Equipment Report

Exodus Machines Forms Alliance with Caterpillar
Exodus Machines Inc., a Superior, Wis.-based manufacturer of material handlers, and Caterpillar, headquartered in Peoria, Ill., have jointly announced an alliance. Exodus’ purpose-built material handlers will now be available through the Cat dealer network in North America. The companies plan to sell the machines globally in the future.

According to Jody Howard, general manager of Cat’s Industrial & Waste Group, a recently formed strategic business unit within Cat, adding Exodus machines to the company’s product line will allow Cat to give a new level of attention to industrial and waste customers. “It is an exciting opportunity for us here at Caterpillar to get focused on these waste and industrial customers, who for some time hadn’t really focused our attention,” she said during a teleconference announcing the alliance.

Bill Springer, vice president of Cat and leader of its Diversified Products Division, which the Industrial & Waste Group falls under, discussed why partnering with Exodus was such a good fit for both companies.

“It was pretty obvious they had a product; we had a product gap,” Springer said. “Exodus didn’t have a distribution system; we have a distribution system. So there were some pretty logical reasons why we began to talk. We started talking and realizing we could create a separate business unit around this.”

Bruce Bacon, president of Exodus Machines, said the material handlers his company produces have been so widely embraced by the scrap industry, allying with Cat would be beneficial for customers. “When Exodus made a decision to design and manufacture innovative, world-class industrial swing machines just a few short years ago, our mission was to incorporate safety and performance, efficiency, ease of maintenance and durability into our designs,” said Bacon. “At the same time, we really wanted to have a continuation of the relationship in the scrap industry that had been built over the years. The market response has been gratifying, and the product performance has resulted in accelerated market acceptance; and, that brings us to today.”

Bacon continued, “From our perspective, the strength of Caterpillar’s leadership position and distribution, manufacturing and commitment to customer support combined with Exodus’ ability to create innovative, advanced designs really results in an alliance that delivers a superior value proposition to our current and future customers.”

During the first year of the alliance, the Exodus brand will remain. The product will be transitioned to the Cat brand within the next 12 to 18 months, Howard said. While the machines will be available in North America initially, Howard said, “As we move forward through the Cat brand, they will become available to more Cat dealers worldwide.”

In addition, there are plans to introduce more Exodus models within the next year. “We are aggressively developing and designing additional models to fill a variety of sizes and configurations for the market,” Bacon said.

Springer noted that, in the past, Cat had not been in the large material handling business. “That is why this alliance with Exodus is absolutely a perfect match—they have the product we don’t have, and we have the distribution system that they didn’t have.”

Gibson Machinery Opens Western Pennsylvania Location
Gibson Machinery, an equipment company based in the Cleveland suburb of Oakwood Village, Ohio, has opened a second sales and service location in Oakdale, Pa., near Pittsburgh.

Gibson Machinery represents Sennebogen, Doosan, Doppstadt and Genesis equipment for the scrap and construction industries. The company recently began selling Chicago Pneumatic hammers and the Terex compact line. The new 8,500-square-foot building located on 2 acres will offer equipment, parts and service.

Owner and President Lee Gibson says the scrap and Marcellus shale markets in that area are doing well and are among the reasons the company decided to add a location in Western Pennsylvania.

“We just think there is a lot of potential in that area,” Gibson says. “That branch will end up surpassing what we do in Ohio.”

Mike Keremes is the vice president of sales for Gibson Machinery’s Oakdale location. Bob Decker is parts and service manager. In addition to Keremes and Decker, a product support representative and three field mechanics with fully equipped service trucks also are based in Oakdale to provide service to customers in that area.

Gibson says, “We feel [Western Pennsylvania] is a very promising market and we wanted to have a facility of trained people to make sure we take care of the customer.”

Gibson Machinery’s new office is located at 450 Imperial Industrial Park, Oakdale, Pa. 15071, and can be reached at 724-695-5000.

More information is available at www.gibsonmachinery.com
 

Shared Logic Celebrates 30th Anniversary
The Shared Logic Group Inc., Holland, Ohio, which was founded in 1982, is celebrating 30 years in business providing recyclers with accounting and management software solutions. The company says it has more than 4,000 licensed users of its software.

Stephen Brown founded and leads Shared Logic as president, while Perry Jacobs serves as executive vice president.

Shared Logic’s RIMAS (Recycling Industry Management & Accounting System) accounting program was introduced 30 years ago. Since its introduction, Shared Logic says it has improved and expanded its products to meet the needs of the market. Its services now include electronic document management and Web-based products. In addition to RIMAS, Shared Logic offers the following product expansions:

• RIMAS MMC (equipment management costing);
• RIMAS Online (online access for trading partners);
• Trader Inquiry (access to company data); and
• E-Doc Executive (electronic document storage and retrieval).

