The US Army has placed two major contracts for in-the-field materials handling equipment.
Kalmar RT Center won a $190m contract to supply 390 units of a new generation rough terrain container handler (RTCH) between now and 2007.
And Omniquip Textron subsidiary Trak International is supplying a further 190 Sky Trak Atlas rough terrain telescopic forklifts. It was already working on a 1997 contract to supply 1,500 Atlas forklifts, with production scheduled to run to the end of this year. The new contract extension takes production through to November 2001.
Kalmar RT Center which was established in San Antonio, Texas earlier this year when Kalmar of Sweden acquired Simpson Machine Corp’s product development centre.
Kalmar said that the new four wheel drive and steer RT 240 was a completely new type of reachstacker for a market that is new to the company. The RTCH concept was originally conceived for construction sites where there is a growing need to handle containerised materials and modular site buildings.
The RTCH is also designed to be transportable by road, rail or aircraft without any disassembly.
“This new product is a key element in the Army’s new Forward Mobility Initiative,” said Kalmar RT Center president Stan Simpson. “With the creation of the new combat brigade team concept and the need to move large amounts of support supplies to remote areas quickly, the need for an easily transported RTCH was of high importance.” Prime role of the Atlas forklifts is loading and unloading 20ft containers and airforce pallets. Nearly 700 units of an earlier version were used during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the 1991 Gulf War.
