Warwickshire-based Cooper Specialised Handling (Cooper SH) has supplied four new Konecranes container handlers to two of London’s most important waste disposal sites.
The West London Waste Authority (WLWA), operating out of Brentford and Ruislip, handles the waste of six London Boroughs.
In a time-critical, intermodal operation, the team has as little as four hours to unload 66 empty containers off the trains that service the sites and replace with 66 full containers.
With the composition of residual waste changing, the 20-foot waste containers are having to accommodate an increased gross pay load of up to 30 tonnes. WLWA needed a handling solution that could cope with the potential 20 per cent extra weight whilst offering best value for money, and keeping within the dimensions of the previous machines.
Through a competitive tendering process, Cooper SH thought ‘outside the box’ by offering two dedicated Konecranes gantry trucks. These 32 tonne container handlers eliminate the carriage and inverted forks and replace them with an overhead gantry with a 20ft attachment. This reduces the front-end weight and thereby lowers the nominal capacity of the machine.
Chris Mayes, WLWA’s South Ruislip Station Manager comments: “Cooper’s innovative solution has provided maximum productivity, flexibility and safety for our operators.
“We had previously experienced stability issues with the preceding inverted fork trucks, which had become light on the back axle when fully laden. The gantry trucks have more counter weight on the back end and are far more stable, giving our drivers greater confidence in working at full efficiency.”
Chris Barnes, Sales Manager for Cooper SH, comments: “The gantry truck remains an under-rated machine during a time that has seen reachstackers dominate the market. They actually provide the most cost-effective method of dedicated container handling.”
The gantry trucks offer enhanced precision with an independent outreach and slew as well as increased side-shift. This affords the facility of fine positioning without the need of re-aligning the whole truck to the container; a feature that West Waste has become quickly accustomed.
Maintenance is carried out in an onsite workshop and the bespoke design means the mast and wheel-base are short enough for the larger trucks to easily fit inside the workshop and work in tight spaces.
Whilst West Waste undertakes its own servicing and maintenance, Cooper provide engineering support with a team of engineers who provide full technical ability and are dispatched on site in the unlikely event of a problem that the Authority cannot solve internally.
The machines offer all the standard benefits of Konecranes products such as load sensing hydraulics, low maintenance technology and high visibility mast section; all designed to reduce running costs and increase performance and safety of the trucks.
Chris Mayes added: “Cooper SH has exceeded our expectations with their ability to provide a container handling solution. We are very pleased with the service they provide and have established an excellent working relationship.”