The Micromat 2500, the first Micromat of this size to be brought in to the UK.

David Jolliffe – Production Manager

Equestrian Surfaces Ltd have been established for 30 years, and have undertaken work throughout the world, from private individual’s right through to Her Majesty the Queen. They pride themselves on the quality of the surfaces along with fabulous aftercare service. These are the fundamental principles on which the company is run. Equestrian Surfaces Ltd operate state of the art equipment for manufacturing their surfaces and employ skilled staff who have vast experience in the field of construction and manufacturing ensuring the finished product is second to none. So, when a replacement shredding machine was required for the Burnley production facility, David Joliffe, Production Manager was integral to the procurement process.

‘We granulate our material to 30mm and below to bind our synthetic riding surfaces together. We had had problems with the throughput of our previous shredder, so thinking that the blades could have been the cause of poor throughput, I spoke to a lot of blade suppliers. We discussed what the best granulators were on the market in the shredding industry, the majority of people stated that Lindner have the best shredders on the market, specifically the Jupiter and Komet models. So naturally, when we started looking to replace our machine, we looked for Lindner and found their British partners, MachTech Services. After talking to the Managing Director of MachTech, Joe Hoyle and their Northern Area Sales Manager, Sam Whitham, we were satisfied that the Lindner brand was the correct choice for our company. we wanted a static shredder and MachTech offered us the best static shredder that could match and even exceed our needs and expectations, this turned out to be a Micromat 2500, the first Micromat of this size to be brought in to the UK.

I was a little hesitant at first due to the purchasing and after care services provided by of our previous shredder supplier, this supplier, another Austrian manufacturer, had promised miraculous throughputs and guaranteed tonnages of 3.2T/Hr but the reality was that this promise was not true, as the most we could get was approximatley 1.3T/Hr under perfect conditions.

Even though we had contacted the UK arm of the manufacturer for help and questioned why we were unable to hit the throughput they had guaranteed, we were met with a brick wall and left to sort it out ourselves. We averaged at 800kg/Hr and had to customise the blade setup ourselves. As a result, we were very sceptical of any suppliers promises given on the replacement project.. However, MachTech did extensive trials on other machines in comparison, and presented us with the results. These results put our previous shredder in its shadow. Even though we were still hesitant MachTech offered us a deal that we couldn’t refuse, being that, If the shredder didn’t meet their guaranteed tonnage, they would take it away and we would not pay them one single penny. If they had this much confidence in their machine, then we had to give it a try!!

The Lindner so far is producing 2T/Hr and MachTech send out an engineer to tweak the program to make it run as efficiently as possible if and when I report our throughput and give my feedback.

On our old machine, we had to check blades at the beginning of every shift due to them coming loose. We had to give it a full maintenance once every week making sure everything was greased and oiled. On the Lindner we follow the service schedule of checking blades every 24hrs which is dictated by the computer. The greasing and oiling is monitored by the shredder and alerts us when things need topping up or greasing, which makes it easier for our maintenance staff to monitor.

We used to run the competitors machine 24/6 with 1 person on each shift and we lost a day for maintenance every week. But now due to the Lindner’s ease of use and improved throughput we have been able to streamline our process and free up some spare time in our week We now have 1 shift running the shredder working 12 hrs for 5 days, producing the same amount of product and maintenance for 1 day every other week. This gives us the capacity of adding another 9 shifts before we end up back in the position that we were in with the last shredder.

The sales process was very simple. We had numerous meetings with MachTech as this time we wanted to ensure the correct purchase. Machtech were happy to come and see us whenever we requested. we signed up for a Lindner once we were satisfied that we could trust what MachTech were promising and the date for installation was set. While waiting for our install date, MachTech continued to improve our machine, keeping in close contact suggesting ideas to see if we were happy with adding more improvements and completing the work needed.

Our machine is future proofed to make additions, if we want to upgrade further in the future and we only start paying once we’re happy with the throughput guaranteed by MachTech, which we are.

During installation, the disruption was kept to a minimum. We planned to shut down 50% of our yard for 1 week to accommodate installation but it wasn’t needed. The Installation team worked around us and allowed us to continue working. We had been told that the installation would take 1 week to complete and this obligation was met. we started shredding for the first time on the Monday morning following installation.

Everything was arranged by Machtech such as cranes and lifting trucks. We came in expecting to help with the work and do most of the general setting up and positioning as we had done previously with the other Austrian company but we were more than happy to find that we could leave it all to MachTech.

Equestrian Surfaces choose a Lindner Micromat from Mach Tech because they were honest, helpful and made the process easy. We have been pleasantly surprised!’’