ABUS solve material flow for São José Industrial – a producer of agricultural machinery in Brazil
The sector of agricultural machinery and equipment is one of the fastest growing ones in Brazil. This industry continues to expand in direct contrast to the economic crisis which has been ongoing since 2015. Preliminary estimates of the Brazilian engineering federation (Abimaq) had the sustained growth of this industry at 8% for 2018. However, Mr Pedro Estevão de Oliveira, the president of the chamber for agricultural machinery and farming implements, states that the increase amounts more likely to between 10 and 15% when the latest reports are taken into account. Positive development is also expected for the harvest year 2019.
It was exactly the trust in this growth and in the economic recovery of Brazil which prompted Mr Geraldo Recktenwald, the CEO of São José Industrial (www.saojoseindustrial.com.br), to invest in a newly built production plant in the city of São José do Inhacorá in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the south of Brazil.
More than 50 million R$ (about 10 million GBP) were invested into the new production plant—which in effect tripled the production capacity. Of a total surface area of 87,000 m² the production is taking up 16,900 m² and another 5,000 m² are occupied by administration. São José Industrial manufactures here slurry tankers, manure spreaders, brush cutters, shredding machines, field choppers, as well as planers and winches for tractors amongst other products. Last year the company, one of the biggest employers in town, celebrated their 25th anniversary.
São José Industrial continue to invest in innovation and expect high reliability and corresponding technology of their partners. Building a new production plant achieved several goals in one go: intra logistics of the movement of loads have been improved, the movement of forklift trucks has been considerably reduced, and dynamic production processes have been secured.
Mr Geraldo Recktenwald explained: “Once we had determined the material flow and the division into production sections we invited CIRIEX ABUS (www.ciriexabus-cranes.com.br) to help us find solutions in order to guarantee enhanced dynamics of the internal material logistics. CIRIEX ABUS really understood the project and our concerns and proposed solutions for the optimisation of our processes.”
Mr Sergio Eidt, CEO of CIRIEX ABUS, the Brazilian partner of ABUS Kransysteme, added: “We have discussed many options and then offered solutions to meet the needs of São José. We have standardised the procedures as far as possible in order to make maintenance easier and to optimise the spares inventory.”
This solution saw a total of six single girder EOT cranes supplied: two of these bridge cranes are equipped with electric wire rope hoists with safe working loads of 3,200 kg each and work in tandem (this means that one user is operating two EOT cranes simultaneously). Two more cranes may also be operated in tandem but they have higher load capacities: both wire rope hoists can lift loads of up to 6,300 kg. In the upper transport level where the larger loads are moved there are another two single girder EOT cranes also with SWLs of 3,200 kg each. However, these last two cranes are only working individually, i.e. they do not work in tandem. The internal material logistics was completed by the installation of twenty HB systems for load capacities between 250 kg and 2,000 kg. The modular lightweight rail system is used in the production of São José to transport, and to install, smaller parts and components. Thus a complete production line was established in the manufacturing process. One pillar jib crane with a SWL of 250 kg serves one individual installation workstation. The aim and the request of the customer to create a dynamic manufacturing process could be achieved thanks to the combination of several ABUS crane types in dependence of the load capacity required and the site of operation of the crane.
