liebherr factory helped keep afloat Sunderland’s reputation for heavy maritime engineering.

“We looked at a number of locations, but Sunderland had everything we needed,” explains Ralph Saelzer the plant’s managing director. “The proximity to the sea had obvious appeal.

“There were other influential factors that brought us here. Having the right infrastructure was crucial. We are close to the A1, A19 and the ports, so the whole world is open to us. That is important because 90 per cent of our products are exported.

“Plus the former shipyard workers had the transferable skills that we needed. It is also worth noting that the local authority, the North East Chamber of Commerce and the then RDA (regional development agency) were marvellous in helping us to get established,” he says.

Started as a testing facility for cranes built in Liebherr’s sister yard at Nenzing in Austria the site rapidly flexed its muscles and moved into fabrication, assembly and testing of BOS and RL cranes for the offshore industry.

By 1993, the works had established itself as a centre for crane building and the workforce had swelled to 90 employees. The manufacturer grew its product range and took over more land. In 1994, a paint shop was completed and two years later Liebherr took the repair yard to the west of the site.

In 2000, it started trading as a limited company, and by the end of the decade its trophy cabinet included the ultimate business accolade, a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the international trade category.

The works, which sits on a bend in the Wear opposite Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, now employs almost 200 skilled staff, including 27 apprentices. The notion of a company having more than 10 per cent of its workforce as apprentices seems like a throwback to the days when every summer hundreds of North-East youngsters would pour out of the school gates to begin serving their time in nearby factories. Last year, Liebherr was named among the top 100 employers in the country in the City and Guilds and National Apprenticeship Service’s list of businesses that support apprentices. As Mr Saelzer explains, the firm’s investment in training is fundamental to its success.

“We got to a point where we just could not find anyone from the local labour force with the skills we required,” he says.

“If we did not train our own personnel we would be in serious trouble. Ensuring that we have the staff with the right skills means that we are in a position to keep the business going. It is as simple as that.

“Too many manufacturers have failed to invest in training. We find that if we are ever unable to offer a permanent job to any of our staff once they have served their time they have no problems finding work elsewhere. Their skills are in high demand.”

Shipyards were renowned for their hire and fire approach. The threat of mass lay-offs when demand dipped meant that workers and their families lived in fear of a sudden and dramatic fall in their income. Liebherr prides itself on avoiding making redundancies even during periods of recession. 10 of the original 18 staff are still on the firm’s books. Mr Saelzer adds: “We are a family-owned business and the philosophy is that we want to retain our staff for the long term. We do everything we can to keep our people in work. Even during difficult times when the order books are low we have not let people go.

“We operate an exchange programme, so if we are short of work here in Sunderland then our staff can work at our sister companies in Germany, Austria, Ireland and vice versa we host people here when we are busy. We put in a lot of effort into not laying anybody off.”

During its 25-year history in the region Liebherr has built more than 2,000 cranes for customers who still value a quality product that bears a Made in Sunderland stamp. The firm is one of the North-East’s biggest exporters, with China and South Korea its key markets. Last year, it announced a 600sq m extension to enable it to build cranes before orders are received, giving it competitive advantage by slashing delivery time to customers.

“Right now the industry is looking good, particularly in the offshore sector,” adds Mr Saelzer. “Our order book for the year is full and the longer term outlook is very positive.

“But we have to be vigilant and versatile so we don’t rely 100 per cent on our core products of ship and offshore cranes.” An example of its broadening product range are huge straddle cranes which are used to shift containers. In addition, Mr Saelzer reveals that the firm plans to open a design division at Sunderland to drive innovation. More jobs could be created this year too, he confirms, if the business continues its strong performance.

He adds: “We are investing in new machinery and we constantly invest in training for our staff so we can react to the demands of a changing market. It’s very competitive out there. You cannot rely on what you have done in the past.”

Two centuries have passed since 600 ships were built across 31 Sunderland yards in a single year. The shipbuilders of the Wear, Tees and Tyne who showcased our region all over the world are now the subject of newspaper memories sections, or stories told by parents and grandparents. But on every fourth ship you now see on the ocean, a crane will have been built in Sunderland. The likes of Liebherr are ensuring that North-East engineering is still sent out onto the restless sea.