With purpose

Individuals who have started a scrap or recycling operation often have had experience with equipment such as skid steers and tracked excavators. It’s not surprising that these machines initially end up as the primary handling, sorting, stacking and loading equipment at these fledgling yards. The machines typically work well when material inflow and outflow is slow, allowing the facilities to grow roots in a community while saving on capital expenditures.

As the facility becomes more established, however, the amount and variety of material received increases. The number of commercial customers grows, as does the number of roll-off boxes entering the yard, resulting in a higher volume of trucks entering and leaving the facility.

“We went from one truck outbound every other day to up to 12 trucks daily, and our number of roll-off boxes grew from five to 60 in three years,” says Hugh Grandstaff, founder of HLH&R Metals Recycling LP in Waxahachie, Texas.

Material increases eventually expose the inadequacies of using equipment such as modified excavators and skid steer loaders to sort, stack and load material. In the early days, taking 45 minutes, an hour or even longer to load a high-wall trailer was accceptable, but with increased material inflow, the equipment falls behind. Worse yet, operations find it difficult to nearly impossible to take advantage of favorable upticks in material prices.

There comes a point in the evolutionary growth of a scrap yard or recycling facility where an important decision about the way it handles material must be made. Does the operation stick with the known and add more of the same type of equipment and more operators/workers to keep up with increased material inflow, or does it move into a more unknown direction and make an investment in equipment specifically designed to handle scrap and recyclables?

Switching to purpose-built equipment can seem like a risky proposition, but with the “risk” comes much reward.

“Initially we thought the material handlers would be a little bit more than what we could afford,” says Chuck Rosenberg, president of City Iron and Metal Co. of Hastings, Nebraska.

A couple of years ago, this scrap operation moved from handling material with modified excavators to the purpose-built Terex Fuchs MHL340 and MHL350 material handlers. “It’s all about speed in our business, and the Terex Fuchs material handlers help us to do our jobs better, be more competitive and allow us to keep up with the volume,” Rosenberg adds.

Efficiency gains, capacity increases and higher productivity are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making the transition to purpose-built material handlers. The base design of these machines offers several distinct advantages that can boost handling capabilities to help grow a company’s business.
 

Undercarriage and capacity

The undercarriage design of an excavator and that of a purpose-built material handler differ significantly. A major advantage for the material handler is the positioning of the slewing ring for the upper carriage.

“The slewing ring of the excavator is positioned off-center of the undercarriage base; but, with a purpose-built material handler like a Terex Fuchs machine, the ring is positioned directly in the center,” explains Andreas Gruber, port application manager for Terex Fuchs.

The excavator’s offset ring design is beneficial for digging, but this significantly reduces the machine’s 360-degree lifting capacities often required in the scrap and recycling business.

“The excavator offers only a 180-degree handling capability for the maximum load,” Gruber says. “However, the material handler offers the same load-handling capabilities throughout its 360-degree rotation, so it can lift, sort and stack high loads from around the full circumference of the machine,” he adds.

The design offers improved operating stability with tire-driven handlers, a question often asked by companies making the switch from tracked excavators to a purpose-built material handler.

“The outriggers on a tired machine help to offer incredible stability, which puts customers switching to a new, purpose-built machine at ease,” Steve Brezinski, Terex Fuchs technical sales manager, says.
 

Rise above it

Material handlers also offer the significant advantage of a hydraulically elevating operator’s cab. This feature enables the operator to see over the sides of rail cars and high-wall trailers for better loading efficiency than can be achieved typically with modified excavators built with a stationary cab.

“In this business safety is critical, and the elevated cab has the operator sitting in the catbird seat,” says Thomas McKellar, president and owner of New Orleans-based Site Prep.

Rosenberg agrees, adding, “The hydraulically elevating cabs … allow our operators to see into high-wall trailers, so they can be properly loaded.”

He says his company’s two Terex Fuchs material handlers move more material than four cable cranes.

Terex Fuchs material handler cabs offer a range of maximum eye-level elevations from 17 feet to 20.3 feet, depending on the model. Larger material handlers, such as the MHL360 and MHL380, also offer horizontally adjustable operator cabs of up to 7.2 feet. “This feature is used quite often in portside applications,” Gruber says, “so operators can see inside the hull of the vessel, making unloading much more efficient.”
 

