Kiwi Company nominated for a international engineering award

Kiwi Company nominated for a prestigious international engineering award

A-Ward Attachments Ltd (NZ engineering business) has been nominated as one of four companies bidding for the prestigious international engineering award of the 2012 Swedish Steel Prize (SSP) which is steel engineerings equivilant of the Oscars. The SSP event will be held in Stockholm on the 15th of November. A-Ward’s nomination for the SSP is for the recognition for the innovative creation of the “MiSlide Compactor" (MSC).

The MiSlide Compactor (MSC) is a world first of its kind. The MSC makes large shredder-friendly bales then automatically slides each bale into a transfer chamber. Once full with 10-12 bales it can transfer the entire load (in less than 10mins) into either a 40’ export container or into a transport trailer. Up to 28 ton loads can be achieved.

How is this different from conventional methods? “At the moment many scrap yards are loading scrap steel directly into containers or trailers and are not suitably achieving optimal shipping weights. The only way to do this is to compact the material and the current method to do this is to have a separate machine that compacts it, then each bale has to be manually transported and placed into containers or trailers. But the MiSlide Compactor has both of these methods in one machine.”

Simon Ward (Managing Director of A-Ward) the creator of the MiSlide Compactor will be attending the Swedish Steel Prize in November to experience a well-deserved congratulation from fellow pairs in the industry for his hard work in his creation of the MiSlide Compactor.

How did you get this idea Simon? Simon said “It all started from sitting at a bar and playing with a matchbox. I took the concept of pulling all the matches out of one box and sliding (transferring) them all inside the other box emulating the use of the MiSlide transferring steel into a shipping container”. And from there the idea was born.

The Swedish Steel Prize is equivalent to the Oscars of the steel engineering industry. The prize ceremony will conclude with a two-day long event in Sweden at which hundreds of international representatives from the engineering and industrial sectors will participate in the festivities, plant visits and seminars. The Swedish Steel Prize has been running annually since 1999 and was founded by SSAB.

There have been a few elite companies that have won this prize in the past and to be nominated for the event is a feat in itself. Deere & Company (John Deere) a well establish American company took out the top prize for 2011 for its concept harvester.

There are many prizes up for grabs as last year’s top four all go something out of it and the top prize for the winner will receive an award of SEK 100,000.

Figures crossed and hope this is the year for A-Ward.

The top four finalists are:

A-Ward

Product: MiSlide Compactor

Description: Scrap Steel handling system

Borcad CZ s.r.o

Product: Regio and Regio+

Description: Light train seats

Gremo AB

Product: Forwarder 1450 F

Description: Timber transporter

Volvo Group Trucks

Product: Twin Y suspension

Description: Rear axle suspension

Links:

Compactor Loader Info

Compactor Loader Video

Swedish Steel Prize Website

ENDS

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