Highly specialised transportation

Faymonville is a world leader in the development and manufacture of customised trailers designed to transport exceptional loads. Philip Yorke talked to Arnold Luxen, the company’s sales director about its latest modular trailer systems and growing global reach.

Faymonville was founded in the early 1960s in Rocherath, Belgium, by Berthold Faymonville. It was here that he established a plant to manufacture and sell forestry vehicles, and by the end of the decade, had developed the company’s first semi-trailer. The success story continued with the development of Faymonville’s first low-bed semi-trailer designed specifically for the transportation of glass. Subsequently, Faymonville became a leading specialist in the production of customised trailers for the transportation of exceptional loads and has since grown to become a world leader in this highly specialised business sector.

Today the Faymonville Group remains a private company and operates four distinct business units employing more than 500 people in total. In 2011 the company recorded sales of over €120 million. Faymonville produces special, purpose-built trailers with payloads ranging from 20 to 2000 tonnes in Bullange, Belgium. Furthermore, the company has a major facility at Lentzweiler in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. In 2005, Faymonville also invested in a new manufacturing plant in Goleniow, Poland.

When it comes to the after-sales service for Faymonville trailers, customers are supported by a comprehensive network of agents and service centres throughout Europe, Scandinavia and, more recently, the Middle East and South America.

Latest ‘Modulmax’ concept driving sales

Faymonville’s unique ‘Modulmax’ concept enables the user-company to assemble modules of 2,3,4,5, or 6 axle lines and has been developed in recent years to operate in conjunction with the modular products of other trailer manufacturers. The ‘G-module’ and S-Modules offer almost unlimited combinations of modules comprising between 2–6 axles, and designed to carry payloads ranging from 80 to over 1000 tonnes.

The Modules are also available as the ‘Split type’ concept. This means, in addition to the two-file combination, the customer can split the modules and operate in three files. “When combination length becomes a problem, we go wider!” The modules can also be operated side by side in four files, meaning they are coupled together. In this way, it can increase a customer’s options further as the system enables the transportation of very heavy and compact loads without having to use any kind of load spreading structures. This three-file combination can represent an optimal solution for the movement of heavy and bulky transformers.

Mr Luxen said, “Our latest modular systems such as our Modulmax G-Module and S-Module offer 100 per cent compatibility with more than 80 per cent of existing trailers on the market and this development is unique to Faymonville. Our customers come to us with their ideas and with their special heavy or large structures to be transported and we develop the optimal solution together with them. We are also extending our global footprint geographically with orders now coming in from North Latin and South America, where more than 100 special trailers are developed for the transportation of large wind farm components. We are also seeing interest from other parts of the world in our customised trailers including the Middle East and North and South Africa, mostly for the transportation power station and refinery components.”

Mr Luxen added, “In developing our presence in eastern Europe, the strategy behind our move to Poland was a simple one, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find qualified welders here in the Benelux. At our location in Golenoiw, Poland, we are

Goodyear

GOODYEAR is again the main tire brand to be mounted on FAYMONVILLE trailers this year.

Goodyear is one of the world’s largest tire companies. It employs approximately 72,000 people and manufactures its products in 53 facilities in 22 countries around the world. Its two Innovation Centers in Akron, Ohio and Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg strive to develop state-of-the-art products and services that set the technology and performance standard for the industry. Goodyear Dunlop Europe’s range of tires for commercial vehicles, buses and coaches includes more than 400 different tires covering in excess of 55 sizes.

For more information on Goodyear and its products, visit www.goodyear.com.

close to a Welding Academy and close to the major shipyards there, so finding highly qualified welder is possible. At the moment, in Poland we are only welding the chassis of semitrailers. Those are transported to Luxembourg and finished there. In Luxembourg we also carry out steel construction and final assembly. Our modules are built in our main plant here in Bullange, Belgium, where we have a complete range of manufacturing facilities as well as a fully equipped tooling centre. In Belgium we now have more than 50,000m2 of production facilities with another 25,000 in Luxembourg and another 10,000m2 at our plant in Poland. This is being further augmented by another 10,000m2 of capacity at this moment. There our new brand MAX TRAILER will be completely built.

“Our main customers are those involved in the haulage of oversized, heavy and bulky loads required by the big building and mining companies that need to move excavators and heavy earth-moving equipment. This is in addition to companies such as those involved in the transportation of major structures for off-shore drilling rigs etc. In the renewable energy wind farm

sector for example, we have developed customised, modular trailers for the transportation of very long and heavy loads. So as you can see, most of our growth is coming from the demand for more product-specific modular systems.”

Increasing demand for ‘Powermax’ self-propelled trailers

In 2010 Faymonville worked in close partnership with two of the world’s top specialists to develop a revolutionary, self-propelled axle system that could be used on-road. The partners were SAF, a company well known as a leading supplier of axles, and Poclain, a global leader in the production of heavy-duty hydraulic motors. The three partners pooled their expertise to develop an optimised system that was reliable and easy to operate. The unrivalled international service networks of Faymonville, SAF and Poclain were also combined to provide global technical support and the re-supply of spare parts.

After its successful debut at the Bauma trade fair just over two years ago, Faymonville’s latest ‘Powermax’ self-propelled trailer system has captured the imagination of many global companies, including that of Courcelle of France, which used Faymonville’s S-Modules and the Powermax trailer system to transport a 130 tonne transformer from the port of Sete to Narbonne for EDF, a major European energy provider. The three-axle self-propelled Powermax trailer was used in combination with a four-axle S-Module in order to transport the heavy transformer to its destination at the EDF electrical sub-station. n