Tony Ditrih knows his stuff.
The Mechanical Engineer, and Equipment Manager at Sell & Parker, knows that machinery needs to be tough to cut it in the scrap metal industry. As he puts it, “you can’t have little Tonka toys”.
Tony says Sell & Parker was one of the first in the scrap yard industry to buy a Liebherr material handler. As of February, the company has five LH 50 M Industry Litronic material handlers working across eight facilities and another on the way.
“We have to have the larger machines,” Tony says. “The bigger reach you have, the more productive you are.”
Sell & Parker has more than 50 years’ experience dealing with all aspects of scrap collection and recycling and is one of only three accredited suppliers to Bluescope Steel. It handles everything from small deliveries of 10 kilograms, such as small backyard clean-ups, to thousands of tonnes of scrap including steel, aluminium, copper, brass and stainless-steel.
Tony says it’s the larger jobs where the LH 50 M material handler comes into its own.
“In our industry, you’ve got to stack the cars up high and be able to move around the piles,” he says. “The smaller machines we used to have only had a reach of 15.3 metres, it’s not long enough. The biggest reach the LH 50 M has is 18 metres – that’s a more comfortable range for us.”
Since its foundation in 1949 Liebherr has decades of experience in the development and production of machines that are designed to be efficient and perform in challenging and difficult environments.
Performance is important in scrap handling whether it’s sorting mixed scrap material, loading and unloading HGVs and ships or loading shredders, shears and press plant.
Paul Findlater, from Liebherr-Australia, says Liebherr material handling machines have been developed for high productivity.
“High lift capacities and fast work cycles are essential prerequisites for efficient handling operations,” Paul says. “The optimum interplay between the hydraulics and electronics guarantees powerful, fast movements during handling and at the same time make it possible to work sensitively and precisely in challenging sorting tasks.
“The new generation of material handling machines are powerful and efficient because of Liebherr’s engine technology which is manufactured in-house and optimised to meet the requirements of controlled hydraulics.
“Liebherr-Power Efficiency (LPE) enables machine operation in the area of improved economy. Combined with the Liebherr energy recovery system, fuel consumption is reduced to a minimum while material handling is significantly increased thanks to faster and more homogeneous work cycles.”
A variety of attachments are available, so the LH 50 M is optimally matched to job requirements. Tony says the LH 50 M is used across Sell & Parker’s scrap and recycling yards to load, stack and sort material and feed material into a pre-shredder. Each machine can work up to 70-80 hours per week.
“We work them hard,” he says. “From 5.30am every day for six days, sometimes seven days a week. If you push it to the limit, obviously you’re going to use fuel, but fuel consumption of the LH 50 M is very excellent.”
Liebherr prides itself on placing a focus on customer satisfaction – not just for the company’s products but also its services. The company aims to bring added value and push the limits on what was previously thought impossible.
Tony says Liebherr’s service team is within 20 kilometres of Sell & Parker’s main site and is on call for any issues that may occur, including at weekends and after hours.
“We can’t afford not to have maintenance teams at close range,” he says. “Liebherr understand what our requirements are and respond accordingly.”
He says improvements to data transmission and positioning systems help improve the management of the equipment and cost efficiency.
“I physically check the machines each morning and talk with the operators. I check all details with Liebherr service in case we’ve missed any issues. We can’t afford to miss anything. We need to eliminate faults as they occur, especially with five machines operating.
“It’s working quite well. We work closely and we work as a team.”
Tony says his own team loves the LH 50 M, particularly several female operators who say the LH 50 M is easy to operate, stable and comfortable.
Sell & Parker has recently purchased more land next to its main production plant at Kings Park. Tony says it might take a few years to expand, but the company will be speaking with Liebherr about buying more machinery.
For more information, visit: www.liebherr.com.au