Rearranging production facilities to meet our client’s ever-changing needs is all in a day’s work at Vanguard. In almost every case, the ‘wolf at the door’ is always downtime. With MA Auto’s requirement to relocate a 2 100 ton-capacity Schuler Press from one side of their 450m-long production facility to the other, it came as no surprise to us that downtime had to be kept to minimum.
Given the fact that stripping a press like this and reassembling it back to production condition would normally take a professional crew approximately 5 weeks, MA were particularly interested in our suggestion that, outside of mob and de-mob times, we could move the press in just 3 days, with very limited impact on production and working space.
Our solution – which we are pleased to say worked like a dream – was to leave the press fully assembled, disconnect only the main service supply lines and, thereafter, move the press fully intact from one foundation pit to the next. To do this we made use of the daylight between the ram and crown to lift the press with a hydraulic lift system out of and into the new foundation pit. The actual relocation was achieved by suspending the upright press between two self-propelled trailer configurations and manoeuvering it down the press hall. “Witnessing the upright press being transported through the press hall was the highlight for me,” says Vanguard field manager, Juan Johnson.
