Above: Customers want to move material as low to the ground as possible. Combilift’s four-directional design makes handling long product safer compared to using a traditional forklift.

Maneuvering lengthy structural metal products from shop floor to flatbed trailer requires an astute attention to detail

April 2019 - Football fans will enter the Las Vegas Raiders Stadium to watch their beloved NFL team play on a field supported by steel trusses fabricated by Unique Metal Fabrication Inc. Pittsburg, Kansas-based UMFI is a custom job shop for manufacturers and turnkey structural steel and miscellaneous steel. It performs weldments, plasma cutting, bending, blasting, painting, structural steel and other miscellaneous steel fabrication work, including architectural work like the National Softball Hall of Fame and Museum in Oklahoma City.

Maneuvering metal bars throughout its facility, in and out the door, and then out to job sites can be a cumbersome and often dangerous process. To accommodate customer demand while considering worker safety and limited space, UMFI changed its moving methods.

“We work with long, heavy steel product and moved it around using a forklift and wagons to transfer the material from bay to bay,” says President and CEO Adam Endicott.

The Combi-CB model moves long I-beams.

Jim Cox, regional sales manager (Midwest) for Combilift, suggested the C10,000XL to bring in the long pieces through UMFI’s 12-foot-wide door. The system turns its wheels 90 degrees to place the materials onto transfer tables. UMFI has the C10,000XL and three Combi-CK 6,000-pound Combilift models. “We eliminated the trailers we used to need inside the plant, which significantly cut down crane time and raised our efficiencies,” Endicott says.

Combilift sells its products to a network of distributors that are supported by Combilift regional managers like Jim Cox. The first step to figuring out what strategy would work best involves an in-depth survey of the customer’s facility. “We find where we can open up floor space or supply maneuverability from one area to another,” explains Gearoid Hogan, Combilift’s vice president of sales. “Whether moving materials into storage or transitioning materials within a company’s operations, one of the biggest concerns our customers have more and more is the safety of their workers.

“Lifting high steel beams over cars, buildings or peoples’ heads is dangerous,” he continues. “Customers want to move material as low to the ground as possible. The four-directional design of our machines makes handling long product much safer compared to using a traditional forklift.”

The Combilift machines helped UMFI keep material moving after installing new CNC lines.

Test run

Most of Combilift’s material handling machines move in four directions: forward and backward, left and right. In the case of UMFI, Cox suggested the fabricator demo a machine to see for themselves. “In more cases than not, if we bring a machine out to demonstrate, the customer will ask to keep the machine,” Cox says.

That’s exactly what happened. “Jim showed me how the machine worked and brought one over to try out on our shop floor,” recalls Endicott. “A couple of days later, he called to say they were going to come over and pick it up, and I said, ‘No, you’re not,’ and bought it on the spot.”

Since that initial transaction, UMFI purchased an additional three Combilift models to streamline the shop floor and complement the fabricator’s CNC automated lines.

Combilift machines are also compatible with attachments like a spreader bar to help offset any deflection. Architectural designs with coatings are becoming more commonplace as is ordering longer material. “The more times you handle the beams, the more risk you take of damaging the materials,” Hogan says, noting architectural extrusions often are coated. It is necessary to minimize contact. “Customers want to transfer the beams from their production lines onto the flatbed trailer and deliver the final product to their customers. The faster it’s out their doors, the quicker they can send their invoice out and start bringing in money.”

UMFI has five bays, each 525 feet long. With its Combilift machines, UMFI no longer requires trailers inside the plant.

In addition to safety concerns, customers often update material handling machinery after installing upgraded processes to their production floors. “We needed a new material handling process to help handle the output from the new CNC automated lines we’ve installed,” Endicott says. “Without the Combilift machines, we wouldn’t be able to keep up. Between the CNC lines and the material handling upgrades, we’ve about doubled our output in the last five years.”

UMFI has five bays, each 525 feet long. The morass of overhead cranes, trailers and conventional forklifts used to transfer materials between bays wasn’t helping efficiency. “[We were] always tearing stuff up and wasting time,” Endicott says. UMFI fabricates structural and miscellaneous steel pieces that can extend to 80 feet long. After installing the Combilift machines, UMFI no longer requires trailers inside the plant and material is transferred from the outside parking lot to feed production lines.

Customers are also asking Combilift to help them coordinate longer product for larger projects. “Our customers are buying longer materials, so now we have to figure out how to go from getting 20 feet worth of material through a facility’s 25-foot-wide doors to, instead, 40 feet of material through that same 25-foot-wide door,” says Hogan. “Instead of the old method of backing a flatbed trailer onto the actual production floor inside the facility, which takes up valuable floor space, the Combilift efficiently lifts and places the steel beams onto the trailer parked outside.” MM