Ross Houston

This is one example of multiple machine moves I have been involved with in the past 10 years. For the first machine moves, I was acting as assistant, but in recent years I have been organising and planning the moves before hand and on site. For this project we were asked to plan and prepare the machine to be moved from one location in the north east of England down to the south coast. This machine is approximately 5 metres wide, 10 metres long and 7 metres high when in running condition. We were required to break it down far enough for transport regulations but without upsetting any of the delicate electronic systems on the machine.

The machine was originally constructed in 2003 and weighed in at aproximately 12 tonnes however over the years many amendments had been made to the machine and its tooling. This required accurate estimates of its current weight so that lifting and transport equipment was suitable for the lift and move. The final estimate of weight was 18 tonnes.

After several weeks planning the move we began dismantling the machine not only so that it was small enough for transport but also safe enough. Delicate parts of the machine either were removed or suitably braced to cope with the shock loads it could be subject to over its 350 mile journey south.

Once the machine was suitably packed on the truck it was time to head on to its new location and prepare for unloading at the other end. This required planning the trucks route as near to the final location as possible, checking for suitable amount of space and sufficient ground conditions. Then it was essential to map the machine interface points so that final positioning was perfect, and that its connections to the mains water, drain, steam, air and electricity could be made with no alterations.

Finally once the body of the machine was in place, it then required re-assembly and testing. The move from one site to the next took a total of two weeks.