Technology News
54
M
arch
2014
Full package solutions
ESTABLISHED in 1997, Axxair manu-
factures machines for tube processing.
The company offers full package
solutions from preparation of tubes with
orbital cutting machines, orbital facing
tools and orbital bevelling machines, to
orbital TIG welding solutions from thin
wall tubes to thick wall pipes.
The company’s new GA15 bevelling
motor allows bevelling of up to ½"-thick
pipes in seconds through a patented
carbide bevelling head. The system has
been available since the Essen show
in September 2013, and the company
reports that initial response
from the market is promising.
Axxair’s technical offering is
promoted and supported by a
wide range of partners around
the world, and completed
by its own subsidiaries. The
company covers more than 40
countries, and subsidiaries in Southeast
Asia, Germany and the USA help to
bring support to customers in different
regions. The subsidiaries support
Axxair’s distributors for servicing
machines and training customers.
Axxair
– France
Fax: +33 4 75 57 50 80
Email:
Website:
Axxair’s GA15 bevelling motor
Combilifts stand up to the test
THE national distribution centre (NDC)
of BSS Industrial stocks the equivalent
of over 250 miles of tube and pipe in
its 47,500ft
2
warehouse, and uses four
Combilift electric C4000 EST stand-on
models to ensure the efficient handling
and storage of its 600+ product lines.
Following BSS Industrial’s acquisition
by the Travis Perkins Group at the end of
2010, it now forms part of the plumbing
and heating division of Britain’s largest
builders’ merchants group. The NDC
operates 24-hour shifts, five days a
week, to supply its 62 branches, and the
Combilifts work round the clock to move
around 56t of metal, stainless steel,
galvanised steel and plastic tubes, rod
and rail on a daily basis.
An EST was initially trialled towards
the end of 2012 when the contract for
BSS Industrial’s previous truck fleet
came to an end, and orders for three
more soon followed. The machines
are on contract hire from materials
handling solution provider Rushlift Ltd,
whose team of mobile engineers also
carry out the maintenance and service
on all Combilift equipment within BSS
Industrial.
The ST range has a very narrow
cab, with stand-on or seated options,
and its ability to operate in very narrow
aisles makes it suitable for steel and
pipe stockholding facilities such as the
BSS Industrial NDC. The 4t-capacity
trucks handle bundles weighing from
500kg to 2t in aisle widths of 1.8m. They
are fitted with guide rollers for guided
aisle operation, which enables faster
travel down the aisles and reduces
the risk of product damage. Together
with a lift height of 9.5m to access the
13 storage levels, maximum use of all
available space has been achieved
to accommodate the 2,353 picking
locations.
An in-cab camera monitor ensures a
good view of the load when accessing
the high top beam, and hydraulic
fork positioners allow quick and easy
adjustment of the fork width to accord to
the varying product sizes.
Smaller C2500 ESTs are in operation
in over a dozen BSS Industrial branches,
and these were designed to meet the
requirements for very manoeuvrable
machines that can offload from HGVs,
manoeuvre stock around and load
trucks for daily customer deliveries.
They are now the standard specification
for branches when forklifts need to be
renewed.
A key feature of this model is the
set of additional hydraulically operated
longer fold down forks, which contribute
to health and safety procedures when
offloading. The short 70mm forks are
compatible with the depth of the racking
arms on which goods are stored, but this
makes them too short to reach across
the bed of the trailer. Rather than using
slings to access and lift the centrally
placed bundles of tubes and pipes, the
operator merely needs to activate a lever
in the cab to fold down the 1,480mm-
long extra forks, which can reach under
the load and retract it back to the side
of the trailer. The standard forks can
then be redeployed to complete the
offloading procedure.
BSS Industrial’s Bristol branch was
the first to use one of these customised
models, and branch manager Martin
English is pleased with its performance:
“The ability to access over halfway
across the truck bed without the need
for slinging eliminates any oscillation of
the loads and minimises any risk to the
operators. We can also offload from one
side of the HGV in the warehouse, which
makes the procedure much quicker and
more economical on space.”
Combilift Ltd
– Ireland
Fax: +353 47 80501
Email:
Website:
BSS Industrial uses
Combilift’s stand-on models