Longer reach

The boom and stick configuration of a purpose-built material handler has a number of junctions. This, according to Gruber, is where the kinematics advantage of the material handler comes into play.

“The excavator configuration includes three junctions, which work well for digging but limit reach and slows handling capacities in a scrap or recycling application,” he says.

The straight boom/stick configuration for the material handler improves the stockpiling ability and reduces cycle times for the purpose-built machine.

Terex Fuchs material handlers offer reaches ranging from 34.1 feet at the low end to 68.9 feet at the opposite extreme. Purpose-built machines often offer more than a 20 percent longer reach than a comparably sized excavator, so material can be stockpiled higher and is handled fewer times before it’s processed. The longer reach is coupled with higher lift capacities when fully extended, something that cannot be said for excavators.

“Excavator hydraulics are set up for digging, so they are not well-equipped to handle heavy weight when the boom is extended,” says Jay Young, scrap and recycling sales manager for Roadbuilders Machinery and Supply Co., Kansas City, Kansas, an authorized distributor for Terex Fuchs equipment.

Rosenberg agrees. “You could only reach so far with our excavators, and there was too much stress and strain put on the fittings when lifting heavy scrap material at the end of their reach,” he says.

At the end of the stick, owners of purpose-built material handlers reap one additional advantage: a rotating grapple. Compared with a stationary grapple, as is common with excavators, being able to rotate the load when placing it into a vessel, trailer or railcar shaves substantial loading time.

“We can load a trailer in one-third the time (than it took with the excavator) with the MHL331 handler,” Grandstaff says. “The grapple rotates to better position material inside the trailer, and our operators can see over the walls of the trailer.”
 

Need for speed

Many scrap and recycling facilities are paved now and require a tired machine versus a tracked machine. For this and another key reason—speed—many purpose-built handlers found at these facilities will be models with tire drive systems.

Tire-driven machines enable the operator to get around the yard with a load much faster than a tracked excavator. “Depending on the model, Terex Fuchs handlers with tire drive systems offer speeds reaching 12.4 mph, which is about four times that of a tracked machine,” Brezinski says.

The tires for these material handlers are designed specifically to withstand the demands of scrap and material recycling facilities. Standard Terex Fuchs handlers offer a dual-tire design that provides both durability and speed, the company says.

Rosenberg offers, “The solid rubber tires hold up well, and the dividers keep mud and debris from getting in between the wheels.”
 

Fully integrated

Purpose-built material handlers have a fully integrated design that meets the needs of most scrap and recycling operations without modification. For example, generators come standard on Terex Fuchs handlers, sized properly with the machine model and with the typical applications performed, whereas they must be added to an excavator.

“I was impressed that the generator and controls for operating the magnet were integrated into the machine’s design, so no modifications were necessary,” says Rosenberg.

Left- and right-hand joysticks put all critical machine operating functions, such as magnet, slewing brake, grapple slewing and steering, within the operator’s reach. “The joysticks will also leave room for optional equipment expansion, like for the controlling movement of an added clean-up blade or controlling an auxiliary hydraulic cylinder on the stick,” Brezinski says.

Since the necessary components for efficiently handling material at a scrap or recycling facility are fully integrated into the purpose-built machine design, it can allow material handlers to be much more fuel efficient than equipment modified to work in these applications.

“The MHL331 handler burned 75 percent less fuel than the excavator,” Grandstaff says.

Brezinski adds, “Terex Fuchs offers Eco Mode operation on newer machines, which matches power output to the application to save up to 36 percent more fuel over full-power operation.”

High capacity, long reach, elevated cabs, quick drive systems and fuel-efficient designs: Today’s purpose-built material handlers can offer quite a significant return on a scrap or recycling operation’s equipment investment.

While it may initially be hard to part with previous experience and buy a material handler, once an operation chooses to move forward with a purpose-built machine, it typically does not go back, similar to the experience of City Iron and Metal.

While the investment in its two material handlers was initially thought to be a little bit more than what the scrap company could afford, “As time went by, we realized we couldn’t afford to be without the material handlers,” Rosenberg says.

This article was submitted on behalf of Terex Fuchs. More information is available at www.terex-fuchs.com/en.html.