Kalmar’s unique brick and block handling solution doubles throughput at Tarmac’s Topblock production plant in Maltby, Rotherham. Handling large quantities of blocks can not only be awkward, but also time consuming. Ever increasing pressure to become more productive without increasing production costs presents new hurdles for manufacturers to overcome.
Leading concrete block manufacturer, Tarmac Topblock, has several manufacturing sites throughout the UK, one of which is at Maltby, Rotherham. The Maltby site opened in 1989, producing light to dense concrete blocks with a capacity of up to 120,000 blocks per day.
The site already runs at a high efficiency rate thanks to raw materials being dug out of the earth from the onsite quarry, but Eddie Morton, Works Manager for Tarmac Topblock, needed a faster, more efficient method of transporting the blocks from the production line to the drying stacks, and from the drying stacks to the delivery vehicles.
Simply supplying more trucks would have been a logistical nightmare, as the available space to collect blocks from the production line was already limited. Tarmac needed a solution that would allow the materials handling to keep up with the production line running at full capacity.
To this end, Kalmar set about developing a solution in collaboration with Fabcon Clamps of Ireland. The solution was to develop a clamp with enough strength and control to safely lift more than two packs of blocks at a time, in fact, a clamp and truck combination that could lift double!
The result is a new 4-block clamp, the 5T1800D, fitted to a Kalmar DCE140-6 industrial lift truck. While this may sound simple, the benefits have had a profound effect on the production capability of the Maltby site.
The new 14 tonnes truck has a 6 tonnes capacity with the clamp fitted and is able to take 4 block packs from the production line, consolidate the packs (using a sideshift cylinder built into the clamp) and stack the blocks for drying or loading onto delivery vehicles. This new concept enables twice the amount of blocks to be handled, ensuring the production line is always running at maximum speed.
Mr Morton commented, “Previously we used 10-tonne capacity trucks, but with the larger 14-tonne trucks we have fewer health and safety issues thanks to a reduced number of truck cycles. Because the visibility is so good on this truck, another benefit is that damage to product has been reduced and in general, the handling operation has been made easier. We also like the fact that we’re reducing our environmental impact by burning less fuel and using fewer tyres,”
This reduction in fuel has been brought about through extensive research and development, developing new innovations that can be put into practice. One such innovation is the development of Kalmar’s optional Optidrive system. The standard CAN-bus electronic control system allows the truck’s operating parameters to be adjusted to suit the site characteristics. Optidrive takes this one step further and controls engine revs and gear changes automatically at the optimum level, ensuring that just the right amount of power is delivered to the transmission or hydraulic functions depending on travel speed and lifting speed. This makes a huge contribution to fuel (and therefore cost) savings.
‘We’re very happy with Kalmar’s solution. The new trucks have proven to be a great success – we can handle twice as many blocks as before with much less travelling time! Pressure on the drivers to keep pace with the production line has also dropped and our running costs have significantly reduced as well,” Mr Morton said.
Kalmar Limited
Tel: 0204 7683?4500
Email: ukinfo@kalmarind.com
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