Trade.Information

Terex Selects Heavyweight Thorworld Yard Ramp Excellent for Heavy Construction Equipment

Mobile yard ramp from Thorworld Industries is providing the ideal loading and unloading solution for use with heavy construction equipment at the Terex facility in Warwick.
It's used for offloading new machines arriving from the company's Coventry plant and other European sites where these are not delivered on low loaders, but transported in containers or on standard 40ft long trailers The machines are stored on site prior to delivery to UK dealers and customers, when they are then driven up the yard ramp and loaded onto trailers or into containers.

Thorworld built the special 15,000kg single axle capacity ramp, with a useable width of 2650mm instead of the standard 2250mm width, so that it could be used with the widest machines handled at the site.

It replaced an elderly yard ramp, from another supplier, that an inspection revealed did not meet current Health and Safety requirements.

Terex chose the 15,000kg capacity model, the largest in the Thorworld range, so that the heaviest machines arriving at the site can use it.

These are 12.5 tonne excavators made at a sister plant in Germany.

The ramp has a serrated open grid deck for positive traction in all weather conditions, with a hand-operated hydraulic pump raising it to the required height.

Although it's screwed to the ground the screws can be easily removed, with a built-in tow bar allowing the highly mobile ramp to be moved by fork lift to another part of the yard if and when necessary.

Thorworld mobile yard ramps are ruggedly built and are ideal for the fast loading and unloading of vehicle trailers and containers by fork truck - particularly where there is no raised loading dock.

Available as light, medium and heavy duty models, with 7,000 kg, 10,000 kg, 12,000 kg or 15,000 kg capacities, they can be purchased outright or rented through the company's specialist RentARamp operation, with a sale or return option.

Bespoke models can also be supplied to meet individual customer requirements and a comprehensive service and maintenance back-up facility is available to help ensure that the ramps are always kept in top condition.

Thorworld provides a one-stop, single source for a wide range of high quality loading and unloading equipment and loading bay accessories and safety aids, such as: dock shelters and seals, dock levellers, dock plates and boards, dock and vehicle bumpers, wheel chocks, modular loading docks and mobile yard ramps, as well as the Truckloada mobile yardlift and the Dockloada scissor lift platform.

Note for Excavator
An excavator is an engineering vehicle consisting of an articulated arm (boom, stick), bucket and cab mounted on a pivot (a rotating platform, like a Lazy Susan) atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. Their design is a natural progression from the steam shovel.

Excavators come in a wide variety of sizes. The smaller ones are called a mini-excavator or compact excavator. One manufacturer's largest model weighs 84,980 kg (187,360 lb) and has a maximum bucket size of 4.5 m³ (5.9 yd³). The same manufacturer's smallest mini-excavator weighs 1470 kg (3240 lb), has a maximum bucket size of 0.036 m³ (0.048 yd³) and the width of its tracks can be adjusted to 89 cm (35 inches). Another company makes a mini excavator that will fit through a doorway with tracks that can be adjusted to only 70 cm (28 inches) wide.

In recent years, hydraulic excavator capabilities have expanded far beyond excavation tasks. With the advent of hydraulic powered attachments such as a breaker, a grapple or an auger, the excavator is frequently used in many applications other than excavation. Many excavators feature quick-attach mounting systems for simplified attachment mounting, dramatically increasing the machine's utilization on the jobsite. Excavators are usually employed together with loaders and bulldozers. Most wheeled versions, and smaller, compact excavators have a small backfill (or dozer-) blade. This is a horizontal bulldozer-like blade attached to the undercarriage and is used for pushing removed material back into a hole.

Excavators are used in many roles:
Digging of trenches, holes, foundations
Material handling
Brush cutting with hydraulic attachments
Demolition
General grading/landscaping
Heavy lift, e.g. lifting and placing of pipes
Mining, especially, but not only open-pit mining
River dredging

Note for Yard Ramps
Yard ramps, also known as container tamps, are devices used to allow forklifts to enter shipping containers or trucks when elevated loading docks are not available.

Shipping containers are normally loaded and unloaded through the rear doors using fork-lift trucks. The ramps are placed at the back of a container truck so that they provide access for fork lifts to enter up the ramp and safely into the container.

Yard ramps are also frequently used to unload curtain-sided trailers which were originally loaded with pallets from the rear as these cannot then be unloaded from the side as normal.

Typically the deck of yard ramps are approx. 2.25 m wide with an overall length of about 12m They are designed to be mobile and towed into position by fork lift.

All yard ramps have to be adjustable in height from approximately 1.0m. to 1.7m. to suit different trucks. The method of height adjustment can be manual, hydraulic hand pump, or electric motor. Ideally hydraulic hand pumps are used to raise and lower the ramps. Manual adjustment of the landing legs is sometimes used but should be avoided for health and safety reasons. Most standard yard ramps have a rated capacity of 7 tonnes, but most manufacturers also provide alternative heavy duty designs up to 15 tonnes.

About Terex Corporation
Terex Corporation is a diversified global manufacturer of a broad range of heavy equipment for a variety of industries, including construction, infrastructure, quarrying, recycling, surface mining, shipping, transportation, refining, utility and maintenance. The company's major business segments include aerial work platforms, construction, cranes, materials processing & mining, and roadbuilding and utility products. Terex has more than 18,000 employees known as team members and operates 50 manufacturing facilities in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Terex sells its products in more than 170 countries.

Terex has grown considerably over the past several years, mainly through a combination of acquisitions designed to expand the company’s product offering, improve geographic coverage and deliver value for its customers. More than half its total annual sales now come from outside the United States. Terex had net sales of approximately $7.6 billion in 2006, making it the world’s third largest construction equipment manufacturer, behind only Caterpillar and Komatsu. The company’s 11-year compounded annual sales growth rate is 28 percent.

After the close of trading on December 19, 2006, Terex replaced Navistar in the S&P 500 Index. The Company is currently listed at 314 on the Fortune 500 annual listing of companies, a 41-place advance in one year.