JCB Loadall A Four-in-One Machine

Akshay Agarwal, Director, Materials Department, Century Metals

Enables Century Metal Recycling to ramp up its productivity, meet timely customer requirements, perform routine maintenance jobs at height with safety and gives right return on investments.

JCB pioneered the concept of Telescopic Handlers in India with its JCB Loadall, which has gained immense popularity across industries such as Agriculture, Logistics, Construction, and Processing. In India, the Telehandlers range from 7 metres lift height to 17 metres. The Made-in-India variants include–530-70 and 530-110, while the 540-170 machine for high lift and reach application is imported from the UK.

Versatile, Robust, Safe

The variety of attachments possible make Loadall a highly versatile machine. Attachments include General Purpose Shovel, Heavy Duty Forks, Bucket with Grab, Crane Hook, Grain Bucket, Power Grab, Man Platform and Drum Handlers, all of which are widely used for making machine perform a variety of tasks on site.

JCB Loadall provides unmatched safety and comfort. It is robust and ensures maximum strength in high stress areas. It is better suited for heavy-duty bucket application. Additionally, clean air kit options further enhance ventilation to work in dusty environment. The cabin is fitted with rolling over and falling over protection systems for operator safety. In fact, for JCB, safety is of paramount importance given that its Telehandlers have a ROPS / FOPS cabin, Load Moment indicator with alarm, Hose Burst Check Valves, Stabilizers and 4 Wheeled Drive for better traction.

What’s more, Livelink, an advanced Telematics Technology fitted as standard in the Telehandlers, helps customers in fleet and maintenance management. Besides giving information on the machine’s location, Livelink provides information on its Service, Operations and Security on smartphones in real time, and gives out SMS alerts in 11 different languages.

Why Century Metal Recycling bought 3 JCB Telehandlers

A fleet of JCB Telehandlers was recently deployed by Century Metal Recycling to ramp up productivity at its metal recycling plants. The machines enabled Century to meet its production targets on time for its customers, besides facilitating maintenance and other works at its six production facilities in Haryana and one in Chennai.

The company produces 200,000 metric tons of materials as ingots as well as liquid alloys, which are directly transported to customers in customized, close-bodied trucks. Major customers are automobile manufacturers, namely Maruti Suzuki, Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, TVS Motors, Bajaj, Yamaha, Royal Enfield, Ask Automotives, and more. These companies procure the finished alloys primarily for production of the engine blocks, crankshaft casing and compressors casing.

In view of its high customer base of automobile manufacturers, it was extremely important for Century to meet orders on schedule. It streamlined its production processes, which mainly involved feeding the raw material (scrap) to the automated plants, for which it procured three JCB Loadall Telehandlers.

Mr. Akshay Agarwal, Director, Materials Department, Century Metals, informs, “The earlier practice was to unload the scrap manually from the 20 and 40-feet standard containers mounted on flat trailers. This took us five to six hours. However, the flip side of the practice was that it went on to extend the lead times for feeding the materials, which was not commensurate with the requirement of our modern automated plants. Now, with the deployment of a JCB Loadall Telehandler, our feed time has drastically come down to less than two hours. One of the biggest advantage of the Telehandler is that with its 11-meter boom it can fully reach, horizontally, the inside of the container, getting every piece of scrap that used to be left uncollected earlier.”

Besides increasing production time, JCB telehandlers are feeding the loose scrap into hoppers for processing, facilitating maintenance of the production plants, and loading the finished products.

To ensure full collection of the scrap materials, JCB customized the Telehandlers as per Century’s requirements. It added a dragging tool for collection of the scrap; and specialized tires were added to prevent them from deflating due to the sharp aluminum scraps. This neutralized the chances of non-availability of the Telehandlers.

Additional Benefits

While the Telehandlers have enabled Century to curtail lead times for feeding the materials, the versatile machines undertake numerous other jobs in the plants. Jobs include feeding the loose scrap into hoppers for processing. This was earlier done through loader attachments fitted on conventional tractors. Further, fitted with man baskets attachments, the Telehandlers have begun facilitating maintenance of the plants as well; and with the fork attachments, the JCB Loadalls are assisting in loading the finished palletized ingots that weigh 500 to 600 kgs.

JCB has customized the telehandlers as per Century’s requirements; it has added a dragging tool for collection of the scrap, and specialized tires to prevent them from deflating

Says Mr. Agarwal, “Besides increasing our productivity, the Telehandler’s 11-meter boom can easily perform routine maintenance of our processing facilities at the height of 8-9 meters. Plus, the stabilizers on the Telehandlers make them stable and ensure safe operation. The running cost of the machines also meet our estimates, enabling us to get the right return on investments.”