A new robotic welding system just installed in the Hammar factory in Sweden is speeding up the sideloader manufacturer's production in New Zealand. 
And the autonomous welding system will help the company overcome a production bottleneck that's been hampering high demand here, says Hammar NZ MD Fred Sandberg.
Despite Hammar's Auckland factory at Takanini having been extended and modified for more efficient assembly operations – and a separate nearby workshop opened for assembly and final testing of new Hammarlifts – the company has not been able to keep up with demand in recent years.
"We could have sold more of our sideloaders if the product was available," says Sandberg.
Now, he says, "with the option of ready-made chassis from Hammar HQ in Sweden requiring less production time when they arrive, our team will be able to complete each sideloader more speedily."
A number of Hammar sideloaders will now be shipped to NZ with fabricated chassis using the new robotic welding system – the chassis broken-down into two halves in order to fit into containers.
It's then "a simple task to reassemble them on arrival here"…..thus reducing assembly time at the Auckland production plant. The NZ facility will also continue to fabricate complete chassis, as before.
The first five sideloaders manufactured using the new robotic welder arrived here recently and were completed to buyers' specifications and delivered in around half the usual assembly time.
Sandberg says that the sophisticated robotic welding system also "means that our products are made to even more precise and accurate tolerances."
Hammar sideloaders for NZ customers are built to each buyer's specifications, including their choice of axles, suspension, wheels and other items sourced from suppliers here. The cranes are imported from Sweden already built up, certified and tested under rigorous European regulations. They're also manufactured using robotic welding assembly techniques.
Hammar attributes the success of its sideloaders in NZ to a combination of their Swedish technology and quality, along with designs that suit transport requirements in this market.
An example of this localised approach is the recently introduced, light tare weight Hammar 110 model that it says was designed with NZ transport operators in mind. It features a double-action system that can either deploy the StepOver leg technology developed for the Hammar 155 for transferring containers – with greater stability and much lower ground pressure on the stabiliser foot – or a new, patented, fast, ground-handling ability that has been dubbed the SledgeLeg.
In SledgeLeg mode, the legs extend to less than half their maximum outreach to rest on a knuckle built into the upper part of the longer StepOver leg as it folds into itself. This enables the Hammar 110 sideloader to operate in much tighter, confined spaces. And because the leg does not need to completely unfold, loading and unloading containers is much faster using the SledgeLeg.