Envirowales: Ebbw Vale, UK

Quality equipment and engineering support boost recycling plant’s productivity

Based in Ebbw Vale, Envirowales has invested £58 million to create one of the most modern facilities in Europe, where it employs more than 150 people.

Utilising the best available techniques and operating to high environmental standards, the plant handles in excess of 300 tonnes of batteries daily. With over 900 tonnes of recycled lead leaving the facility each week, Envirowales is setting the pace with an impressive recycling efficiency rate of more than 95%.

The company recycles as many of the constituent parts of a battery as possible to produce lead alloys, used predominantly in the manufacture of building products, which it sells throughout Europe. Other products include sodium sulphate, one of the main ingredients in animal feeds and washing power, and polypropylene, which undergoes further processing before being incorporated into a variety of goods.

Full asset management

Since it would be impossible to keep dust out of the lift truck engines, Briggs worked with the Yale engineering team to specify the original fleet with three options. A more open chassis design, vented hooding and a lint screen positioned in front of the radiator that can be removed and washed were all part of an application specific solution designed to expel dust and prevent it from causing machine breakdowns.

Craig Williams said, “The original Yale and Briggs solution gave us the capability to monitor our fleet properly and identify where and why we were incurring additional costs. We’ve been working closely with our dedicated Briggs support team ever since to spot trends and take action to eliminate issues before they escalate, and the financial savings have been a real eye-opener.

“The new Yale trucks and ongoing support from Briggs will help us deliver on three fronts; as well as maintaining operational performance, our materials handling set up is geared to keeping costs down while also improving workplace safety.”

Technology improves fleet management

Technology has an increasingly important part to play in equipment fleet management and when Envirowales switched to Yale in 2012, the lift trucks were fitted with an IP67-rated telemetry system developed by Briggs Equipment. Sealed to protect it from both dust and water ingress, the system was proven to reduce costs attributable to poor driving standards by at least 30%.

The new trucks have been fitted with the latest Yale Vision technology to optimise productivity and help Envirowales protect its assets. Briggs has also introduced its asset management tool, BE Portal, to promote total fleet transparency.

Nathan Hancock, Key Accounts Manager at Briggs Equipment, said, “By working closely with Envirowales to really understand its business and the challenging nature of the recycling environment, we’ve been able to develop a materials handling solution that supports the company’s own efforts to grow its business by reducing operational costs and improving productivity.”

What Our Customers Are Saying

"We need quality equipment we can depend on, day in day out, and the Yale machines have certainly proved their worth in what must be one of the toughest applications around. When the contract came up for renewal, we had no hesitation in opting for more of the same.”

Craig Williams - Logistics Manager, Envirowales

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