Is Pierce at it again?

[FDOBStation30]

Hey, I'm in South Florida for the Super Bowl and met up with some of by brothers who are on the job down here. They were telling me Pierce has a truck down there with a 75' aluminum ladder and a new soon to be marketed EXTRUDED Aluminum body! Now wait...isn't there another top three manufacturer that has this offering? It would appear that the the product managers for the "GIANT" in Appleton may have run out of creative/innovative ideas. What's the old saying "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". Anybody heard anyhting about this?

Stay Safe!

[sven73]

Me thinks your information source is faulty. If Pierce were going to market something new it would be shown to the dealers first, usually at their sales meeting. The meeting isn't until March.

[TrikeFlyer]

New aluminum aerial ladder expands product offering

Pierce Displays New 100' Aluminum Aerial Ladder

http://www.piercemfg.com/company/newsstory.cfm?ID=152

[firepiper1]

Since their beginning, Pierce has been saying steel is the only way to go with aerial ladders. They talked down the weight savings of aluminum and always stressed the "strength of steel." When my local rep started to talk about their new aluminum ladder, I had to laugh. Did they figure out that Sutphen and E-One have something after all? I would like to hear how Pierce is going to back pedal on many decades of their own propaganda......"Always looking for new innovations....blah blah blah."

[tneville]

Market share. Miss a few contracts because you do not offer a product, and eventually you have to wonder if it makes $$$ sense to make it. That's not reversing principles, it's just offering what the consumer wants.

[firepiper1]

Market share. Miss a few contracts because you do not offer a product, and eventually you have to wonder if it makes $$$ sense to make it. That's not reversing principles, it's just offering what the consumer wants.

Did any of you ever ask a Pierce rep about aluminum aerials before? When you bad mouth a product for decades......and say that your product is the ONLY way to go, that is reversing principles.

[sven73]

The aluminum ladders have been out for some time now. I think the original post was about an extruded body if I read it correctly. The 75' ladder was introduced 2 or 3 years ago and the 100' a year later.

tnville- you arre absolutely right. Its all about market share. Any manuafacturer wants to maximize it and if they need to offer a different product to do so then so be it. If there is a market for a steel ladder and a market for an aluminum ladder why not offer both? People on this forum think its laughable- I think its a great idea. I'll bet the stockholders think its a great idea too!

[RFDACM02]

It may be a sound financial idea, but as pointed out the salesmen have bashed the E-One and Sutphens for being aluminum and now hav to offer them. To bad, its kind of hard to take them to seriously or beleive their BS when they must have been lying all along? Either that or Peirce no longer wants to provide the safest aerials (a reason given for steel vs. aluminum). I wouldn't care if was me though as if a dept. specs and aluminum aerial they probably want an E-One (I guess some could want Sutphen?). Just as Peirce promotes speccing TAK-4. The one thing is proves is that it is without a doubt about MONEY!!! No principles, no core values, just money!

[Bones42]

C'mon, aluminum ladders now...Pierce will market it as another Innovation.

have seen nothing about extruded bodies though...

[tneville]

Simply OFFERING an aluminum ladder because someone wants it does not represent a reversal, unless the salesman actually SAYS that aluminum is now better for a ladder.

[sven73]

Of course its about money. Oshkosh is a publically traded company. They have a responsibility to make as much money as possible for their stockholders. Just because they want to be highly profitable doesn't make them evil.

I don't understand what you guys think these companies are in business for, regardless if its E1, Pierce, Sutphen, Code 4 whomever.

Unless you are working for a city or some other form of goverment or a non profit agency you better damn well hope your company is making money also. That's how they stay in business.

[lvwrench]

I agree 73. I have seen other companies bring their new units for us to look at and I can see where they have borrowed ideas from other manufacturers for thier unit. Unless there is a patent on something that restricts the idea then if it is a good idea others will use it. I see that Seagraves offers an independent front suspension with the 17inch disc brakes which Pierce had first but it is open to anybody that can make it work for them.

[wfd4fireman]

Pierce,Oshkosh...who is calling the shots?

When several years ago I learned from a trusted source that Pierce was presumably having a financial difficulty and that Oshkosh came to the rescue
[imagine a huge volume of sales and yet a financial difficulty?]. Since then the first thing that appears to have happened under ''new management'' namely Oshkosh, was All-Wheel Steering- an Oshkosh specialty then introduced to the Pierce lineup. And where is that inovation today?

Thereafter the Oshkosh Bradenton facility began to market an entry -level ''program'' truck that was built from partially-finished units come down from Appleton to Florida and completed there with a handful of limited options thus trying to compete with the commercial chassis market. That Oshkosh move has proved immensely successful as even larger clients have bought the "Contender " models. Remember a certain "Javlin''-a rear engine unit with mid-body booster tank sitting upright behind the spacious cab that didn't need to house the engine because it had been designed in the rear of the truck? Didn't fly.

As to aluminum aerial devices- reasonably that was the demand of the new owners-Oshkosh. So all the previous chatter about steel; how do we get around that? You don't. You look like a fool that's laughing all the way to the bank!

[Chauffeur6]

Well then, I guess by the same token, all the other manufacturers (ALF, KME, etc) that were badmouthing the multiplexed fly-by-wire Pierce aerials back when we were spec'ing our tower ladder back in 1999-2001 have egg on THEIR face also now, since they all offer it as well!

If people want aluminum aerials, and Pierce sure doesn't want to lose that share of the market, of course it pays for them to offer them. Does it mean they think they're better than steel? Nope. Does it MATTER? Nope. If you don't like it, don't buy it. No one is forcing anyone.

[RFDACM02]

Let me state that I think Peirce does make a decent product, no question. But the hard line rhetoric bashing E-One for years makes the new aluminum aerial laughable.By the same token, sure other companies now use multiplexing, instead of them bashing Peirce its the end users bashing everyone. The overburdening of ridiculous safty bells, lights and buzzers has forced the use of the multiplexing, which evidentially works in most industy's well, but seems to fail here.