Get on a roll
September 1st 2005

Brendan Coyne spoke to Nu-Star’s managing director Matt Smith who is confident that its range of materials handling equipment can assist industry in its relentless quest to improve productivity while reducing costs and safeguarding its employees

Regardless of industry, manufacturers worldwide all seek to increase productivity and lower costs without compromising health and safety. Unfortunately those three areas are often the remit of different managers.

While a common goal can be established, this arrangement isn’t always conducive to quick decisions. However, according to Nu-Star MD, Matt Smith, an early call and effective product demonstration can enable all the relevant parties to quickly recognise how their respective needs can be met.

Nu-Star’s mantra is simply ‘If it rolls, we can move it’ - making the market for its pushers, pullers and movers pretty diverse. Covering the entire manufacturing and materials handling spectrum, Smith says the vast majority of the company’s time is spent travelling from one facility to another. He claims this has given Nu-Star "an understanding of how to meet all [of the above] business drivers in the most cost effective and durable way". But while most companies make similar claims as to their expertise, Smith’s claim is verified by his customers.

Cummins Engines

Cummins Engines recently took delivery of its first Super Pusher unit at its Daventry site and according to Cummins Kaizan improvement technician, Eddie East, (originally tasked with sourcing a new mover), is now likely to order more.

A specific requirement meant the engines had to be moved earlier in the build process - and moved sideways rather than in a straight line due to a change in track design. Also, the new design engines were heavier "which meant the old mover units were no longer up to the job", explains East.

After consulting with other engineering departments, East says the general consensus was that there was nothing on the market able to deliver what Cummins needed. "So I searched on the internet - coming across not only Nu-Star but other suppliers as well. Unfortunately, for the kind of capacities that we needed, the other companies were recommending either stand-on equipment or something greater - the sort of size of a fork truck - which meant more money and wasn’t practical for our needs. So I gave Nu-Star a call and explained our requirements to Matt Smith, who said he had a mover that might be right up our street."

En-route to Rolls Royce (another automotive customer) with a Super Pusher, Smith gave a demonstration about a week later in front of the heads of each relevant Cummins department. "He clamped the female attachment onto our trolley and we all tried it out," explains East, "and it was jaw dropping. Whereas with other equipment there had been wheel spins and ‘jacking about’, this was effortless: it is so agile and manoeuvrable.

Needless to say it was thumbs up all round - the equipment pretty much sold itself." In addition, to replace the old equipment - even if it had been able to cope with the new demands - would have cost more than twice that of an outright Super Pusher purchase, according to East.

East believes Cummins will probably buy more Super Pushers in the near future to meet the needs of other departments handling bigger engines, and claims they are beating a path to the Kaizan door to have a look at it.

LDV

Cummins is the second major automotive client added to Nu-Star’s books this year - the company also supplied six Power Pushers to LDV’s Birmingham plant in June. LDV Project Engineer, Doug Annals, first contacted Nu-Star in January 2003 with regard to a then confidential new production line (the Maxus commercial vehicles range launched this year). Annals wanted to know what options were available in terms of moving trolleymounted vehicle bodies between the production line, the body shop and paint shop once production had started.

As production moved ahead in January 2005, LDV carried out an evaluation of the Power Pusher. According to LDV’s Dale Brown (also a Project Engineer), the trial confirmed that the health and safety benefits projected back in 2003 would be delivered. "[It also demonstrated] that the operators could quickly connect to, and disconnect from, the fleet of 70+ trolleys that carry the vehicle bodies," he says.

"The feedback was very positive so we quickly committed to six of the Power Pushers." Although a standard model (International Patent Pending), Nu-Star designed a bespoke receiver to fit all LDV’s trolleys - meaning any Power Pusher can move any trolley.

According to Smith the LDV case is a good example of how to save costs from the outset: "We offer equipment that is suitable for pushing/pulling pretty much anything in the industrial sector," he says.

"If companies give us the opportunity to help them get new projects off the ground at the planning stage, it saves them expending more time, money and effort than necessary."

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