Pirtek Oldbury Aids Scrap Yard Expansion

Press release date: 10 February 2009

The ongoing assistance and support from Pirtek’s Oldbury hose centre is helping the smooth expansion of a Black Country scrap processing facility. Owned and operated by Sims Group UK Ltd, the world’s largest scrap recycling concern, the facility is currently installing a new car de-pollution plant and once again, Pirtek Oldbury is lending a helping hand.

Sims Group has put its faith in the hydraulic hose replacement service offered by Pirtek Oldbury as the world’s largest scrap processing and recycling company expands operations at its recently acquired facility at James Scott Road in Halesowen.

Broad Equipment Fleet
The facility, which has operated as a scrap yard for more than 25 years, covers an area of more than 0.8 of a hectare and draws scrap from an 80 kilometre radius, regularly processes up to 5,000 tonnes of ferrous and non-ferrous metals each month. However, Sims Group has bigger plans for the facility it purchased just over 12 months ago, and immediately set about stamping its professionalism on the operation, with Pirtek’s assistance playing a pivotal role.

“We operate a large fleet of highly specialised equipment including a pair of Caterpillar 320 scrap handling excavators, two RB crawler cranes, and two materials handlers from Atlas and Fuchs Terex. These are the heart of the operation and a breakdown can bring operations to a standstill,” says site manager Jim Ross. “Very early on after our takeover, we called in Pirtek Oldbury and their Mobile Sales and Service Technician Richard set about logging each machine and its hydraulic needs to ensure that their stock was a match for our likely requirements. Richard also carries out regular hose inspections on all our machines to pre-empt potential failures that might lead to unplanned equipment downtime”
 

Expansion Plans
In addition to upgrading its parts and spares logistics, Sims has set some ambitious expansion plans for the yard and aims to increase scrap output from the current 5,000 tonnes per month to more than 7,000 tonnes. To facilitate this, the yard is being partially rebuilt with a new concrete slab being laid to ensure that oils, lubricants and other contaminants cannot escape the confines of the site. And even though this construction work is being conducted by a third-party contractor, Pirtek has once again been involved. “The construction works here have required the use of excavators and dumpers for several months and I have personally recommended that the contractor – Thames Valley Construction – uses Pirtek Oldbury to supply its replacement hydraulic hoses throughout the contract,” Jim continues.

However, the biggest change at the yard is the construction of a new End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) “super rig” by Power Transmission Engineering Ltd, the first of its kind in the UK. Developed in response to the European Union’s end of life vehicle directive which requires 85 percent of cars to be recycled, the unit is designed to facilitate the rapid removal of oils, lubricants and fluids together with gas from the air conditioning system and vehicle tyres. “It really is a remarkable piece of kit,” Jim asserts. “When it is operational, we will be able to fully de-pollute a car in less than 25 minutes, a job that would previously have taken 50 minutes.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, Pirtek has once again been involved, supplying the necessary hoses for the installation and already allocating emergency hoses and assemblies at its Oldbury facility. The company is also supplying spill kits to deal with soils of oils and battery acids that might occur within the new ELV super rig. “Pirtek Oldbury has played a key part in our development of this facility and we view Richard almost as a part of OUR team,” Jim Ross concludes.
“This is one of the busiest weighbridges in the Sims Group network and we simply can’t afford to have any of our main machines out of action. Thankfully, Pirtek Oldbury has helped reduce our downtime and maximise each machines availability.”
Further information is available from:
Pirtek UK Ltd.
35 Acton Park Estate,
The Vale,
Acton,
London.
W3 7QE
Tel: +44 (0) 208 749 8444

Editorial enquires should be directed to: Tony Waring on Tel: 07831461561 or Email: tony.waring@pirtek.co.uk