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When Berkshire headquartered Shorts Group, who provide a variety of waste management services, recently secured a new contract they needed to invest in a specific machine – and they had no hesitation in turning to Red Knight 6, the UK dealer for the EDGE Innovate product range, opting for an EDGE VS420 low speed shredder.

Shorts Group have been in business now for over 65 years offering customers not only solutions in terms of waste management and recycling, but also plant & tool hire and demolition. With a core operating area of the Thames Valley but often operating far farther afield, Shorts Group aim to provide cost effective and sustainable options every time.

“Service is central to everything we do and has been embedded into the culture of the business, the longer term plan is to continue to grow whilst remaining focused on the core values of the business,” says Commercial Manager Andrew Brady, “which is why we only invest in the best available machinery on the market and the EDGE VS420 ticks all the boxes. At the risk of being cliché it does exactly what it says it should do.”

The Group’s business strategy is certainly paying dividends. Just recently they picked up a top award at the prestigious Thames Valley SME Growth 100 awards, winning the Resilience category against particularly strong competition. “Our business like many others have faced challenges over the past few years, the biggest being the pandemic and the impact this has had on not only the economy but supply chains alike. As a business we pride ourselves on being diverse and touching many different types of customers across various different sectors,” said Managing Director Gary Short. “It is a huge credit to all those that work with us, so we are pleased to celebrate this with everyone, all the hard work does not go unnoticed. Without the individual hard work and determination of everyone we would not have the business that we do today.”

As a business, Shorts have experience running shredders for a number of years across various brands, but the new contract set out specific requirements on waste size and classification, so a shredder solution that satisfied those specifications was required. The EDGE VS420 gave us the ability to meet those contractual requirements.

VS420 Easy to Maintain and Operate 

“Our primary use of the machine is to shred black bag waste to sub 300mm,” says Andrew. “The operators are very complimentary of the EDGE VS420 production capacity. It is very easy to operate and maintain. As with all new equipment, however, it took a few days working with Red Knight 6 to find the optimum control parameters and loading techniques for our application but once that had been ironed out, we haven’t looked back.”

Red Knight 6’s Managing Director Paul Donnelly, who has been involved in the crushing, screening and recycling business for over 20 years, across parts of Europe and Australia, says since they were appointed by Northern Ireland based EDGE Innovate just less than a year ago, the EDGE VS420 has become one of their most popular machines, not least because of its versatility and the fact it can be used in processing a variety of different materials.

“It is the first slow speed shredder Shorts Group have acquired from us. They had looked at other machines, but decided the high capacity EDGE VS420 was the most suitable for their requirements. The machine was supplied with a full repair and maintenance contract.”

Powered via a Caterpillar C9.3B STAGE V 310Kw (420HP) engine, the VS420 has been designed around the operator to make it as user friendly as possible. All major machine functionality can be controlled remotely from the cab, essentially making it a one man operation. The twin shaft chamber design and control system ensure against downtime and material entanglement around the rotors. By keeping the rotors free of wrap round, Shorts are finding that the VS420 throughout is much more consistent whilst using much less fuel, so it is very efficient.

WASTE SHREDDER VERSATILITY 

Featuring the latest EDGE Operating System with on-board load sensing diagnostics, an intelligent self-protecting control system, and an eco-power fuel saving functionality, the machine’s versatility and efficiency has proven to be an added bonus for Shorts. Comments Andrew Brady: “Due to the versatility of the machine we also have the option of moving it onto our wood shredding operation for biomass chip production. It is also easy to move across different applications. The footprint and manoeuvrability of the machine is also excellent, making it very easy to move around the yard as and when needed.”

With easy access to the engine compartment and ground level access to all the filters, routine daily maintenance checks can be carried out quickly, resulting in minimal downtime and Andrew adds: “We have a long standing relationship with Red Knight and they have provided many machines to us over the years. They offer excellent support and back up should there be any issues and they always go above and beyond in terms of familiarisation training and guidance.”

ABOUT EDGE INNOVATE

EDGE Innovate develops, manufacturers and markets sophisticated technologies for shredding, stacking, screening and sorting of primary and secondary raw materials in production processes and recycling. Our Material handling and recycling range is made up of reliable, durable and cost saving products with a wide range of mobile stockpilers, tracked stackers, tracked and mobile feeders, trommels, slow-speed waste shredders, picking stations, material classifiers, roll-sizers and truck off-loaders. Our product range allows our customers; to shred, screen, separate, stockpile and size a vast array of materials

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