Combilift Ltd. recently delivered its 10,000th machine to engineered lumber products manufacturer Weyerhaeuser, which will be working at Weyerhaeuser’s Parallam Mill in Annacis Island near Vancouver, British Columbia. The lift truck was officially handed over to Chuck Antonides, Weyerhaeuser’s director of lean processes, by Greensboro, N.C.-based Combilift USA’s President Tommy Cadden. The machine is also the first 20,000-pound capacity Combilift to be operated at a Weyerhaeuser site.
The majority of Weyerhaeuser’s products are oversized loads that can be as long as 66 feet. Having identified the Combilift four-way concept as the answer to handling such challenging products, Weyerhaeuser now operates 130 Combilifts at its North American facilities. The trucks play a key role in the company’s commitment to the safe material handling procedures and productivity, and they were designed specifically for Weyerhaeuser’s requirements.
“Product development was based on close collaboration between the two companies, with Combilift acting constantly and quickly on feedback from Weyerhaeuser personnel,” Cadden said. “Chuck Antonides visited our manufacturing facility in Ireland on a number of occasions to liaise with the management and engineers. Within a six month time frame from August 2007 to January 2008, Combilift designed, built and delivered the first of the Weyerhaeuser C12000WSL units and throughout 2008 Weyerhaeuser ordered and took delivery of 108 C12000WSL units in total.”
Features on the C12,000WSL and C20,000WSL that are designed to ease the handling of extreme loads and enhance operations include a larger operator cab, sticker boxes and containers for chainsaws and tools fixed to the body of the truck, and an integrated side-shifting mast, which caters to the varying dimensions of the products. Combilift’s customized approach has proved to be such a success that Weyerhaeuser has embarked on a program to phase out all other types of conventional forklifts at its distribution centres and replace them with Combilift models.
Lift & Access is part of the Catalyst Communications Network publication family.
