A separate final assembly plant for the production of special-purpose machinery to meet the increasing demand in this segment was one of the projects that Wirtgen GmbH had on its agenda last year – and construction of the plant was completed successfully just prior to the turn of the year. Production in the special plant at the company’s location in Windhagen/Rhineland-Palatinate began in January. The state-of-the-art final assembly plant is fully geared to meeting the specific production-related requirements of the three special-purpose machine divisions: surface miners for the mining of useful minerals by cutting, slipform pavers for highly automated concrete paving, and cold recyclers for the environmentally friendly rehabilitation of roads are assembled on a production space of 11,000 square metres.

Flexible production concept and multifunctional facility layout

The plant offers a maximum degree of flexibility and therefore major production-related advantages, making it possible to respond to market requirements quickly. The stations for assembling the special-purpose machines are not tailored to specific machine types but can be used individually and simply be converted for the assembly of other types of machines as and when required. This intelligent production concept offers significant advantages in terms of time and capacity in particular for the assembly of the highly customized special-purpose machines with their large numbers of options.

Efficient plant of short distances: fast lead times for surface miners

All specialist departments and assembly units for the special-purpose machines in Wirtgen’s mining division are now located under one roof. In addition to the significantly larger production space available for the special-purpose machines, the new plant has an independent logistics system including a warehouse storing over 4,000 parts for the special-purpose machines, and an electrical workshop with highly qualified personnel, which is precisely tailored to the requirements of this machine division. Pre-assembly of the engine stations, conveyor production and milling drum production have also been integrated in the new building. A separate powder coating plant complying with the latest EC Environmental Directives is capable of accommodating large components of up to 12 m in length, 3 m in height and 3 m in width. Short distances are therefore guaranteed in the new plant, and systematic adjustment of the logistics chain to the production sequence also plays a major role in keeping lead times for the special-purpose machines as short as possible.

The new plant guarantees sufficient production capacities for the mining division, making it possible to respond to customer orders quickly. As many as four surface miners can be built simultaneously. This highly customized production method enables production times of the machines to be reduced while maintaining the high quality standards: a surface miner type 2500 SM has a lead time in final assembly of no more than four weeks while the 4200 SM, the largest surface miner model, can be assembled in eight weeks.

In 2008, Wirtgen built over forty large machines for use in opencast mining. In particular the 2200 SM and 2500 SM machine models are the most popular miners in the market as they are suitable for flexible use in most diverse types of rock, their mature machine technology enabling them to achieve high production rates.

High standards in the quality assurance of surface miners

Wirtgen has an own quality assurance program for the special-purpose machines in the surface miner division comprising appropriate machine acceptance certificates and a large variety of tests. This quality circle needs to be kept up to date on an ongoing basis as very strict safety regulations apply in particular in the mining industry worldwide on the one hand, and tough continuous operation in the mines requires a surface miner to be built to the highest technical quality standards on the other. The procedure at Wirtgen includes a special functional acceptance of the machines supervised by surface miner product specialists and highly experienced service technicians who are fully familiar with machine technology and customer requirements because of their field experience gained on construction sites around the globe.

A special surface of 10,000 square metres in size in the outdoor area of the new plant serves as testing ground for the test runs. A 30 cm thick concrete foundation slab has been cast to enable the self-propelled large machines weighing over 200 tons to be manoeuvred regardless of weather conditions without causing damage to the slab.

Flagship of the mining division completed successfully

The new final assembly plant perfectly accommodates the tremendous dimensions and weights of the large machines. This is impressively demonstrated by the new 4200 SM surface miner. Operations manager Norbert Dinspel has the details: “With its impressive dimensions, the 4200 SM is the flagship among the special-purpose machines. Both the dimensions of the new assembly plant and the lifting capacities of cranes have been specifically adapted to this largest and heaviest machine in the miner division. The large machine including cabin can thus be completely assembled inside the plant without creating any problems in terms of space.” An engine output of 1,623 PS and weight of over 200 tons make the 4200 SM the most powerful Wirtgen expert in opencast mining.

For further information, please contact:

Wirtgen GmbH
Franz-Sales Mantel, Michaela Adams
Press and Public Relations
Reinhard-Wirtgen-Strasse 2
53578 Windhagen
Germany

Phone: +49 2645 / 131-128
Fax: +49 2645 / 131-499
e-Mail: presse@wirtgen.de