Delving into a customisation specialist in truck body and other haulage solutions, IM recently spoke to Josh Swank, Philippi-Hagenbuch Chief Growth Officer. PHIL truck bodies are specifically engineered to minimise body weight and maximise payload. During design, its engineers work with clients to determine the proper body weight-to-payload ratio as requested by the client
Q Can you give a brief overview of PH’s offering to the mining trucks sector in terms of customised HiVol® body solutions in terms of history of development?
Philippi-Hagenbuch provides a range of fully customisable hauling solutions for mines. Specifically, our HiVol line includes mining class bodies, water tanks, lowboy and bottom dump trailers. With a fully customised solution tailored to the specific operation, mines ensure a perfect fit with their existing hauling and loading equipment. This also leads to more productivity since the solutions are optimised for the material they are hauling. Our mining class bodies are a great way to boost that operational efficiency as they are engineered to use the truck’s full rated weight and maximise payload. While optimising the haul truck body is often top of mind, sometimes a trailer is the better solution. Our robust bottom dump trailers are specifically engineered to operations’ needs, designed to safely maximise payload no matter the material. We also have a number of mines come to us for water tanks to extend the life of their haul trucks and boost efficiency and safety when mitigating dust on haul roads. And, for hauling mine equipment itself, we developed lowboy trailers designed for safe loading and unloading to efficiently transport equipment. Our lowboy models offer capacities ranging from 200 to more than 2,000 tons. Finally, Philippi-Hagenbuch was founded in 1969 with tailgates as our first innovation, and we’ve greatly expanded from there. Since everything we make is engineered-to-order, we are constantly developing new products. We embrace the challenge of crafting smart solutions to tough problems, evolving our offerings as our customers’ needs and equipment evolves.
Q The truck bodies world is highly competitive with a number of suppliers; what are PH’s differentiators?
What sets us apart is our commitment to engineering purpose and client-specific solutions to address our clients’ specific challenges, and to engineering these solutions for maximum life and durability. No matter the product or the make and model of haul truck, we customise each solution based on the operation and hauling needs. It’s very important for operations’ haul trucks to be compatible with loading equipment and that they achieve maximum payload and hauling stability – items that off-the-shelf bodies can struggle to provide. In addition to being custom engineered, we design each product with maximum durability. As one example, we recently put a focus on lightweight mining bodies. There are cycles where lighter-weight bodies are popular because they allow users to dedicate more of the truck’s rated weight to payload, but there was a stigma around lighter-weight bodies; and they were often dubbed as ‘throwaway.’ We wanted to rewrite that script and started engineering lightweight mining class bodies with Hardox® 500 Tuf steel that decreases body weight while increasing abrasion resistance. This results in a lightweight solution with 10-20% higher payload capacity and extended body life. We don’t just add sideboards, or tweak an option from an existing design, we engineer unique body solutions for each and every client – on a global scale – that we would argue no other body manufacturer is doing any longer. It’s so much easier to design standard designs and to offer options such as liner packages and sideboards; we have chosen not to take the easy route, but to take the best route, that results in a superior experience for our clients. Further demonstrating the durability aspect, each water tank we’ve engineered is still operating today. We’ve been making water tanks for more than 25 years; and none are showing signs of rust, corrosion or failure. Compare this to the average water tanks on the market, which often last 5-7 years, and it speaks volumes to how meticulously we engineer each solution to ensure a long working life.
Q Are there any particular HiVol markets or applications in mining that Philippi-Hagenbuch is particularly known for?
Our HiVol mining class bodies are available for a full range of mining applications, with specific designs for hard rock, coal, overburden, dual-purpose, oil sands and all other mining applications. Beyond hauling material, our water tanks help operations gain efficiency by upgrading their support equipment for crucial dust control applications. We are known for solving haulage challenges and for engineering a solution that takes care of problems that our clients did not have a previous solution to tackle.
Q Do you have any examples of customer feedback or site application case stories for HiVol that you can share?
One unique example that comes to mind is when we partnered with a solar salt extraction mining operation in Mexico. The operation had a fleet of on-highway bottom dump trailers that, due to exposure to the extremely corrosive salt environment, were down for repairs up to 30% of the time. We worked with the company to provide them three 80 ton capacity off-highway bottom dump trailers with components to withstand the corrosive environment for minimal maintenance. We used unique Duracorr stainless steel plates to minimise the salt’s corrosive effects. The result was great to see, as the operation doubled its daily production and experienced greatly streamlined maintenance. Another case that stands out is a customer in Texas who had long dealt with challenges of hauling dirt and clay. The material became sticky and very difficult to manage when the weather became hot and humid. They tried one of our load ejectors and, due to their efficiency gains, invested in more than 50 to outfit the operation’s entire fleet. This was another example how our capabilities extend beyond bodies and can entail custom solutions to address specific challenges.
