Freight heavyweight
December 1st 2008 Putting heavy freight straight off the plane and into tightlypacked
lorries requires maximum visibility. So Infratil called
in Doosan and Rushlift for a custom 13 tonner with offset cab
New Zealand based company,
Infratil, may not yet be a household
name, but as the owner and
operator of businesses in the energy,
airport and public transport sectors its
influence is global. Its energy operations
are predominantly in New Zealand and
Australia but the company also owns
airports in Glasgow and Kent.
"Kent handles up to 30,000 tonnes of
freight each year, mostly produce from
Africa," explains Infratil's CEO, Matt Clarke.
"Our specialty is the fast turnaround of
perishable goods – they go from the field
and onto the aircraft, then when they arrive
they are taken off the aircraft and put
straight onto back of the lorries heading to
the supermarkets."
It's an unusual, but very time efficient
operation and the space and flexibility the
airport provides, means a queue of lorries
can often be seen awaiting the arrival of
the next flight. With the aircraft pallets,
designed for maximum loads, going
straight onto the lorries, the system isn't
without its own challenges. There's
virtually no clearance at the sides of the
lorries for loads to slot into, meaning the
operators have to judge their angles
extremely accurately. Requiring a lifting
capacity of 13 tonnes also means there's a
lot of mast and forks between the operator
and lorry, hence maximum visibility was
essential and for that, a special offset cab
was designed and built by Doosan.
"We needed a fit for purpose machine to
make it faster and even easier than before,"
says Clarke. "We weren't after something
out of the box, so it was a challenge to
Doosan and Rushlift to get the kit redesigned
for our needs and they rose to
the challenge." He says Rushlift's backup
and maintenance across both sites – at
opposite ends of the UK – formed a big
part of the deal. More articles from Doosan Infracore Co. Ltd: | 
