InfraStructures - February 2022 - Pacific Steel Acquires One Machine To Do The Work Of Two

Pacific Steel Acquires One Machine To Do The Work Of Two

When Kelly Frantzich went shopping for new material handlers for Pacific Steel & Recycling, he got more than he bargained for. The company’s management team had agreed that some of its smaller yards needed more processing capacity.

Mr. Frantzich, as the firm’s equipment manager, was fielding requests to several OEMs for mobile shears mounted on a wheeled machine. Colleen Miller, North, Central and South America sales manager and National & Strategic Account sales manager at SENNEBOGEN, said yes to the request, then anted up with an 830 M paired with a new engineered multi-function system that had recently been introduced in Europe.

As Ms. Miller explained to the Pacific Steel managers, the new SENNEBOGEN Vario Tool would give their yards a mobile shear that could still perform traditional scrap-handling duties. The Vario Tool is like an oversized Swiss Army knife, designed especially for scrap processing and demolition work. A unique coupling system connects the boom and a custom stick to any one of several familiar attachments including a shear, orange peel grapple, clamshell bucket, lifting hooks or even a magnet without having to get out of the machine.

“We were intrigued by the idea for some of our smaller yards where we don’t get full utilization of a shear machine and material handler,” said Kelly Frantzich. “Or it might be a good fit for larger yards where we’re doing some offloading, plus we get the shear too. The Vario Tool is designed to complete all the required connections for each attachment automatically, so operators are able to switch from one to another, in 2 minutes or less, without leaving the cab.”

Jack Stoken, Operations manager at Pacific Steel’s facility in Kalispell, Montana, agrees. Stoken’s yard was the first to receive one Vario Tool machines that Pacific Steel has ordered.

“We are mid to smaller sized yard for this company with our scrap iron business. We have a scrap handler and we have a Genesis shear on another machine. We handle a lot of shred here, with relatively little heavy iron. But we needed a little bit more capacity because we were falling behind in our processing,” he said.

The SENNEBOGEN 830 M arrived this past September, equipped with the Vario Tool, a Genesis 555 rotator shear and a hydraulic grapple.

“Adding a new 830 with the Vario Tool attachment seemed to make sense,” added Mr. Stoken. “The 830, with its high-flow hydraulics circuit, has plenty of power to run the shear. It will be a scrap-handler most of the time but it will also fill in as a shear. It’s less costly to buy 1 machine versus 2; it gives us more options and it’s able to cover both of the other machines if one goes down.”

The staff in Kalispell is also pleased with their new unit. The 830 M is larger than their older scrap handler. Operators appreciate the comfort of SENNEBOGEN’s elevating Maxcab, and they appreciate its quiet running. The maintenance crew finds the machine accessible and easy to service.

Pacific Steel has been working with SENNEBOGEN machines in various locations since 2007.

“SENNEBOGEN has proven themselves to us,” concluded Kelly Frantzich. “They are in for the long haul; material handlers is all they do. It’s a good quality product.”

Source: SENNEBOGEN LLC

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