Lending Construction Machines – Digitally and Sustainably

From Slopes to Construction Industry

Today, Florian Handschuh is our guest. Together with his brother and another co-founder, he set up “klarx”, a construction machine rental platform. Born in Tyrol, studied Business & Economics in Innsbruck, but that is not all. At the same time, he and his brother started a career as professional snowboarders that went all the way to the World Cup. Impressive, but: Where is the construction industry?

The brothers initially founded a company that designed, drafted, and implemented sports facilities in ski areas. In this context, they came into contact with construction machines. When they met their third co-founder, they got deeper into the subject of digitization in construction. They recognized the potential and also the need to revolutionize the construction industry in the direction of digitization – in 2015, they then founded klarx to follow this path.

01 Snowboarding on Slope

Construction Machine Rental

Florian explains to us that three components are required for a successful construction site. They are the following:

• People who implement the plans on site
• Building materials in order to build
• Construction machines for work with building materials

The advantage of their platform is focused on the latter area. Their goal was to enable companies to manage all of their construction machine needs from one central software. This is why they developed the klarx manager. Their portfolio now includes over 4,600 rental stations from rental companies and producers with over 500,000 construction machines in Germany and Austria.

Customers can use the klarx manager free of charge. The company generates income directly from the transactions of the bookings.

Most of their knowledge and ideas for improvements come from their customers themselves. After all, construction companies know best what problems they have on construction sites and what is currently costing them too much time. Florian and his team developed all the features together with their customers. But how does the browser-based klarx manager work? It is a classic customer interaction:

• The customer creates all of their construction projects in the klarx manager.
• There is always an overview via a map or a list.
• It is possible to create machine and equipment requirements.
• Direct booking and guaranteed delivery to the construction site

02 Transportation of Construction Machines

The customers have everything centrally in one software and save a lot of time. Everything runs digitally – exactly the vision that Florian and his co-founders are pursuing.

Revolution in Construction Industry Due to Digitized Construction Machine Rental

• “We want to make the construction industry run more efficiently, and digitization is our strongest asset in that regard."

Due to their broad network of logistics partners in the metropolitan regions, Florian and his team are able to deliver construction machines to a construction site within 24 hours after receiving the booking. He is even convinced that due to intelligent route planning and further process improvements, 4 hours will be entirely realistic in the future.

If a machine is needed on a construction site, klarx can ensure that it will be delivered as quickly as possible. Of course, this provides planning security and saves time, which leads to significantly more efficiency on the construction site.

We wonder whether private individuals can also rent small construction machines using this service. This is not possible, because Florian and his company concentrate on business customers, B2B, in order to make their processes more efficient. So here we are, thinking big.

03 Construction machines are indispensable on construction sites.

Future of Construction Industry

• “A lot of things need to change in the future."

Florian tells us about his ideas on the future in construction. He thinks that modular construction will become a central method to rearrange construction sites quickly. Prefabrication in large factories and assembly of the parts at their destination – this is how he imagines the future method of working. 3D printing and BIM are also future-oriented, according to him.

His company should ensure that all construction machines currently needed are directly available and ready for use. No matter when, no matter where. He emphasizes that they work closely with their customers to ensure that their solutions actually solve real problems and delays in construction. Eventually, he hopes to make the entire construction industry in Germany more efficient.

Sustainability in Construction Industry

We already know that the construction industry accounts for a very large proportion of the total volume of waste and CO₂ emissions. Of course, that does not make them sustainable; on the contrary. However, Florian assumes that we already have very good approaches in the industry to drive efficiency and promote sustainability.

04 Sustainability is an important issue.

This topic also plays a major role in his company. For example, their service ensures that a customer always has exactly the right machine on site. If an 11.02t excavator is enough to dig a pit on site, a larger one that produces more CO₂ does not have to be used.

Due to the size of the klarx network, a construction machine never has to be transported further than 30 miles. Therefore, long distances are not necessary for heavy goods transport.

Furthermore, all of their machines are going to be equipped with telematics, which will enable them to maximize their life cycles. The longer a construction machine works perfectly, the fewer resources are required to produce new machines.

This also leads directly to the next point: the rental of construction machines per se. The more people share construction machines via a rental platform, the fewer machines have to be in use or be produced. We think this is a really good thing!

Florian, what is your favorite building?

Finally, we ask our last question: to tell us his favorite building. He thinks about it for a moment, then decides on the Hungerburgbahn in Innsbruck. The elegant structure fits perfectly into the landscape. A really great structure, we think!

05 Hungerburg Funicular in Innsbruck, Austria

Thank you for visiting us! We look forward to our next episode, when it will be said again: Digital and Innovative Trends in Civil Engineering – join us again!