In addition to software products, Shared Logic says it has created integrated equipment add-ons that have streamlined certain procedures required by the recycling industry. Recyclers can capture signatures, finger prints and driver’s license information electronically and easily with add-ons that work with the RIMAS NT/P entry programs, the company says.

More information is available at www.sharedlogic.com.
 

IFAT Exhibit Space is Fully Booked
The IFAT Entsorga trade fair in Germany has sold out its 2.3 million square feet of exhibition space. According to the show’s organizers, Messe München, it is the first time the show has fully pre-leased all the exhibition halls at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre in Munich.

IFAT Entsorga is billed by Messe München as “the world’s premier trade show for innovations and services in water, sewage, waste and raw materials management.”

The 2012 event takes place May 7-11 in Munich and will include 1.9 million square feet of indoor exhibition space and 375,000 square feet of outdoor space, setting a new record for the show. The number of exhibitors will exceed the 2,730 that took part in the 2010 IFAT Entsorga event, the organizers say.

“We are particularly pleased in this context with the response from exhibitors from abroad,” says Eugen Egetenmeir, managing director of Messe München. “A total of 27 international joint stands are registered from 17 countries, while in 2010 there were 18 international pavilions from 13 countries. Canada, Japan, Norway, Russia and Spain are taking joint stands for the first time. These strong participation figures, resulting in fully booked halls, show clearly that companies—in Germany and around the world—regard IFAT Entsorga as the leading trade fair for their sector.”

The event’s organizers also say the recycling management product category will occupy 590,000 square feet.

Another category with a sizable presence at the 2012 IFAT Entsorga event will be waste to energy, according to Messe München. “IFAT Entsorga 2012 showcases the diverse technologies and concepts involved in obtaining valuable energy from waste,” the group states in a news release.

More information is available at www.ifat.de.
 

Alan Ross Machinery Sells Magnapower Eddy Current System
Chicago-based Alan Ross Machinery has announced the sale of its first U.K.-manufactured Magnapower eddy current to Action Recyclers, a recycling firm with two locations in Milwaukee.

The machine will be used to separate aluminum from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) flake and glass.

The system includes a vibrating feeder, drum magnet and belt cleaning brush and is capable of processing approximately 5 tons per hour, according to Alan Ross.

According to Rustin Ross, Alan Ross Machinery president, Action Recyclers selected Magnapower’s eddy-current sorting system because the system’s proprietary eccentric rotor design proved effective for its application, including sorting fines.

The unit is scheduled for installation in March 2012.

“We’re extremely proud Magnapower was selected from a field of such strong competition,” says Ross. “Magnapower has worked hard to bring innovation to eddy sortation, and it’s rewarding to see their ingenuity recognized.”

Magnapower manufactures separation equipment, including eddy sorters, overband magnets and specialized sorting equipment for the recycling industry.

Alan Ross Machinery carries an inventory of new and used machinery for the scrap processing market. The company is the North American dealer for many manufacturers in addition to Magnatech, including ING Bonfiglioli SpA, which manufactures ferrous metal shredders, ELME clamshell grapple-magnet combinations and LONGi Magnet Co. Ltd. of Fushun, China.

More information is available at www.alanross.biz or by visiting Alan Ross Machinery and Magnapower at the ISRI Convention in Las Vegas, April 15-19.
 

NTS to Build FASTek Mobile Loading Machine for ASR
National Technical Systems Inc. (NTS), a Calabasas, Calif.-based provider of engineering, testing and supply chain management services, has been awarded a contract to fabricate and deliver its Mobile FASTek scrap metal loading machine to Advanced Steel Recovery (ASR), a Fontana, Calif., scrap metal recycling company.

The FASTek mobile loading machine is a self-contained, 55-foot long, 93,000-pound, self-leveling machine with an integrated scale system. The integrated scale system reduces the time it takes to load and ship as much as 58,000 pounds of scrap from about three hours down to 15 minutes, NTS claims.

Unlike fixed machines that reside at a single location, the mobile machine has the ability to be transported as needed to demolition sites or to smaller scrap recycling yards that are not capable of supporting the scrap volume required for a fixed machine.

The unit being built will integrate custom data reporting systems accessible via any Web-enabled device, allowing the customer to view real-time load information.

William McGinnis, NTS CEO, says work on the new mobile machine is an outgrowth of successful earlier projects with ASR that included designing similar fixed machines for scrap metal processing.

“The fact that we will be fabricating, assembling and testing this mobile machine is another excellent demonstration of the breadth of our capabilities,” McGinnis says. “Winning repeat business from a satisfied customer like ASR is also a strong indication that there is growing demand for our new services and that NTS has proven its ability to deliver.”

The FASTek mobile machine was originally designed by NTS as an adjunct to the 19 fixed FASTek machines and one mobile machine the company has deployed.