Moving Floor Systems Take a Load Off

By P.J. Heller

   Scott Krause knows the time-consuming and labor-intensive hassle of having to manually unload a truck filled with paper documents destined for destruction and shredding.
   That situation has occurred occasionally at CDI Vaults in Eugene, Ore., when a driver has forgotten to reverse the non-continuous conveyor belt in one of the company’s three trucks.
   “Where we run into problems is when the driver gets in a hurry to unload the load and forgets to reverse the conveyor belt,” says Krause, the company’s sales manager. “If he forgets to rewind it and we fill the truck up again, it will take a couple of hours to hand dig all the paper out because you don’t have a conveyor belt. All you have at that point is a box truck.”
   That situation doesn’t happen with the company’s other trucks, which are equipped with “moving floor” systems.
   “With the moving floor, it’s impossible for that to happen,” Krause says.
   CDI, launched in 1988 as a records management company, started its mobile shredding service in 2005.
   There are several moving floor and continuous conveyor floor systems on the market — with at least one more in the works — to meet the needs of mobile document destruction and shredding companies. Vendors include Keith Mfgr. Co., Hallco Industries, Inc., Axo Shredders Corp., and newcomer Weaver Mulch.
   Keith, Hallco and Weaver provide their systems to truck and trailer manufacturers. Axo incorporates its belt system into its own vehicles.
   Keith is one of the major suppliers of moving floors to truck and trailer manufacturers worldwide. The company’s trademarked Walking Floor system is used by industries hauling such things as solid waste, timber, agricultural products including feed and fertilizer, and paper documents for shredding.
   The company’s moving floor system utilizes aluminum slats and planks which are designed for medium to severe duty. Steel slats and planks are available for applications requiring maximum impact absorption. The slats and planks are available in a variety of widths and thicknesses to meet specific applications.
   The system is designed for two-way — loading and unloading — operation. A standard Keith Walking Floor can unload up to 32 tons; the heavy duty system can handle up to 52 tons.
   Depending on the configuration, the moving floor can unload most materials in 4 to 7 minutes, according to the company.
   “It’s a very straightforward product,” says Scott Cloud, a sales representative with Keith. “The beauty of the Walking Floor is that it can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. Our company has worked to be as diverse as we can. We adapt our products to what the companies need.”
   Compared to conveyor belt systems, “In a big trailer or paper shredding truck, a Walking Floor takes up less space and typically requires a lot less maintenance,” Cloud says.
   They are also not subject to the wear and tear of belt systems.
   “It is also a little cleaner to operate,” he adds, noting that belt systems or trucks that tilt up for unloading create a lot of paper dust in the air.
   The moving floor system also solved another major problem for companies that relied on tilting the truck up when unloading: having to cope with low ceilings or overhead obstacles.
   “Using dumping body trucks can be problematic if the customer does not have enough ceiling clearance height to tip the truck,” says Joe Roberto, vice president of sales and marketing for Shred-Tech. “The moving floor was an excellent alternative at that point in time.”
   Shred-Tech started offering moving floors in its trucks about 10 years ago, usually in response to a customer request. About six or seven years ago, moving floor systems from both Keith and Hallco became almost a standard in its trucks.
   “The moving floor tends to be very robust and very reliable,” Roberto says. “It’s a proven product. Over the life of a truck, we expect to have very few problems with the floor.”
   Mike Stiger, chief executive officer of UltraShred in Spokane, Wash., agrees. His company has been installing Keith floors in its mobile shredding trucks and its transfer trucks, sold primarily in the U.S. and Canada, since 2005.
   “We felt it was the best possible system for our customers in terms of durability and flexibility,” Stiger says.
   Cloud says the industry has come a long way since moving floor systems were introduced several decades ago.
   “If you talk to any old timers in this industry, you’ll hear a lot of different and crazy methods for unloading trucks, literally guys with pitchforks unloading them,” he says.
   “The Walking Floor is great,” enthuses Krause of CDI Vaults. “It does the job it’s supposed to do.”
   Keith introduced the Walking Floor in the 1970s but it wasn’t until the early ‘80s, when the system was installed in a semi-trailer hauling municipal solid waste, that it, literally, began moving.
   “We revolutionized that industry,” Cloud says. “It put us on the map as a company.”
   The moving floor system “quickly became a staple in the waste and recycling industries, with its popularity growing worldwide,” the company says on its Web site.
   Use of the moving floor in solid waste hauling operations accounts for about 50 percent of Keith’s business.
   Another major manufacturer of moving floor systems is Hallco Industries, located about 140 miles away in Tillamook, Ore. It was founded by Olof “Ole” Hallstron, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 79. Hallco manufactures the “Live Floors” system, which is used in various industries, including the document shredding market.
   The Hallco Live Floors system and Keith Walking Floor are somewhat similar designs, and both manufacturers are highly regarded throughout the industries they serve.
   “We’re friendly competitors,” says John Bott, assistant sales manager at Hallco. “Basically we split up the business. There are no other competitors. We’re the only two in the game.”
