Leading UK port set to save £90,000 per year after reviewing materials handling provider.

The Bristol Port Company, one of the top ten ports in the UK, has just announced the appointment of Cooper Specialised Handling (Konecranes Lifttrucks distributor) to manage its reach stacker support operations. The five-year contract, worth in excess of £1m, is for the supply of four 45 tonne Konecranes reach stackers.

The Bristol Port Company awarded the contract to Cooper SH over their competitors due to the significant cost saving initiatives and specialised service support provision the company was able to offer. Improved servicing standards and lifetime cost considerations were paramount in the final decision. To meet the port’s requirements Cooper SH made bespoke modifications to the trucks, which included re-designing the depth and access of the steps to correspond with existing port design and fitting an Eco Drive system to manage fuel consumption.

The Bristol Port Company is a privately-owned port and handles bulk goods such as coal and grain and boasts a successful container operation.  The Port also handled over 600,000 cars last year and has a total throughput of 12 million tonnes.  The Bristol Port Company’s turnover was £75m last year and has grown steadily year-on-year.

To fully understand The Bristol Port Company’s specialist requirements Cooper SH undertook a series of thorough site surveys. Rory Fitzgerald, General Manager for Operations said; “We are really pleased with the overall package supplied by Cooper SH, they resolved any minor issues and with the use of low maintenance technology we can save up to 30% on servicing, plus the load sensing hydraulics can save us an extra 15-30% on fuel consumption.”

Container handing is a specialist operation which involves goods being unloaded from container vessels using ship to shore gantry cranes. The Bristol Port Company’s new fleet of reach stackers supplied by Cooper SH will handle the containers once transported by Mafi Trailers to the container yard. The machines’ design incorporates sophisticated technology and custom modifications that reduce lifecycle costs whilst simultaneously increasing performance. The load sensing hydraulics help to achieve up to 30% lower fuel consumption with improved lift speeds and the auto transit system helps to achieve optimal boom position whilst transiting boxes, reducing mechanical strain on the truck and tyre wear. In addition, the GSM support system ensures that engineers can remotely diagnose faults to help minimise downtime, whilst the port can utilise this for data capture allowing machine performance to be measured.

David Cooper, Managing Director of Cooper SH added, “The Bristol Port Company were really switched on to our total cost of ownership message and we worked in partnership with them to make this a reality. In addition, we have deployed support in the form of a local engineer on call, made available parts stock on site and introduced technological innovations to the fleet, all helping reduce the total cost of ownership for The Bristol Port Company.”

Björn Fritzell, Sales Manager, Konecranes Lifttrucks AB also mentioned, “Customers today are concerned about the environmental impact as well as economics of their operations. Using technology like load sensing in hydraulics and easy access to diagnose is just a couple of different ways where we work closely with our customers.

About Konecranes

Konecranes Lifttrucks is a world leading manufacturer of Forklift trucks, Empty Container Handlers and Fully Laden Container Handlers. Konecranes Lifttrucks is a part of  Konecranes which is a world-leading group of Lifting Businesses™, serving a broad range of customers, including manufacturing and process industries, shipyards, ports and terminals. Konecranes provides productivity-enhancing lifting solutions as well as services for lifting equipment and machine tools of all makes. In 2007, Group sales totaled EUR 1,750 million. The Group has 9,350 employees, at more than 470 locations in 43 countries. Konecranes is listed on the OMX Nordic Exchange Helsinki