Bend-tech Group has established a business model that perfectly aligns with the 21st century mining industry, where safety and certification are more important than ever.
As one of Australia’s leading mining services companies, Bend-tech Group offers a holistic approach to solution management, ensuring mining companies or contractors can access a product that’s been specially designed for them and their operation.
This is particularly true in the material handling sector, where Bend-tech not only has an extensive product offering but also the capacity to customise solutions to suit the intricacies of a specific operation.
“We can basically develop a material handling device or solution for almost anything,” Bend-tech marketing manager Rhys Werndly told Australian Mining.
“We’ve got a team of on-site consultants, so we might get a request for a site visit that might be a material handling or equipment handling issue that is maybe being done manually or being done unsafely.”
Once Bend-tech receives the request, its team attends the site to better understand the situation, including the weight of the item, how it is lifted and where it needs to be placed, before developing a concept to make it safer and more efficient.
“Everything we do is engineered and certified to Australian Standards,” Werndly said.
“So you can be sure that if you have a two-tonne item, the material handling device or solution you’re using is designed, engineered and certified to handle six tonnes – it has to be certified to handle three times more than its loading limit.”
Once a material handling concept has been developed, it needs to be approved before progressing to engineering and into production. Bend-tech handles the process from initial consultation to manufacture, ensuring customers receive an end-to-end service.
“We’re not a listing and rigging store for material handling; we’re not a forklift store,” Werndly said.
“We’re a company that can develop something exactly for what a customer needs for the exact purpose.
“What separates us is that total service of being able to design, engineer and fabricate a product all under the same roof.
“It’s been engineered, it’s been certified, and it’s gone through an extensive process to ensure it outperforms its use.”
Certification is critical to the design and engineering of any mining equipment, let alone material handling items, which navigate extreme weights to ensure goods are stored or transported safely and efficiently from one place to another.
“If it’s not certified, then it hasn’t been proven to perform beyond its use,” Werndly said. “If someone’s just welded up some steel and is starting to lift stuff with it, who knows when it could break or fail?
“That’s why we get so much work, because our equipment is certified. It’s a requirement for Safe Work audits.
“Some of the engineering processes we need to go through to get one of our products on-site are
extreme.
“Whether it’s an access platform or any other materials handling product, mining companies literally won’t use it if it’s not certified.”
Werndly said the Australian mining industry is moving in the right direction regarding the prioritisation of safe material handling practices and equipment. At the end of the day, it’s about ensuring workers can go home to their families.
“The industry’s understanding of why things need to be safe, why things need to be certified (is improving) and it also goes back to the method of use – having correct equipment that’s fit for purpose and engineered for purpose that’s being used in the correct manner,” he said.
“Yes, it’s about production, and yes, it’s about making money, but you don’t want people out there risking their lives to satisfy the bottom line.
“Sometimes it is more expensive and that’s the thing – you’ve got to think of cost and value. They’re two very different things.
“Having something that might be more expensive on face value, the value that brings to your personnel, their peace of mind, their productivity, their efficiency in real-time because they know what they’re using is safe. That may not be measured and probably should be.”
To complement its holistic, end-to-end approach to solution management, Bend-tech offers a comprehensive suite of products for the material handling sector.
This includes – but is certainly not limited to – lifting and handling equipment, maintenance tooling, storage benches, containers and racks, trestles and work stands.
Bend-tech’s emphasis on engineering and customising certified, fit-for-purpose products means it has hundreds of pre-designed solutions at the ready for when a mining company or contractor needs assistance.
This feature appeared in the October issue of Australian Mining.