On the 19^th of October, SIA Alfis – well known in Latvia as the authorized dealer of Germany based Liebherr industrial machinery and Ireland based Finlay crushing and screening products – held an Open Day to introduce customers with the updated Finlay product range. The event was hosted by one of major road construction companies in Latvia – SIA SC Grupa, at their quarry Zīriņi in Ēdole parish, Kuldīga district.
Around 40 interested customers gathered in the quarry to watch practical demonstrations of Impact Crusher IC-110 RS, Screen 683 and Conveyer WR80 (road version), asked questions and received technical information from the manufacturer’s representative.

INDUSTRIJA met Miks Užulis, SIA Alfis Sales manager and Adrian Millar, Finlay regional sales manager to take a closer look at the showcased products.

To begin with, could you, please, tell us briefly about the idea behind this event – why did you organize it?
Adrian: This year Finlay is celebrating 65 years since the company was established, and in the business of manufacturing crushing, screening and conveying equipment this means – a lot of experience in the field. The main purpose of this Open Day was to raise awareness of Alfis being a distributor for not only Liebherr brand, but also a distributor for Finlay brand for already some 5-6 years.
Miks: Alfis is the representative of Finlay in both Latvia and Lithuania, and we wanted to remind our customers about those Finlay quarry products that they are already familiar with, as well as to introduce them with a newcomer – the WR80 conveyer (the road towable version) – a machine that provides excellent mobility and flexibility, but was not available for our region before. The event was held for the companies that are quarry professionals – who either own quarries, or are working in quarries. We hosted this event to show how these machines work in the real life, so that the customers can see more than just the images in catalogues.

What about the event itself – did you do the demonstrations, or perhaps also some training on these machines?
Miks: When the customers arrived, we started all 3 machines. They worked for a while, then we stopped them, and had a questions and answers session. Customers could walk around the machines, climb on them to see how they are built, what are the strengths, what are the weaknesses, and they could ask even very specific technical questions about the machines – that is why we had Adrian with us. We had some 40 customers on the site, and they were really interested, we received a lot of questions.

Adrian: During the day we had live demonstrations of these machines – the whole day I was answering the questions, demonstrating the key benefits, the key functions, the way to best operate the machines. I was very busy, but also very satisfied – I really enjoyed every minute of being there! The questions the customers were asking I felt were positive, I felt that those people, who were present, were a good quality customers – they knew why they had arrived, what they were looking for and what I was talking about.

Miks: The feedback we received from these customers was that this event was something they’ve been really longing for – a possibility to come and see the tips and tricks of the machines, and to ask questions to the representative of the manufacturer, which is not possible if you only agree with another company to come to the quarry to see their machine at work.  

Could you, please, describe the machines that were available at the event?
Miks: We demonstrated 3 Finlay products – the already mentioned WR80 Conveyer, the 683 Screener, which is a very popular model in our area (Latvia and Lithuania) due to its size and capacity, and the third one was the Impact crusher (IC-100RS). Plus – there was also a Liebherr excavator working to feed the machines. So – we were showing the full range of the machine set for a working cycle in a quarry – starting with the crushing machine, screen, and the conveyer for piling the material.
All the equipment was new, except for the Impact crusher – this machine is owned by our customer SC Grupa, who kindly allowed us to organize this event at their quarry. They have been using this machine for already 3 years, but it is in a very good shape – looks like brand new.

Adrian: The screener and the impact crusher have been in our product line for already a while, but the WR80 conveyer is a brand new product – it was launched last year (2022), so it’s very new to the marketplace in general. The main purpose of using the conveyer to pile the material is that we can get greater stock piling heights, and it will take the material much further away from the face of the quarry, away from the action, than by using the wheel loaders and excavators. And in return – this will keep the fuel consumption and the cost much, much lower in the quarries – if you use the conveyer belt to take the material away and stock pile it, then it means one machine and one operator less, so it saves the costs remarkably.

So this conveyer replaces the wheel loader?
Adrian: Yes.

For how long distances can the conveyer transport the material?
Miks: The WR80 has a conveyer belt that is almost 23 meters (22.8 m) long, with a maximum height of almost 10 meters (9.95 m). And this conveyer belt it is also radial – so it will move from left to right, to get a very large stock pile of the material.

You mentioned lower fuel consumption, where does that come from – what does this conveyer run on?
Adrian: It runs on hydraulics. The fuel consumption economy comes from the fact that the conveyer is powered by being connected to the screen, which runs on diesel engine, and the screen is powering itself, plus – all functions of the conveyer. This means you don’t need a separate engine, or electric, or another power supply to run the conveyer. You can operate the conveyer belt, and you can also use the radial function – drive it to the left or to the right, to make a new stock pile when needed – you don’t need a separate machine for that. All of this keeps the fuel consumption of the working cycle much lower.

