SUPPLY CHAIN

Today`s builders of plant and heavy machinery rely on comprehensive logistics concepts for their transport needs. Recognising this trend, Rolf D.Riedl, the German international project forwarder has reinvented itself as a logistics services provider in the space of just a few years.

How do you transport a gigantic air fractionation plant in two huge sections from the East of England to Luleå, Sweden at the northernmost reach of the Gulf of Bothnia? For almost fifteen years now, problems of this kind have been the bread and butter of Rolf Riedl GmbH, a group specialising in heavy-lift transports and special cargo services, headquartered in Hagen (Germany).


A one-stop shop

The group focuses on national and international heavy-lift and oversized transports, onsite assembly and industrial services. As a provider of complete logistics services for producers of large machinery and industrial plant, Riedl has put together a range of services for shippers that covers all contingencies.

The roots of the Riedl group go back to February 1987 when Rolf Dieter Riedl and his managing partner Joachim Patzner founded the Rolf Riedl GmbH. The company`s management very soon realised that the demands of builders of industrial plant and heavy machinery were constantly changing. The traditional heavy-lift transport business was having to provide additional engineering services, such as dismantling, commissioning on site, crane operations, transport of complete production lines, sea and air freight shipments and many more. Rolf Riedl decided to create subsidiaries to meet such needs. These new companies concentrate on specialised areas.

Riedl & Stöcker GmbH, Leipzig, was established in 1993. It is managed by Manfred Stöcker. The firm focuses on assembly operations, transport engineering and industrial services for turnkey projects, that is handing over complete facilities to their new owners in a ready for use condition.

The Riedl & Tschierschke GmbH was founded in Frankfurt/Main a year later. Its core activities are dismantling and reassembling, factory removals, international industrial plant and air-cushion transports employing lifting gantries, hydraulic lifting and jacks, and in-plant rollers. In 1995 Riedl expanded the group even further by establishing the Transgerma Riedl & Kiehntopf GmbH in Bremen. It specialises in port transhipment of facilities and freight forwarding and logistics services for overseas transports including re-assembly of the plants on site at their final destination.

Over the years, Riedl has formed an international network, including, for example, cooperation agreements with partners in China (Cosfre, a subsidiary of the shipping group China Ocean Shipping Co.), Brazil (Megatranz Transportes Ltda), and the USA. In India, Riedl opened a contact office with Transgerma Ltd. The Riedl companies, which all have ISO certification according to the 9001 standard, are also members of the «European Heavy Lift Group» (EHLG). Rolf D. Riedl is the driving force behind this partnership which currently has 39 members in 18 countries. Finally, the Riedl group is also member of the top level American association SC&RA (Specialized Carrier & Rigging Association), which counts 1700 national and 280 international member companies throughout the USA. Rolf D. Riedl is a founding member and member of the board of directors of Cargo Lifter AG, Berlin (Germany). «I am convinced that the development of the cargo airships will open up many new opportunities for the heavy transport and logistics industry», Riedl says.


Bigger and heavier

Any heavy-lift and special transport contract demands a tremendous amount of detailed planning, as the example of the aforementioned air fractionation plant demonstrates. The choice of an intermodal land-sea-land route was in response to the shipper`s requirements. The prefabricated components had to be kept as large as possible, thus reducing the reassembly costs at the other end. Therefore, the enormous plant was divided into two sub-assemblies, which were shipped and installed at the prepared site at the ultimate destination.

However, before the transport could get under way, a great deal of planning and technical preparation was required, particularly at the links or discontinuities in the transport chain.

The larger section was 49.5 m long with a cross section of 10.0 m x 12.02 m. It weighed 435.5 tonnes. The second section weighed 193 tonnes, was 13.8 m long and had a cross section of 11.0 m x 7.02 m. This poses the question: now just how do you go about weighing such massive loads?

The components in question must be raised with hydraulic jacks fitted with weighing gauges. This procedure also allows the centre of gravity of the object to be located and marked. It is essential that the size, weight and centre of gravity of the sections are exactly known so that they can be accurately located and secured on their foundations at the site of installation.

After both sections were weighed, the technicians and specialists of the Riedl group raised them to a height of 2.60 m, put them on a self-propelled rig consisted of four 8-axle lowbed heavylift trailers (two on each side coupled nose-to tail) and lowered them hydraulically to the normal transport level. Now the convoy could actual start off on its journey to the seaport of Immingham. A heavy duty road especially designed for such weights leads from the factory to the port. Among other features, it includes reinforced bridges over various utility conduits.

The convoy also had to cross a temporarily closed railway track within a given time window.

At Immingham both sections were loaded onto a ro/ro vessel. Because the cargo was so heavy, a special, reinforced loading ramp had to be constructed and placed between the vessel and the quay. A bollard on the quay obstructing the new ramp`s passage had to be temporarily removed until the loading operation had been completed.

In the vessel`s hold, both sections were set down on stillages and lashed and secured. The trailers accompanied the rest of the load. The existing ro/ro ramp at the port of arrival was too weak and had to be replaced by a new one that extended over the soft ground close to the quay wall. The ship`s stern ramp was removed by a crane so that the vessel could be moored as closely to the quay wall as possible.

After both sections had been transported from the port to the factory, the most sophisticated part of the operation began. The 50 m long 435.5 tonne section had to be raised, turned 90 degrees and set down on its foundations, technically a very demanding undertaking: A jack-up system featuring four towers almost 70 m in height and a total lifting capacity of 800 tonnes, had been installed around the installation site. The section was manoeuvred into position by a heavyduty mobile crane. The lifting jacks then began to raise the section from a reclining to an up right position at a rate of 7 m an hour. When it was hanging freely, the section was rotated by 90° and lowered perpendicularly onto its foundations. The crew worked a 14 hour shift. The smaller 193 t component was handled by a mobile crane (lifting capacity: 500 tonnes) assisted by two smaller mobile cranes.

Feasibility studies and long planning times usually precede such transports, as was the case with the transport operation described above. It illustrates very clearly which path the Riedl group has chosen. Like the freight forwarders, the companies specialising in heavy goods transports have become logistics providers.

Heavy-lift transports entail detailed advance planning - especially at interstices in the transport chain.


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