SDLG is targeting the buoyant Indian market with the launch of a wheeled loader in the country, while Volvo loading products have won orders in the UK and Indonesia. Liam McLoughlin reports.
With the Indian government continuing to invest in infrastructure, there is high demand for wheeled loaders in the country for heavy-load applications such as material handling, land clearing and general earthmoving.
That is the view of Surat Mehta, head of business in India for the Chinese-based machinery supplier SDLG.
To meet this demand, the Linyi-headquartered manufacturer launched a 5 t-rated wheeled loader to the Indian market at the bauma CONEXPO India 2018 event in December. The machine features a larger bucket capacity, heavier operating weight and a new cooling design system.
Alongside the new loader, SDLG also exhibited the L946 wheeled loader at the bauma India event. SDLG launched the L946 at Excon in December 2017. It features a maximum 3.5 m3 bucket capacity, a maximum 1 m dumping distance and a 129 kW rated power.
Mehta says the construction industry in India has grown since 2015 and he expects the trend to continue.
“For wheeled loaders, SDLG has a strong market position in the 3- to 5-tonne range, and we plan to further strengthen our position,” Mehta said. “For motor graders, there is potential to grow our customer base as well, with road construction activity levels remaining high in India.”
In Indonesia, logistics company PT Escorindo Jasa Prima recently bought its first Volvo EC200D excavator to support operations for one of its quarry customers.
PT Escorindo Jasa Prima says the EC 200D has proved so successful and efficient that it has since ordered several more of the machines.
Since starting out in 2000, the company has supplied equipment and services to a variety of customers across Indonesia. One of its latest projects is for a cement producer which operates a quarry in West Java.
At the quarry, minerals need to be mined before being transported to a cement mixing plant onsite. To facilitate this, the quarry owner turned to PT Escorindo Jasa Prima which selected a Volvo EC200D excavator for the task. The machine performed so efficiently that the cement producer has now expanded its relationship with PT Escorindo Jasa Prima.
“After our customer saw how the EC200D was contributing to the productivity of the quarry and the cement mixing plant, we started talking about similar logistics services for some of their other sites,” said Oggy Hargiyanto, MD at PT Escorindo Jasa Prima. “After those discussions, we went back to our Volvo dealer PT Indotruck Utama and ordered four additional EC200D excavators.”
The first EC200D is expected to put in 16-hour daily shifts at the West Java quarry. Its short cycle times enable it to dig clay, limestone and shale with efficiency and load them into waiting trucks.
The clay, limestone and shale that the excavator mines are raw materials in the production of cement. After they are excavated, the EC200D loads them onto trucks for transportation to a cement mixing plant, which produces up to 5.5 million tonnes of cement annually.
With such high production levels, one of the four new EC200Ds will be deployed to the quarry, while the other three will be sent to other sites. Besides supporting mining activity, the additional EC200D unit to be deployed to the quarry will also help manage stockpiles of minerals.
“The hopper at the cement plant can handle 100 tonnes per hour of minerals,” Hargiyanto said. “When it’s at capacity, then the surplus minerals have to be stockpiled in a yard near the plant.
“The EC200D’s job at the yard will be mainly material handling: arranging the stockpiles and conveying them to the hopper when capacity frees up.”
With a typical shift at the quarry involving various tasks around the site, Volvo says the EC200D offers both fuel efficiency and operator comfort.
Hargiyanto adds that when the four new EC200Ds arrive, his company’s fleet of excavators will have more than doubled.
The EC200D was launched at the start of 2018 and is the fastest excavator in the 20-tonne class. It offers exceptionally high swing torque and unique lifting capabilities which make it the natural choice for general construction work. It is configured with a 5.7 m boom, 2.9 m arm and 0.8m3 bucket.
PT Escorindo Jasa Prima is headquartered in Jakarta, with other offices in Narogong, West Java; Cilacap, Central Java; and Tuban, East Java.
Marshalls, a UK manufacturer of natural stone and concrete hard landscaping products, has taken delivery of several Volvo Construction Equipment products, at its Howley Park quarry near Wakefield. The products include an L180H loading shovel, a fifty-tonne EC480E excavator and an A45G articulated hauler and their delivery coincides with the commissioning of a new crushing plant at the Howley Park facility.
“Up until now we’ve engaged contractors to carry out the primary crushing and screening processes here at Howley Park,” says Ian Manley, quarry manager at Howley Park. “With our new plant coming on stream we therefore needed to add these extra machines to fill the gap and consequently settled on Volvos to complement and mirror our existing machines on site. Flexibility is the key to our operations and the ability to interchange attachments on our shovels and excavators when required is crucial.”
Highly abrasive gritstone is quarried at Howley Park, and the new machines have been supplied to deal with the tough characteristics of the material. For example, the EC480E excavator is equipped with an attachment-mounted heavy-duty 3.0m³ rock bucket, and the 4.8m³ rehandling bucket mounted on the L180H loading shovel has benefitted from hard facing on the leading edge and side plates.
As with five 30-tonne L180Hs that were previously supplied to Marshalls in 2017, the new loading shovel has had Volvo’s co-pilot load-assist weigh loading option installed at the factory. The option allows the operator to calibrate either their bucket or block handling forks via the touch-screen pad in the cab. Bucket loads and the number of buckets filled can be recorded in addition to the system storing an array of product menus. The co-pilot touch screen automatically becomes a rear-view screen when the machine is put into reverse, interacting with the rear-view camera. The co-pilot system is linked in with the care track system – Volvo’s telematics system which can feed back information to a remote location.
The new L180H also features the CDC (comfort drive control) option allowing the operator to steer the machine from the comfort of their left arm rest.
The fifty-tonne excavator has been equipped with double grouser track pads for quarry operations and supplied with a hydraulic quick fit, heavy-duty bucket and hydraulically operated steps for safe access and egress for the operator to and from the cab. The EC480E is installed with a 13-litre Volvo engine developing 378 net hp and its hydraulics are controlled by a system which provides on-demand flow and reduces power losses within the circuit.
The Marshalls group operates its own quarries and manufacturing sites, as well as 12 service centres and 14 offices throughout the UK.
Meanwhile, Caterpillar has launched the 990K Aggregate Handler wheeled loader, designed to handle greater payloads in aggregates yard applications. With as much as a 25% payload increase, as compared to the standard 990K wheeled loader, the new Aggregate Handler is designed to enable customers to load trucks and railcars faster and to move more material in load-and-carry and stockpile handling tasks. The new model has a payload of 20 tonnes and a full turn static tipping load of 43,738 kg.
