Lindner & Mach Tech Services – a perfect partnership for the UK market
To learn more about this partnership HUB-4 took a trip to Spittal in Austria where Lindner have their head-quarters and production
facilities. Nestled in this beautiful area of Austria where Lindner was founded in 1948 and is still a 100% family owned business run by the third generation of the family. With 340 employees globally they were the first to design, manufacture and install the World’s first RDF line in Germany in the late 90’s, and now supply static shredders & plants and mobile shredders to over 100 countries worldwide and continue to grow their product range across alternative fuel solid recovered fuels (SRF), refuse derived fuels (RDF), waste wood, plastics, paper and metals recycling.
We talked with Ing. Mag. Michael Lackner, Managing Director of Lindner, “We have 3 production facilities in Austria, our original production site and HQ here in Spittal, our dedicated electrical & electronic engineering site in Spittal and our extensive mobile shredders production facility in Feistritz, a short drive away. In Germany we also have a large sales & servicing subsidiary as we supply a lot of machines into the German market. We have a North American site which supplies the United States offering a complete sales & service solution. In other markets we work closely with our preferred partners to supply and service our full range and in the UK we
work with Mach Tech, our long-term and highly skilled partner. The basis of our business is to supply a very high level of service so that our clients always come back to us and that ethos runs through both our direct sales activities and our partners across the globe. We have training programmes for all our partners to make sure that they know exactly how Lindner machines need to be serviced and to be able to pass that knowledge onto their clients, this is done on a regular basis as new machines & updates come on-line.”
We asked Michael about the strategy for Lindner “After successfully producing static shredders for many years, in 2012 we launched the Lindner mobile shredder range and this lead to the creation of a brand new production facility in Feistritz in 2016 where all mobile shredders are now produced. Over the past few years we have also transitioned the business from just making shredders to providing a
complete plant building solution to help our customers get the most from their waste streams, including other key technologies such as air separation, magnetic & non-ferrous metal separation, colour separation, washing and screening.
This engineering knowledge has enabled us to build turn-key plants for our clients globally and we especially now want to promote this expertise in the UK market with Mach Tech to design, manufacture and install complete recycling plants for all kinds of RDF, SRF, waste wood and plastic applications. All design & manufacturing is done here in-house and we then install the plant working closely with Mach Tech. We have the expertise and flexibility to build any size of plant from simple shredding, conveying and magnetic separation right through to huge multi-line plants with extensive processes to separate the various waste products out. To make sure that we continue to grow with the market we have just invested in a new 10acre site where in 2020 we will begin to build a brand new high-tech optimised production facility, in order to keep up with the continuous growth in the future.
“Every few years we take around 5-10 new apprentices on-board to make sure we are ahead of the game with future skilled workers,
we also finance a local school where the students are able to use tools and techniques that we have installed prior to taking them on as apprentices. With our US base we can also offer work opportunity placements in the states to give our people a unique global working experience.”
Lindner have manufactured and installed over 1,000 static shredders & plants around the world and currently manufacture about 100 mobile shredders per year. They have won a Global CemFuels award five times, the latest one being for a complete plant where they won the award for ‘Outstanding alternative fuels project of the year’. Here Lindner installed an entire facility for the production of refuse
derived fuels (RDF) at LafargeHolcim, the world’s largest cement manufacturer in Kujawy, Poland. Thanks to its state-of-the-art technology and well-engineered design, this is one of the most modern and productive facilities throughout Europe.
With its customised production line, different fuel qualities can be produced. In addition to being exceptionally efficient, Lindner was also able to meet the highest safety standards required by LafargeHolcim and could therefore secure the internationally coveted award for this project.
We talked with Marco Egger, Global Sales Manager for Lindner, “The UK is a very important and growing market for us in terms of both mobile shredders and static plant and we currently have sold around 120 machines into the UK market with Mach Tech. Input material varies from MSW and bulky waste through to production waste and mixed waste and we can integrate our shredders into existing plants or we can design and manufacture turn-key bespoke plants for MRF, SRF and RDF.
“Plastic recycling is a very important market for us today, countries like China are not accepting anymore plastic for recycling so this market has huge potential for us right across the world. We are able to provide a complete solution with our sister company Lindner Washtech and include all required technologies including shredding, pre-washing, friction washing, granulation, separation, washing and drying – so the ideal material for the subsequent extrusion is provided by us.”
Product News
Marco continued “Some more exciting news is that we have also developed a new cooling system that will eventually be standardized across our entire shredder and plant range, this is the detection of heat spots through the system where batteries have entered the stream and have caused heat spots to appear and the potential of combustion. This system identifies a hot-spot and then the line is either stopped or a simple flap allows for the removal and isolation of the heat source.”
