Terex moves towards a forklift-free factory

Terex Corporation is a diversified global manufacturer of a broad range of equipment operating in five business segments. The Leicestershire-based plant is the Centre of Excellence for Crushing Technology for the Materials Processing business. It is focused on reducing the risk of accidents and injuries to its employees by investing in two electric-operated tugs for moving 16-tonne crusher machines through the production process.

Based in Coalville, Leicestershire, Terex is a leading manufacturer of heavy material processing equipment, including mobile and static crushing, screening, washing and recycling equipment.

The Coalville plant, which is part of the Terex Materials Processing business segment, employs approximately 80 people and produces a wide range of crushing machines, which can vary in weight from 10 tonnes up to 38 tonnes. These machines are primarily used by customers in the aggregates, minerals, mining, quarrying, recycling and demolition sectors.

The crushers are moved through various stages of production by using bogies on rail tracks fixed to the factory floor. Due to the weight of the crushers, manoeuvring the bogies can be quite a challenge: "Prior to investing in MasterMover's MasterTug MT20 machines, we were having to push and pull the bogies along the tracks using forklift trucks. Obviously, we wanted to look at another viable option," said Simon Croker, General Manager at Terex.

Terex searched for a suitable alternative on the Internet and came across MasterMover's website. The MasterTug MT20-1500 from MasterMover was identified as the most suitable machine for moving the bogies. The MasterTug can pull, push and steer wheeled loads from 50kg up to 25,000kg. Traction is the key to moving heavy loads and so the MasterTug is designed to get all the traction it needs by using a coupling system to transfer load weight to the drive wheel.

Terex purchased two MT20s in June 2012 and has been using these machines primarily in the paint and shot blasting bays, where they push and pull the bogies in and out of the spray booths. As well as supplying the two MT20 tugs, MasterMover also manufactured five different quick-release couplings for Terex, to enable the MT20s to attach easily and quickly to each of the five types of bogie at the plant.

"The benefits of using the MasterTug MT20 machines are their ease of use. It's also a very compact machine, which means it is easy to move bogies in and out of tight spaces or around corners. The feedback from the production staff has been overwhelmingly positive. The initial training provided by MasterMover was excellent and so the buy-in from the workforce was very high," said Simon Croker.