Market Trends

CAT COMPLETES PLANT EXPANSION

Caterpillar Lift Trucks, Houston, has completed an expansion to the manufacturing plant that produces Caterpillar reach trucks and Caterpillar walkie models. The expansion increased the size of the facility by 15 percent. In addition to enlarging the building, many improvements were made to the manufacturing process, including the addition of robotic welders, updated tooling and additional laser cutting tables.

CASE CHANGES CORP. STRUCTURE

Case Corp., Racine, Wisc., has announced a new corporate structure designed to further strengthen the company’s customer focus and create a new global product management function which will speed the development of new products.

The reorganized structure is designed to provide worldwide leadership in new product development; encourage cross-functional teams to more effectively design, manufacture, market and support Case products; integrate product development, engineering, purchasing and manufacturing operations on a global basis; and provide increased focus on development of international markets.

"This new organization enables us to remain close to our customers — worldwide," says Jean-Pierre Rosso, Case president and chief executive officer.

INDRESCO, Dallas, a major supplier of refractory products such as steel furnaces, has acquired the assets of Shred Pax Corp., Wood Dale, Ill., a manufacturer of low-speed, high-torque industrial shredding and recycling systems. The new Shred Pax Systems Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of INDRESCO.

"Shred Pax joins our sister companies, Jeffrey Processing Products in Woodruff, S.C., and British Jeffrey Diamond in Wakefield, England, to deliver the most complete line of size-reduction systems in the industry," says INDRESCO’s William Strait, acting general manager of Shred Pax Systems Inc.

LAKE COUNTY SELECTS RRT

The Solid Waste Agency of the Lake County, Ill., Board of Directors has selected Resource Recycling Technologies to design, construct and operate an intermediate processing facility in Lake County. The facility will allow local waste haulers to expand the types of materials they collect and divert an estimated 65,000 tons of recyc-lables annually from landfills.

The 50,000-square-foot facility will be owned and operated by RRT with a service agreement with the Agency for its 36 member municipalities. RRT will pay the Agency $5.50 per ton for the projected 65,000 tons of material recovered from Lake county communities.

HYTROL-SERRA JOINT VENTURE

Hytrol Conveyor Co., Jonesboro, Ark., has announced a joint venture with Serra Systems of Healdsburg, Calif., to form Controls by Hytrol, L.L.C. The enterprise will supply advanced control solutions for conveyor applications.

Controls By Hytrol’s modular, standard controls package will provide high functionality at a competitive price for fully integrated systems, including high speed sortation. Individual control modules may be used for islands of automation or be combined into systems.

SSBE, REGENT PLAN MERGE

SSB Environmental Inc., Albany, N.Y., has announced plans to merge with Regent Petroleum Corp., Dallas. At presstime, the merger agreement was subject to Regent shareholder approval.

"This represents the latest step in our strategy to expand our landfill technology business to a nationwide base, and to allow equity investors to take part in a rapidly growing area of the solid waste industry," says Gordon Boyd, president and CEO of SSBE.

THOMAS ADDS MORE DEALERS

Thomas Equipment Ltd., Centreville, New Bruns-wick, Canada, has added a number of firms to its team of North American dealers.

These dealers, all in the United States, include Cole Implement Inc., Media, Ill.; Strupp Implement Inc., Slinger, Wisc.; K&W Equipment Co., Owensboro, Ky.; Don Leslie Supply Inc., Duluth, Minn.; Leslie Equipment Co., Cowen, W.V.; The Machinery Center Inc., Las Vegas, Nev.; and T&D Concrete Inc., Leitchfield, Ky.

RRS PROVIDES SEVERAL MRFS

Resource Recovery Systems Inc., Essex, Conn., will complete construction of the Sarasota County Materials Recovery Facility this month. The facility will process 60 tons per day of commingled containers and 125 tons per day of commingled paper.

RRS has also completed a 75-ton-per-shift MRF in Cobleskill, N.Y. This facility, which will process commingled containers and commingled paper, has the distinction of occcupying a former cement factory.

In addition, RRS has broken ground for a MRF facility to be built in Saginaw, Mich.

WHEELABRATOR LICENSES RETEC