STS offers advice on equipment selection

MOVE THEM DRUMS!

EQUIPMENT • DRUM HANDLING EQUIPMENT NEEDS TO BE CAREFULLY SELECTED IF IT IS TO DO ITS JOB PROPERLY. STS BESPOKE HANDLING EQUIPMENT HAS A NEW WEBSITE TO HELP

CORNWALL, UK-BASED STS has unveiled a revamped website that allows visitors to conveniently view the company’s extensive range of drum handling equipment. “We’ve been designing and building high-quality equipment for 17 years, setting the standard in the manual handling industry,” the company says. “Here at STS we strive to make all our products both versatile and universal. The products we manufacture allow companies to handle a wide range of drum types and sizes; we pride ourselves on this unique feature. When we design handling products we expect the equipment to be in use on the factory floor for decades, not just years.”

BUYERS NEED TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEIR EQUIPMENT

“When searching for drum-handling equipment, it’s important to consider the variety of tasks you’ll need the equipment to fulfil as your organisation grows. Buying highly versatile handling equipment allows production managers to future-proof aspects of production that may evolve as the company expands,” it states. “With the rise in e-commerce it can be all too easy to jump into purchasing a piece of drum-handling equipment online that isn’t a best fit. Once purchased, equipment can lose its value to the company when the job that it was bought for takes a different path.”

To avoid all this, STS works closely with its customers to establish their particular requirements and ensure they get the right product for their needs. Indeed, to this end, the company even offers a range of trial drum lifters and trolleys to allow customers to field test systems and thus ascertain whether a particular item of equipment is suitable or not.

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL Furthermore, STS is keen to make sure its systems keep abreast of wider changes taking place within the industrial packaging arena. “Industrial drums come in many different shapes, sizes and materials. Traditionally, 200 litres (55 US gallons) was the standard drum capacity; nowadays drums range from 10 litres all the way up to 220-litre models,” it says, noting that drum manufacturers “are always creating new designs to maximise transport efficiency” and functionality. “When it comes to manual handling, manufacturers of equipment are rarely consulted on how drums will be handled once in use. Here at STS we carry out extensive research into drums so that the equipment we produce stands at the forefront of the handling industry.”

A good example of this is the L-ring (tighthead) plastics drum. “Traditionally, these drums were provided in a 200-litre specification. In recent times, a 220-litre model variant, which is taller than the smaller drum, has become more popular. As such, you might need to assess older drum-handling equipment to make sure it can handle both 200- and 220-litre drums safely and within the UK Manual Handling Operations Regulations (MHOR).”

In addition to the DTC01 universal drum trolley, which boasts an ergonomic design that allows users to move differently sized drums “weighing up to 350 kg easily and comfortably”, the STS portfolio of standard systems includes drum rotators, drum depalletisers and drum cradles as well as end-over-end drum mixers. Moreover, the company, as its name suggests, also regularly undertakes bespoke projects to meet often very highly demanding criteria.

Indeed, the company was recently tasked with developing an extremely versatile drum tipper for the UK manufacturing industry. “Our client needed a fully powered model which could clamp, lift and rotate drums ranging from 25 to 220 litres,” it reports. “As many drums are being handled each day, the customer also requested a power-drive system be fitted to the tipper, [which] is great for when drums need to be moved a large distance before emptying.” HCB www.sts-trolleys.co.uk