Western Stevedoring operates the largest forest products dock on the Pacific Coast of North America at its Lynnterm facility on the north side of the Port of Vancouver in British Columbia. Kalmar lift trucks power much of the activity at the huge facility, 85 percent of that being wood products bound overseas or for locations in North America.
The Lynnterm facility has 82 acres (33 hectares) of heavy-duty paved area, four warehouses with a total of 626,000 square feet (58,200 square meters) suitable for all-weather storage of wood products.Warehouses are served by rail and feature flush loading aprons for trucks and railcars.
The Precision Priority
"Most of our shipments are wood pulp being shipped to paper mills," explains Frank Vick, General Manager of Western Stevedoring. "We handled some 1.5 million metric tons of wood pulp last year in units of four, six or eight bales. Each bale can weigh up to two tons each and each unit will weigh eight tons. "Whether we're handling wood pulp or lumber or steel, we can't afford damage to the cargo we handle and that's one big reason we've used Kalmar lift trucks for so many years," says Mr. Vick. "Our operators are much more precise with the Kalmar units and that, plus their mechanical reliability, keeps their operating costs much lower than other machines."
Long-Term Relationship
Western Stevedoring makes annual purchases of Kalmar lift trucks through Attica Equipment Company of Coquitlam, just east of Vancouver. Darrell Taylor, who established Attica Equpipment at the end of 1978, has been doing business with Western Stevedoring for most of the years since. "Western Stevedoring employs mostly medium-duty lift trucks," Mr. Taylor recounts. "Most of them are DCD 120-12 models with a 26,000-lb. lifting capacity. "This year they purchased another six lift trucks in the same range because they like the long service life and low operating costs they get from Kalmar trucks and the beefier front ends."
Regular Rotation
According to Mr. Vick, Western Stevedoring rotates a certain number of lift trucks out of service each year, replacing them with new machines. "When downtime, maintenance and other operating costs get so high that a machine isn't paying for itself, we replace it," Mr. Vick explains. "A big reason we've stuck with Kalmar machines is because they're built to deliver low operating costs over a longer period than other trucks."
For more information, please contact
Mikael Rietz
Sales and marketing director, Industrial Systems