Friday, April 15, 2011

Freight And Container Handling Equipment Added To UK Hire Fleet

Warwickshire Firm Invests Three Quarters of a Million Pounds
Shipping News Feature

UK – A leading distributor of port and terminal equipment for Finnish manufacturer Konecranes has expanded its short-term rental fleet with a £750,000 investment in four new heavy lifting machines. Cooper Specialised Handling has added 45 tonne laden reach stackers, a 25 tonne lift truck with fixed frame for either fork lift or 20’ box handling (aimed at the UK container waste market) and finally a dedicated unladen model 108, empty reach stacker.

David Cooper, Managing Director of Warwickshire based Cooper SH, commented:

“Often, large rental trucks are old specification, and come with high maintenance and high exhaust emission that ultimately affect uptime and productivity. With our modern equipment, that reflects the very latest specifications, maintenance is kept to a minimum maximising truck utilisation and the operators are happy using modern, high performance equipment. There is unquestionably a need for this type of equipment on a casual basis. This maybe a seasonal demand, an unscheduled machine outage or, as the economy recovers and factory lead times extend, they become a useful ‘prop’ machine to cover for new equipment delivery.

“These trucks can be considered as good as new, which is virtually unheard of for this size of machine in this sector. They are very low hour machines and most importantly, have the latest technology together with software and electronic hardware such as ECO drive – the award-winning fuel measurement tool.

“Short-term rental helps users manage their operational costs rather than impacting on capital expenditure and long-term cash flow. By introducing these latest specification trucks as part of our short-term rental fleet, we can provide our customers with a flexible, short-term heavy lifting solution whilst keeping costs to a minimum.”

Cooper SH adopts a policy of only renting modern, quiet and low emission equipment with regular stock rotation to maintain a low average fleet age. All of Cooper SH’s trucks are LOLER certified and maintained by Cooper SH’s growing field engineering base.