New investment pays dividends for plant company, Story Plant. CVW reports on its expenditure, which included a Stertil Koni Earthlift.
Carlisle-based Story Plant has gone big with a recent £1 million plus investment in its new workshop facilities. Included in the expenditure was a set of four heavy-duty 10 tonne Stertil Koni Earthlift wireless mobile column lifts, type ST1100FWA.
The investment allows the business to upgrade and refurbish its fleet of road rail plant in line with Network Rail certification requirements. In addition, the company sees this as not only an upgrade opportunity but also to introduce improvements in performance, safety and reliability.
The Earthlifts are used to raise wheeled excavator-based road rail vehicles with a future capability to raise tracked variants using a bespoke designed track carrier. Each lift provides a safe lifting capacity of 10 tonnes which, when used as a set of four, provides an overall lifting capacity of 40 tonnes.
“Prior to purchasing the Earthlifts, we relied upon workshop pits which restricted where and how works could take place,” says Mark Bruce, Head of Technical Development at Story Plant. “The new lifts now give us the opportunity and flexibility to work on machines anywhere in the workshop to maximise available space whilst having multiple projects ongoing at any one time.”
A key factor in Story Plant’s decision to specify the Earthlift is the model’s Active Energy Retrieval System. The principle is simple – to use the energy generated by the raised vehicle as it comes back down to recharge the batteries: in other words, to harness the gravitational energy. The new system increases the number of lifting cycles by about 35%, compared to a fully-charged set of wireless mobiles under maximum load. In addition to the reduced power consumption, the batteries need less recharging, increasing productivity and reducing costs at a stroke.
As Mark Bruce says: “The combination of a reduced need for recharging, plus the harvesting of energy as the lift lowers, supports our drive towards sustainability. Consequently, the Active Energy Retrieval System was an important consideration when reaching our purchasing decision.”
Fingertip control
The heavy-duty model also benefits from the incorporation of a wireless-mesh connectivity system that’s been specially developed for industrial applications. Featuring full-colour touch screen control consoles, the Earthlift’s eBright Smart Control System has been designed and developed to simplify operation by providing intuitive ease of use with maximum visual information about every lifting operation – all at the fingertips of the workshop technicians.
For added safety and performance, the eBright Smart Control System also shows how many columns in the set are being used and the battery status of each column. Safety is further enhanced by an independent mechanical locking system, incorporated into each column, which allows workshop technicians to securely lock the lift to prevent inadvertent lowering.
Thanks to the lift’s special characteristics, including bio-degradable hydraulic oil, 98% of it can be recycled at the end of its long life. The combination of this, plus the Earthlift’s energy-saving features make it the world’s most advanced and sophisticated wireless mobile column lift, according to the manufacturer.
“Our projects are intensive over the duration of an upgrade,” says Mark Bruce. “Various stages in a project require access to different areas of machines as they are stripped and reassembled. We generally have five ongoing projects at any one time taking an average of 15 weeks per project. However, where an unplanned repair is required, the Earthlifts give us immediate access to the underside of machines outside of planned activities if required.”
As with all models in the Stertil Koni range, the Earthlift is supported by comprehensive after sales service options. These options have been designed to ensure that lifts are inspected and properly maintained and all required certificates are renewed annually in accordance with customer requirements.
