The SIMA exhibition will take place February 24-28, 2019, but the winners of the awards for the most innovative solutions are already known this year. The Manitou group, a world leader in materials-handling equipment manufacturing, has won two bronze medals!
A special jury awarded medals for the Eco Stop function, available for the MLT series. The second medal went to the solution for recycling old Manitou equipment at the end of its service life. Both innovations confirm the group’s commitment to lowering the cost of equipment ownership and minimizing the negative environmental impact of Manitou loaders.
The Eco Stop’s working principle is very simple: the engine automatically switches off at idle and when there’s no operator in the cab. The downtime period after which the engine switches off is set for 1–30 min., so this function can be used across every agricultural task while always keeping the machine’s performance a top priority.
The second prize went to an innovative solution for decommissioning Manitou machines at the end of their service life. The solution covers three components: first, the organizational one: cutting the time needed to dismantle machine components by up to 22%. Second, lowering users’ overall cost of loader ownership by increasing the value of older machines – the economic component. In this connection, a new division within the company is being strengthened, REMAN, which handles collecting and selling refurbished and used spare parts. And finally, the third component – a project that analyzes and measures the process’s environmental impact.
