Multinational engineering company, Linde, has opened a second 900 sq metre heavy truck assembly facility at its Merthyr Tydfil plant as part of its £16.5m investment program in new products and infrastructure.
Linde’s Merthyr plant, which is its Heavy Truck Division, designs and builds heavy forklift trucks, and container handlers, for loading containers used in the storage and freight industry.
The new £1.5m Giraffe House 2, which stands at 80 feet and is tall enough to house five double-decker busses on top of one another, will be an integral part of enabling Linde to meet an increase in demand and assist new product development.
Linde Heavy Truck Division’s (LHTD) expansion comes after a sales increase from 2007 of around 30 per cent and represents the first stage in LHTD’s extensive plans to further expand its assembly line in 2009.
The Giraffe House 2 will finish the construction of vehicles that are capable of stacking up to eight 9’6” high freight containers and strengthens LHTD’s status as the only UK manufacturer of such equipment.
Roland Hartwig, managing director of LHTD, opened the Giraffe House at a ceremony attended by more than 300 LHTD workers. He said: “This has been a very productive year for LHTD. We have been able to increase our largest truck’s output by 40% and increase the output of our new forklift trucks significantly to meet the increased demand whilst maintaining consistent product deliveries”.
“However, due to the vast rise we have seen in the demand for our trucks over the years our existing facilities were showing a bottleneck in production.
“The new Giraffe House is part of the plan we announced in October last year that will effectively double our output and provide for the increase in demand in the industry and for LHTD’s future plans for growth.”
Building on Giraffe House 2 was started earlier in 2008 using 22 contractors, including the main contractor D Lucas & Sons from Pontypool.
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The new facilities also adhere to strict environmental regulations and have been constructed with specialist containment pipes and sensors that prevent and detect any leakages.
Mike James, manufacturing engineer at LHTD and project manager of the new Giraffe House, said: “We had some difficulty putting the doors up because of their sheer size. They are each 15 metres tall and presented quite a challenge to the contractors but everyone pulled together throughout the project and we were able to complete everything on budget and on time. The only other real difficulty we encountered during the build was the weather!”
The opening of Giraffe House 2 comes after the launch of a new range of Empty Container Trucks in March 2008, and the release in September of a re-designed and extended range of laden container handling “Reachstackers” the initial stage in Linde Heavy Truck Department’s plan for growth.
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