Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based MCM Management Corp., one of the 10 largest demolition contractors in America, had not expected to change its choice of hydraulic material handlers. But when the company’s preferred model was discontinued by the manufacturer, MCM Management’s Fleet Manager Dan Perry found that his search for a suitable replacement also took his company’s operations a step forward in safety.
MCM specializes in large-scale demolition projects, such as auto manufacturing plants, stamping plants and steel mills.
Perry and the owners of MCM Management, Rob and Dave Mardigian, agreed to put their first Sennebogen 825 M to the test at the site of the former General Motors stamping plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The men say they were pleased with the material handler’s ability to move in and out of the press plant to perform various cleanup tasks.
Sennebogen has been a leading name in the global material handling industry for more than 60 years. Based in Stanley, North Carolina, within the greater Charlotte region, Sennebogen LLC offers a complete range of purpose-built machines to handle a variety material handling application. Established in America in 2000, Sennebogen has become a leading provider of specialized equipment solutions for recycling and scrap metal yards, barge and port operations, log-handling, transfer stations and waste facilities.
A growing network of distributors supports the material handler manufacturing company with sales and service across the Americas, in order to ensure a high standard of professional machine support and parts availability, according to Sennebogen.
MCM Management quickly discovered that in addition to its new material handler’s agility and versatility, the machine also offered several equally impressive features, including:
- great visibility to the work zone;
- the stability of the cab, whether raised or lowered;
- rear and side camera systems to see blind spots;
- a railing system on the top of the machine’s engine housing;
- a sliding door for ease of access to the cab; and
- a permanent catwalk beside the cab.
Safety features set the pace
As Perry reports, “The 825 gives us an unparalleled level of safety to protect the operator and maintenance crews. The operators’ input to us was that they really liked having these cameras and they feel that they provide them with an extra level of safety.”
Along with the guarding that Sennebogen includes as standard equipment on its material handlers, Perry says the machines’ autolube feature also contributes to their safety, as operators and technicians now spend less time walking on and around them for servicing.
According to Perry, MCM has been retrofitting its large fleet of heavy equipment, including demolition excavators up to 250,000 pounds, large dozers and water trucks, with similar hand railings.
Equipped for major projects
Since MCM Management acquired its first 825 M wheeled material handler, its fleet of Sennebogen machines has expanded considerably. Today, most of the company’s green machines are at work on one of the nation’s largest-ever demolition projects: the decommissioning of the 3,500-acre site of the former Sparrows Point steel mill in Maryland. (See timeline of the mill’s history above.)
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Alternative to on-site crushing When Celtic Demolition Inc. was awarded a 700,000-square-foot building demolition in the District of Columbia metro area, the customer would not allow on-site crushing to occur. Celtic Demolition needed a new solution to truck all the concrete to a recycler off of the demolition site for crushing. The new process led Celtic Demolition President Ross Tumulty to seek out a material handler from Sennebogen LLC, Stanley, North Carolina, to separate material on the job site prior to it being loaded and hauled away for crushing. “We have an excavator with a concrete pulverizer to do the primary demolition, and a loader to build stockpiles of the material,” he explains. “The Sennebogen machine then sweeps the piles with a magnet to separate the metal and load it into a container.” Tumulty realized that delivering cleaner concrete to the recycler would reduce his dump fees, while selling the recovered metal from the concrete created a new revenue stream to offset project costs. He talked to some of the scrap metal recyclers he knew, which led to the decision to purchase a Sennebogen 821 R-HD green line material handler fitted with a 48-inch scrap magnet. The 821 R-HD is a compact 55,000-pound model mounted on crawler tracks and features the elevating Sennebogen maXCab. The results exceeded Tumulty’s expectations. “The shipped concrete is, I would say, 98 percent free of metals. It’s so clean that our recycler took $5 a load off his original quote, just because he liked the material.” The project manager soon found more work for the material handler. A second application, loading sheet metal scrap into trucks, especially benefited from the elevating cab. As Tumulty points out, “Having a bird’s-eye view into trailers is especially helpful for moving bulky material into the trailers.” |
MCM Management is in the middle of a three-year project to dismantle 20 million square feet of roofed mill facilities in 75 structures.
The company says it will recycle 98 percent of the material recovered from the Sparrows Point decommissioning project, with the asbestos and other regulated wastes going for secure disposal.
While the 64,000-pound, 825 M models take on a wide variety of cleanup and pick-and-carry duties, MCM also has added a few larger machines from the same manufacturer, including the 123,000-pound 840 M and the 135,000-pound 850 M.
“The 850 is our superstar,” says Perry. “We use it to load ships and barges and [to] load quarry trucks as well, while the 840 is pretty much dedicated to rail.”
All of the material handlers are equipped with magnets, mostly in 69-inch to 72-inch diameters.
Perry says he works closely with the Sennebogen dealer in Michigan, Alta Equipment, to build and maintain MCM Management’s material handling fleet. “We have a technician from Alta come through once a month to go over every machine, front to back,” he says.
Perry continues, “If I have a situation, Alta just brings in another machine, and I virtually lose no downtime.
“They take the unit in and since they have the repair parts in stock, I get the unit back quickly,” he adds.
Mobility and transportability
Mobility is a recurring theme when Perry talks about his material handlers. On large sites where a crawler-based machine could take all morning to move from one job to the next, the wheeled machines make the trip in five or 10 minutes.
Simply getting the scrap handlers to the project site also was a major factor in MCM’s decision to go with Sennebogen equipment, MCM’s Perry says.
“The fold-up transport mode of the 825 M was a big, big thing for us—it was a key factor in Michigan. You just drive it onto the heavy hauler and drive it off,” he says. “With our previous machine, you had to remove the stick and reassemble it at the job,” Perry adds.
He continues, “Now, if we have an emergency cleanup to do, we can get an 825 on the road in less than an hour.”
“Our material handlers do a lot of moving around,” Perry says. “We have been speaking with Sennebogen about taking them to the next level. They are pretty far advanced in moving on wheels, and we can see applications other than a grapple or a magnet for our next Sennebogen.”
A version of this article first appeared in Recycling Today, a sister publication of Construction & Demolition Recycling and was submitted on behalf of Sennebogen LLC (www.sennebogen-na.com), based in Stanley, North Carolina.
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