About Baumaschinendienst

Baumaschinendienst

bd Baumaschinendienst — published under the title Baumaschinendienst — is the monthly technology magazine for construction companies, appearing since 1964 with the publishing house Krafthand Medien GmbH in Bad Wörishofen. As "the independent technology medium for construction contractors, managers, and decision-makers in the construction industry," it addresses the companies that operate the machines: the building, civil-engineering, and road-construction contractors, the garden and landscaping builders, the demolition and recycling specialists, and the construction-machinery dealers. Its editorial core is machinery technology and practice — the construction-site equipment, formwork and scaffolding, construction methods, and commercial vehicles — with a verified circulation of 15,823 copies (IVW) and the editor-in-chief Kerstin Thiele. The print magazine is complemented by the online portal and the monthly "HANDSON" construction-machinery podcast.

Overview

The construction-machinery market is a technology market: the excavators, wheel loaders, rollers, cranes, and attachments that determine the construction companies' productivity, and the financing, telematics, and emissions regulations that determine their economics. bd Baumaschinendienst addresses this market from the operator's perspective — the construction contractors who buy, maintain, and deploy the machines, and the dealers who sell and service them. The magazine's positioning as the "independent technology medium" is its editorial promise: the machinery coverage serves the readers' investment and operating decisions, not the manufacturers' marketing.

The editorial program follows the construction year's machinery cycle. The 2026 topic plan shows the structure: demolition, recycling, and extraction; earthworks and road construction; lifting and conveying; attachments and quick couplers; drives, hydraulics, and components; formwork, scaffolding, and concrete construction; control and digitalization; tools, site power, and equipment; workwear and occupational safety; financing, leasing, and insurance; underground and pipeline construction. The trade-fair coverage — from the Digitalbau in Cologne to the IFAT in Munich to the industry's regional exhibitions — documents the market's gatherings. The magazine's claim "praxis | technik | meinung" (practice | technology | opinion) names the three editorial registers: the site-tested practice, the technical analysis, and the industry commentary.

History

bd Baumaschinendienst was first published in 1964 — the decade of the Federal Republic's infrastructure expansion, when the construction-machinery fleet grew with the autobahns, the housing programs, and the industrial building. The title established itself as the construction companies' machinery magazine through the subsequent decades: the hydraulic revolution of the 1970s, the electronics and then the telematics entering the machines, the emissions regulations (the staged exhaust standards) reshaping the engine technology, and the digitalization of the construction site.

The publishing home is Krafthand Medien GmbH in Bad Wörishofen — the specialist publisher whose portfolio serves the automotive and construction-machinery trades. Under editor-in-chief Kerstin Thiele, the magazine has developed its contemporary form: the monthly print magazine with its themed issues, the online portal baumaschinendienst.de, and the "HANDSON" podcast — launched as the monthly audio format in which the editor-in-chief talks with industry representatives and experts about construction topics. The IVW-verified circulation of 15,823 copies documents the title's reach in the construction-machinery market. Through six decades, the monthly rhythm and the operator's perspective — the technology medium for the companies that run the machines — have remained the title's constants.

Coverage and Content

Each issue follows the machinery market's agenda. The machinery-technology coverage treats the fleet's categories: the earthmoving machines (excavators, wheel loaders, dozers), the compaction equipment, the road-construction machines, the cranes and the lifting and conveying technology, the attachments and quick-coupler systems, and the demolition and recycling equipment. The practice coverage tests the machines in their working reality: the site reports, the application comparisons, and the operating-economics analyses — fuel consumption, maintenance, resale value — that inform the contractors' investment decisions.

The components and systems coverage addresses the machines' inner technology: the drives, hydraulics, and components; the control systems and digitalization — the telematics, the machine control, the site digitalization; and the tools, site power, and equipment that complete the fleet. The formwork, scaffolding, and concrete-construction coverage treats the building-construction equipment. The commercial-vehicles coverage addresses the trucks and transporters that serve the sites. The business coverage treats the fleet economics: the financing, leasing, and insurance; the workwear and occupational safety; and the industry's opinion pieces — the "Meinung" that comments on the market's developments. The magazine's independence claim deserves its editorial context. In the construction-machinery press, the manufacturers' marketing power is considerable — the machine launches, the demonstration events, the sponsored content — and the readers, spending six- and seven-figure sums on fleets, need the coverage they can trust for investment decisions. bd Baumaschinendienst's "independent technology medium" positioning answers this need: the practice tests, the operating-economics analyses, and the opinion pieces are written from the contractors' side of the table. The monthly "HANDSON" podcast extends this posture into the conversational format — the editor-in-chief's dialogues with industry representatives and experts let the readers hear the market's voices directly, unfiltered by the press-release register. The 2026 topic plan's breadth — from demolition and extraction through drives and hydraulics to financing and insurance — shows a magazine that treats the construction machine not as the isolated product but as the node in the contractor's economic system: the purchase, the operation, the maintenance, the resale, and the regulation that frames them all.

Organization and Ownership

bd Baumaschinendienst is published by Krafthand Medien GmbH, the Bad Wörishofen-based specialist publisher for the automotive and construction-machinery trades. The editor-in-chief is Kerstin Thiele, who also hosts the "HANDSON" podcast. The publishing house's trade-press infrastructure — the editorial teams, the media-sales organization, the event and digital operations — carries the title's print, online, and audio offerings. Krafthand Medien's specialization in the automotive and construction-machinery trades gives the magazine its market proximity: the publisher's other titles and the industry's trade fairs create the editorial network — the manufacturer contacts, the dealer relationships, the test opportunities — on which the machinery coverage depends. The editor-in-chief's dual role — leading the print magazine and hosting the "HANDSON" podcast — embodies the brand's cross-media integration: the same editorial judgment that selects the monthly issue's themes conducts the monthly industry conversations.

Commercially, the magazine follows the B2B trade-press model: subscriptions from the construction companies and machinery dealers, and advertising from the construction-machinery manufacturers and their suppliers — the machine builders, the attachment and component manufacturers, the tire and lubricant suppliers, the financing and insurance providers — whose customers read the magazine. The IVW-verified circulation of 15,823 copies and the ISSN 0171-8908 document the title's audited standing. The readership — the construction contractors in building, civil engineering, and road construction, the garden and landscaping builders, the demolition and recycling companies, and the machinery dealers — is the construction-machinery market's concentrated professional audience, the decision-makers for the fleet investments.

Digital Presence

The brand's digital home is baumaschinendienst.de, the trade portal carrying the news flow — the machinery news, the site reports, the trade-fair coverage, and the product presentations — alongside the magazine's topic and appointment planning (the 2026 themes-and-dates plan) and the media information. The "HANDSON" podcast — the monthly construction-machinery podcast in which editor-in-chief Kerstin Thiele talks with industry representatives and experts — extends the brand into audio, available through the podcast platforms. The newsletter delivers the industry's updates to the readers' inboxes.

The digital strategy follows the trade-press logic: the monthly print magazine for the curated machinery reading — the technology, practice, and opinion — the portal for the daily news flow, and the podcast for the conversational industry coverage. After more than six decades — from the 1964 founding through the hydraulic, electronic, and digital revolutions of the machinery — bd Baumaschinendienst operates as the construction companies' technology medium: the independent machinery coverage for the contractors, managers, and decision-makers who buy and run the machines — in print, online, and audio, month after month.