   In addition to aluminum slats and planks, Hallco offers a moving floor made from a polymer material that Bott says is lighter in weight, allowing document shredding companies to put more paper in their trucks.
   Vecoplan LLC, another manufacturer of mobile shredding trucks sold throughout North America, opted for Hallco’s composite floor material, which it markets as the SureTrac Gliding Floor discharge mechanism.
   “The technology of a walking floor is a good technology,” notes Chris Hawn, director of business development for the company based in High Point, N.C. “Vecoplan was the first to come out with the mobile document destruction walking floor discharge system.”
   Both Keith’s Walking Floor and Hallco’s Live Floors utilize a hydraulically-powered system to move a series of slats to carry material across the surface. The moving floor system is sold to truck and trailer manufacturers, such as UltraShred, Vecoplan and Shred-Tech, who then install it in their vehicles for their customers.
   Hallco was recently sold to Mountain Industries of Australia, a Hallco dealer for a quarter of a century. Bott says manufacturing of Live Floors will continue in Oregon.
   “We’re always trying to come up with new designs and new innovative products,” Bott says.
   While Keith and Hallco systems are widely used in the industry, they are not the only unloading solutions available.
   “We’ve got a better mousetrap here and we’re very proud of it,” says Michael Oden, referring to the “fast unload” system offered by AXO Shredders in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
   The AXO system is a continuous conveyor belt system, similar to a treadmill, that can unload a truck at a rate of one foot per second. The hydraulically operated fast unload system is offered in all of AXO’s shredding trucks and was designed by the company.
   “We could have used any standard industry unload system available on the market,” Oden says. “But we decided that time was money and that a significant amount of time could be saved by unloading shredded media from a truck. So we designed a system that will off-load a truck in three minutes verses 15 to 20 minutes.”
   AXO, which sells its vehicles in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, is a small player in the mobile shredding truck market, says Oden, director of sales and marketing. The company started about six years ago.
   “The reality is AXO’s business is designed for, and we heavily service, the independent shredding entrepreneur,” he says. “We believe their time is money. They need a competitive advantage. We give it to them in a lot of ways.”
   Chief among them is the fast unload system, which an operator engages by pressing a lever in the truck’s cab. The AXO 608 Stak truck can off-load 7,500 pounds in less than one minute, the company says.
   “It’s extremely efficient, fast and requires little or no adjustment,” Oden says of the conveyor belt system. “Stuff comes off the truck incredibly fast. We think it gives our customers a competitive advantage.”
   Another conveyor belt system is being introduced by Weaver Mulch in Coatesville, Pa.
   David Weaver designed the Scrolling Floor, which utilizes a wrapping belt system for unloading. The system is designed for any kind of bulk commodities, from mulch to paper.
   “We have been using it in our trucks since 1997,” Weaver says, adding that the final design that will be marketed has been used in his company trucks for the last year and a half.
   Unlike a belt system such as the one used by CDI Vaults, Weaver’s system has a belt that is always connected to rollers in the front and rear of the truck. The rollers are hydraulically driven.
   “When you load the truck, your belt is on the front roll and laid across floor and connected to the rear roll, but is not wrapped on the rear roll,” Weaver explains. “To unload, the hydraulics turn the back shaft, unwrap the front and wrap it up in the back, taking the load off. When the load is off, you wrap it back up again hydraulically and then it’s ready to load.”
   Weaver says problems such as CDI Vaults encountered when forgetting to rewind a belt will be a thing of the past (the same holds true for the fast unload continuous belt system from AXO).
   “We have this designed so that you cannot shut your tailgate if your belt is not wrapped back up,” Weaver says of the Scrolling Floor.
   Krause of CDI Vaults says another issue with the belt system in his company truck is knowing when to stop it to prevent the belt from coming off the rollers.
   To address that issue, CDI spray paints a line on the belt “so the driver can watch where the line comes up so he knows where to stop it,” Krause says. “Otherwise, the belt will come off the rollers.”
   Weaver says his Scrolling Floor system is controlled by a computer and a limiting switch to control how far his belt travels.
   “It automatically travels a certain distance and then it stops,” he says. “Then it wraps back up a certain distance. We pretty much made it idiot-proof.”
   Weaver hopes to market the Scrolling Floor to truck and trailer manufacturers. The only company currently offering the system and taking orders is J&J Truck Bodies & Trailers in Somerset, Pa.
   “It’s a new wave,” Weaver says. “We don’t know to what extent it will go over but we’re moving forward. It’s a bad economy. There’s not many people buying new trailers but we’re trying to get our bases all covered so when they are ready to buy trailers this is ready to move.”
   Krause agrees that the economy has impacted the document destruction/shredding business.
   “We’re not growing like we were a couple of years ago,” he admits.
   Even so, he says, the shredding business has remained fairly constant and “we’re growing a little bit.
   “One thing about shredding is it’s something that’s not going to go away,” he adds. “People need it.”