PRECISION MEETS POWER: WHY HIAB TRUSTS WESTERN STAR FOR EVERY UPFIT

When you’re hoisting massive power transformers, maneuvering 40-foot timber, or placing heavyweight propane tanks with precision, you need more than just a powerful crane. You need a truck that can handle any terrain and every demand. That’s where the power duo of Hiab USA and Western Star comes in.

Hiab is a leading Truck Equipment Manufacturer (TEM) known for its boom cranes and material-handling loaders, equipment mounted behind the cab of trucks and expected to get the job done in the harshest conditions. For Hiab, choosing the right chassis partner is critical. And when it comes to pairing with their heavier crane offerings, there’s only one choice: Western Star.

“We really like the X-Series. Being able to factory-order twin steer is a big opportunity for us and critical for our heavier cranes and loaders,” says Daniel McCaul, Director of Business Operations at Hiab. The Western Star 49X, in particular, has become their go-to Class 8 rig.

But it’s not just about power for Hiab when selecting a Class 8 OEM to upfit on. It’s about pairing premium with premium. “As a premium offering, our Western Star upfits are getting a lot more interest from customers,” McCaul adds. When asked to compare the X-Series to other Class 8 heavy-duty makes and models, McCaul says there is no comparison and has no need to look elsewhere.

Hiab, which recently celebrated its 80th anniversary, is best known for its knuckle boom cranes (AKA Taxi Cranes), which are capable of greater articulation and can deliver dynamic loads. They also produce tail lifts, skip loaders, and hoists, much of which is manufactured in Europe and shipped to the U.S. for installation. Their trucks are used to move everything from building materials and landscaping turf to steel pipe for oil and gas.

With product weights and configurations varying significantly by job, Hiab depends on the X-Series’ integrated Detroit powertrain, typically a DD13^® with a DT12^® transmission, to deliver the consistent performance they need to get the job done. “The feedback we get from the field has been overwhelmingly positive,” McCaul notes.

While Hiab does work with large fleet accounts, roughly half of its business goes to smaller fleets, buying groups, and owner-operators. In those cases, McCaul says Hiab often guides the truck spec conversation, and Western Star has become a key part of that recommendation. “We’ve built a great partnership with the Western Star people, focused on strategic improvement projects including standardizing truck frames to make upfits much easier,” he says.

The X-Series was designed from the ground up for the vocational market, with ease of TEM integration and reducing upfit time built into its DNA. “Whether it’s drilling new holes in the frame rail, moving brackets, or adjusting wiring harnesses, Western Star is doing the work upstream so the trucks arrive at our facility ready to go,” McCaul explains.

A major game changer in reducing upfit time that came out of the X-Series development is QuickFit ^™, which Hiab utilizes on their Western Stars. This advanced technology allows them to easily integrate their equipment with the truck’s electrical power sources, programmable modules, and integrated controls. “QuickFit allows our installation team to prepare our own components and modules in advance of starting the production upfit. The ability to pre-stage our work greatly improves our production planning and workflow efficiency when making the final installation,” says McCaul.

When you’re upfitting over 300 trucks a year, every hour counts. By utilizing Western Star’s factory-offered, customizable chassis modifications, the upfit turnaround time for an X-Series arriving at Hiab’s production facility has been greatly reduced, allowing customers to put their rigs to work quickly. “The 49X chassis was designed for easier body mounting, with mid-chassis packaging that clears the back-of-cab for faster integration,” McCaul adds.

The collaboration between Hiab and Western Star has grown beyond upfit planning for back-of-cab equipment installation to also include Detroit Assurance® safety systems. “We now apply the full Detroit Assurance suite on all our DTNA orders,” says McCaul, noting strong demand from larger fleets that require safety features across their entire operation. “Focusing on user safety is a top priority for our sales team, and Detroit Assurance is a great value proposition when reviewing specifications with customers who may not be aware of the full feature set,” adds McCaul.

In typical Western Star fashion, the relationship with Hiab is more than just working together on the upfit side. It also includes boots-on-the-ground opportunities. “When Western Star hosts Ride & Drive events, we bring our customers, which has been invaluable,” says McCaul. “It’s sometimes hard to stand out as a European OEM, but when partnered with Western Star, exhibiting our top-end piece of equipment on a top-end truck is really beneficial,” he adds.

Although a European-based company, Hiab’s domestic operations are a sizeable chunk of their global business. The U.S operations are moving forward with an aggressive growth strategy, launching into new applications and segments of the market. “We’re always trying to improve the value proposition to the customer, and the Western Star upfit strategy is now something our European businesses want to replicate, moving away from a transactional/vendor OEM relationship to more of an integrated OEM partnership,” says McCaul.

Through it all, McCaul has come to recognize that working with Western Star means joining a passionate community. “The Star Nation crowd is something else,” he says with a smile. “You’re not just talking specs or pricing. You’re entering a group that genuinely loves this industry and doesn’t hold back in showing it.”