So, basically what you showed was a new way/a different way to perform a working cycle in a quarry, where the conveyer replaces the wheel loader, where, depending on the size of the quarry, the conveyer can also be moved to a different place, when needed – right?
Miks: Yes. And, if the quarry is very large and there is a need to transport the material in longer distances, this conveyer can also be connected to another conveyer – making a tandem of conveyers.
Adrian: The advantage of this machine being fully road-legal means that you can attach it to the back of a truck and move it to a new quarry, or move around the same quarry. The other advantage, as Miks mentioned, is that you can add 2-3 conveyers in a row sequently. Thus you can take the material up to 60 – 80 feet away down the quarry. So, the distance is not a problem, you just keep adding conveyers like pieces of Lego.

Do you have some numbers on the fuel consumption economy, if a conveyer does the job, comparing to the fuel consumption if the same job is performed by a wheel loader? And how would you explain the difference to a customer, who has been using the wheel loader all the time?
Adrian: To a customer who has previously been using the wheel loader, I would say that the conveyer is running free of charge, because it’s running from the engine of the screener. So, your stock piling equipment is running at almost no cost.
Miks: The difference for the fuel consumption of the screener when the conveyer is attached, will not be much more than it would be, if the screener would be powering only itself.
Adrian: For the screener to run this one extra belt, increases the fuel consumption by maybe some 0.5 litres/per hour. It is a very, very minimal increase.
Miks: Talking about the wheel loader replacement – you don’t need to eliminate your wheel loader or sell it just because you choose to stock pile the material by a conveyer instead. The wheel loader is simply free for other operations, it doesn’t have to re-stock the pile anymore, it can do other jobs in the same quarry, perhaps transport the rough material, or perform jobs on another jobsite – as needed.
Adrian: Another thing that I would like to mention, just to highlight it – we have so far been describing the conveyer that is being powered by the screener, and its advantages. But these conveyers are available to order in 3 different versions – the one that we talked about that is hydraulically driven from another source, then we have an electric version of this conveyer, and then we also have the third version – with an on-board diesel engine. This one is the right option in cases when there is no power supply available in the quarry – would that be electric, or from another machine. Then we can offer the conveyer with an on-board engine to be used in these, more remote areas. And there are lots of other options and extras, that can be added.

Which of these products that you presented, are already available at Alfis stock in Latvia, and what is the delivery time for the products that are not already in stock in Latvia?
Miks: We have in stock 2 types of the radial conveyers WR80 – one is the road-legal version, and the second one is just the mobile version. We do also have the 683 model screen in stock, available at once. And, as I mentioned before, the impact crusher that we presented at the Open Day was borrowed from our customer SC Grupa, so we do not have that one in stock, in case of interest it should be ordered.
Adrian: The delivery time for these products depends a lot on the models, but for most of the models required for the local Latvian and Lithuanian market – if ordered today, we could have the delivery within Q1 of the 2024.
Miks: And we can witness that the impact of the pandemic is finally over, which means that equipment production and delivery times have returned back to normal – as they should be. Everybody interested can contact me at Alfis for these products.

How are these machines produced – is it per request/per order? Is there only one standard version, or many versions of each model available, and are the machines tailor-made for each customer?
Adrian: Not so much tailor-made, no. We manufacture a large range of each product, different sizes of each model, so we will always have a model available for each different customer. They are not specifically tailor-made for each customer individually, but we will make it work for each customer – there’s lots of technical things in each machine that we can alter and adjust for the needs of the customer.

And last, but not least – what about the warranty?
Adrian: The standard machine warranty is one year, but on the critical components of the machine the warranty is 3 years. That is what we have in our standard. Of course, the customer can choose to purchase additional warranty.

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Adrian: Finlay is based in Northern Ireland, and we have several factories throughout the world – in India, in Australia, and in the US – but our main factories are located in Northern Ireland and in the UK. 90% of the machines that are produced for the European market are coming from our factories in Northern Ireland.
We as a company have a very strong heritage – 65 years in the market, and we have a very strong future ahead of us – a good portfolio of products still to launch within the next 12 months. And that is good to go across the board to us as a company – Finlay as a manufacturer, and Alfis as a dealer – we have a good strong future together!

Article from Industrija 2023 - Žurnāls Industrija, Industrija Ziema 2023 (zurnalsindustrija.lv)