Capital Equipment News July 2019

Phillip Hall (centre), takes delivery of the new machine from the Liebherr-Africa team.

The unit has since been deployed to work at Sappi’s Ngodwana mill, where Forestry Plant & Equipment is contracted to provide materials handling services at the mill’s wood yard – unloading timber from trucks and rail, as well as feeding the timber into hoppers. Forestry Plant & Equipment has been working at this site for about 10 years now, handling about 1,7-million tonnes of timber per year – in actual fact the capacity is 3,4-million tonnes because it is double handled. The contractor has maintained a 90% availability on this particular site. “The new Liebherr LH 60 M Timber Litronic comes as part of our ongoing fleet replacement programme. We roll in a new machine every year. We started with five and have been replacing them along the way. Replacement is a necessity because uptime is a big parameter for the job that we do. We also have to closely monitor our costs. We use a service interval monitor, where we look at the annualised costs and the cost of running the machine as a replacement yardstick. Ours is not a general hourly-based replacement cycle – machines behave differently, some run cost-effectively for more hours than others,” says Phillip Hall, CEO and founder of Forestry Plant & Equipment. Forestry Plant & Equipment is a family- owned business started by Phillip and his wife Mary Hall some 20 years ago. The company brought plant rental into

Forestry Plant & Equipment has taken delivery of the first Liebherr LH 60 M Timber Litronic in South Africa

10 brought in 10 years

This brings to 10 the number of log leaders the specialist forestry contractor has bought from Liebherr-Africa in 10 years

A key feature which influenced the buying decision was the machine’s electronic controls, which will significantly add value in training operators

With its twin engine travel drive, which offers greater pulling power at maximum speed, the LH 60 M Timber Litronic will become the first machine in Forestry Plant & Equipment’s fleet to draw a trailer, thus increasing productivity significantly

QUICK TAKE

CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS JULY 2019 13