Bulletin 1/2010 - Siempelkamp NIS

for their routes only. These calculations provide the maximum
total weight allowed on the roads including the weight of the
truck. For our grinding table the raw casting weight was 142,000 kg
(156.5 US tons). The total weight including the weight of the
truck amounted to 195,000 kg (215 US tons).
Even though, just a few months before, similar castings may have
been transported on a certain route, it is not unheard of that the
same roads cannot be used again for another transport. That
could be because meanwhile the allowable maximum weight for
a bridge may have been downgraded and due to the lack of rehabilitation,
the building structure will no longer support any higher
loads. Therefore, a transport on the former route is no longer
allowable. In the case where a downgrading took place, the
freight forwarder has the chance to commission an independent
authority to recalculate the allowable weight for the bridge.
If the independent authority retrieves a result different from that
of the particular precinct, the survey report is reconsidered by the
precinct authority. The result of this consideration is fi nal and
cannot be protested. If the authority sticks to its decision that the
bridge cannot be passed over due to the high loading weight, the
submitted routing can be rejected. For the freight forwarder this
means that the entire planning process including the route survey
has to be carried out again and the approval process starts over.
On the road again?
Waiting for the permit to transport
the casting to the machine shop
Not only the requirements from the statical design of bridges can
prevent a transport. Roadworks that narrow a road can also prevent
transport permits from being issued. Due to an economic stimulus
package passed by the German Federal Government, several construction
projects are underway at the same time on different
highways. This means that fi nding an appropriate alternate route
Mechanical machining of the
grinding table
SIEMPELKAMP | FOUNDRY
is becoming increasingly diffi cult. Sometimes castings can no longer
reach their destination point via the road network.
All these occurrences can lead to the denial of the transport
permit and, consequently, to delivery delays. In individual cases
this can result in a contract penalty for Siempelkamp. Regarding
our grinding table order, a non-acceptable delay was imminent
because no alternate routes could be found. Roadworks along
the route made the roads impassable. Again and again the authorities
issued negative notices following different proposals from
the freight forwarder.
In this situation the Siempelkamp Group worked hard to demonstrate
their reliability. Following the mechanical machining, carried out
by Siempelkamp Maschinen- und Anlagenbau in Krefeld, and the
acceptance of the casting by the customer, the transport to the
Hamburg port was upcoming. Again, this required an approval
process.
A small but important side effect: During the machining process
the grinding table decreased in size and weight. Including the
packaging the casting now “only” weighed 114,000 kg (125.6
US tons). Together with the truck the total weight amounted to
174,000 kg (191.8 US tons). The outer dimensions still amounted
to 6.1 m x 6.1 m x 3.0 m (20 x 20 x 9.8 ft). However, even for this,
now weight-reduced load, no solution for transporting the load
exclusively on a truck could be found. The current construction site
conditions on Germany’s highway system posed an insurmountable
obstacle.
The solution: transport via ship
Casting of a grinding table
How could we keep the delivery date that we agreed to in the
contract? For our grinding table, a combined transport on truck