New Unique Atlas Shredder Launch
Lindner are also about to launch their brand-new Atlas machine which will be fully electric, high torque and will see unique energy transfer technology between shafts to give the machine a 20-25% increase in energy efficiency. The machine will be launched in October 2019 in Austria and then in the UKin November / December. HUB-4 will of course bring you more on this new product soon.
Lindner Marketing
We spoke with Pia Steiner, Marketing Manager for Lindner about how close they work with their clients to promote Lindner “Since 2018 we have been creating a new marketing and communications strategy with our clients where we ask them to talk about their experience with Lindner and how their plants are working for them. This creates a bias free view of their experiences that we can pass onto potential new clients via our marketing channels and is a true picture of the levels of service and quality of machines that we provide to our clients. It’s a way in which we can show how close to our customers we are and it’s great that they are proud to
represent themselves with the Lindner brand.”
Once back in the UK HUB-4 went along to find out more about Mach Tech, Lindner’s sole partner in the UK. Founded in 2004 by Joe
Hoyle, David Ingham and the late Colin Wood, Mach Tech has always been a service inspired shredder specialist business delivering the
highest quality to clients across the country.
After three years of servicing and maintaining a variety of shredder brands to the highest quality, gaining valuable experience, and
building up a committed customer base, Mach Tech became the preferred partner for Lindner in 2007. This new partnership enabled Mach Tech to offer a brand-new range of products to its clients who demanded the highest standards of production and servicing.
Mach Tech’s Ethos
We Talked with Joe Hoyle, Managing Director and David Ingham, Director. Joe started by telling us about the growth, “Our key to success has always been based around our service and the levels of commitment that we give to our clients to keep their machines up and running and this ethos runs through the whole business. Our first deal for a Lindner machine was in 2008 into the SRF market which was relatively new at that time and since then we have gone from strength to strength with the brand. Moving three times
through huge growth from 2,000sqft to 12,000sqft to our new 27,000sqft facility here in Oldham we have invested heavily in these new headquarters creating new servicing workshops, fabrication facility, paint shop, extensive parts facility and offices which house our management, sales and customer care operations. We currently employ 27 people here.
“As well as the main Lindner focussed areas at this new HQ we also have 5 bays here where we can also re-manufacture existing machines for our clients so they go back out just like new and again we fully support these machines with servicing. We have a new engineering area here where we make and repair parts for these machines. By doing this it gives our clients extra life on their old machines and allows them to run existing machines along-side their Lindner machines.
“As far as market share in the UK is concerned we have around 90-95% of the SRF marketplace with Lindner shredders and we see huge growth opportunities in waste wood recycling, plastic recycling and Lindner’s quality range of mobile shredders. We have set up a new dept here for the mobile shredders as they demand specialist roles for sales and service and we expect to increase our turnover from £9m this year to £11m in 2020.
Parts & Servicing
David told us more about the parts facility, “We are extremely proud of our in-house parts facility which is based here in Oldham and we carry around £500,000 of parts in stock at any one time and this covers virtually all parts across all Lindner machines even down to parts such as drive motors and frequency converters. We have 12 dedicated and Lindner trained engineers all with fully kitted service vehicles that are always on hand to cover the whole of the UK and Ireland at a moments’ notice, and if required myself & Joe will also get involved with the servicing side to make sure that our clients are 100% happy. Training is also key to our service quality so engineers from Lindner in Austria come over, or our engineers go over there on a regular basis to have any required training on existing & new machines so that we can fully support all machines and give training to our clients on how to operate the machines safely & effectively.”
Mach Tech’s clients range from small businesses up to multi-nationals and one of their recent installations was at Hamilton Waste &
Recycling Ltd where David Hamilton, Director was happy to give us a quote “Hamilton Waste & Recycling Ltd are delighted with the
purchase of the Lindner Komet 2800 HP. From start to finish Mach-Tech’s attention to detail and customer care was excellent. Mach-
Tech will be our first choice for any stationary, primary or secondary shredding going forward.”
Mach Tech Marketing
We spoke with Lorenza Falcini, Marketing Manager for Mach Techbwho explained more about their marketing strategy “We are extremely proud of our Open Door Policy, where potential customers are invited to view machines working across different applications at our existing customers sites. We feel that this gives any potential new customer a true insight into what they are buying and what to
expect from our servicing and support backup. It also facilitates questions to be asked freely between themselves - the proof of the
pudding is in the eating!”
Atlas UK Launch
Joe finished by saying “We’re really excited about the launch of the new Atlas machine with e-drive and intelligent energy management
and we’ll be having a UK launch event later in the year to follow Lindner’s Austria launch. Please keep an eye on our website for more
details about this launch.”
For more information on Lindner visit www.lindner.com and for more about Mach Tech visit www.machtechservices.com