Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download

trailer world Issue One 2014

30      Issue One 2014 Project comes intelligent ideas, and operates a company suggestion scheme to encourage them specifically. “Every employee,” says HR manager Irma Amrehn, “can feel part of our company family.” This confi- dence in the ideas and skills of employees also helped in the “Trail- er” project when the going got tough, remembers Feilner. “After all, we occasionally also had our doubts or got frustrated because of short-term setbacks,” admits Feilner. His conviction and experi- ence indicates that projects such as developing the trailer for use in the mine can only be achieved if you have a good connection to colleagues and superiors – right up to board level. Achieving more through ongoing development The combina- tion of the Mercedes-Benz Zetros and the trailer developed in- house features appealing design and, above all, ingenious technolo- gy. The prototype trailer designed by the team had a 20% heavier payload: its gooseneck coupling is connected to the rear axle of the Zetros using a special ball joint also developed by Knauf. Work is now underway in the Knauf motor vehicle workshop into develop- ing this further: future solutions will be tested for their practicality on the company’s own track. Feilner is convinced: it will be possible to increase the trailer’s payload by a further 10%. The tractor/trailer combination could quite easily demonstrate its potential in other locations: “We could well imagine,” explains Norbert Feilner, “us- ing further developments internationally in the future for extract- ing raw materials, for example also in the states of the former Soviet Union where the Knauf Group has mining operations. In any case, our new development satisfies realistic requirements with regard to the cost-benefit ratio of the investment.” (gje/pw) Photos:NorbertSchmelz,Knauf For more information about Knauf, refer to www.knauf.de The even weight distribution of the cargo, significantly improved payload and improved manoeuvrability make underground transports easier, safer and more efficient. Knauf – a company on course for success  What started out in 1932 in a small gypsum mine at Schengen an der Mosel has developed into a globally active group of com- panies over the past 80 years. Nowadays, Knauf Gips KG, part of the German Knauf Group, operates more than 150 plants with a total of around 25,000 employees from its company headquarters in Iphofen. Knauf produces modern dry wall systems, plaster, insulating materials, accessories, thermal insulation attachment systems, paints, flooring systems, machinery and tools. In 2012, the group of companies earned more than EUR 6 billion in this line of work. Knauf’s product range also includes liquid screeds. The raw material for these is anhydrite, a dry, gypsum-like sedimentary material. Since 1957, it has been mined underground near Hüttenheim in Lower Franconia, about 40 kilometres away from Würzburg. There is a total roadway network spanning about 160 kilometres in the mine, and only the numbered stone pillars provide help with navigation. Nowadays, the anhydrite is trans- ported over a distance of about 1.7 kilometres from the extraction point to the crusher using the tractor/trailer combination of a Mercedes-Benz Zetros and a trailer that Knauf developed itself. »We have preferred to use BPW axles for more than 40 years now. Knauf now fits them to about 90% of its commercial vehicles.« Norbert Feilner, head of the workshop and fleet at Knauf Gips KG

Overview