With roots dating back to 1954 when Irvine Bell established a small engineering and agricultural equipment repair service in Empangeni, northern KwaZulu-Natal, Bell Equipment has become a formidable name in the global capital equipment space some 70 years later.
A product that has put Bell on the global map is inarguably the ADT, which the company started manufacturing in 1984. In fact, the articulated hauler represents Bell Equipment’s core product, making up a good 80% of the company’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM) business.
Beyond the numbers, says Castle, 40 years of ADT manufacturing represents a commitment to innovation, excellence, resilience and unwavering customer service. The Bell ADT’s 40th anniversary is significant in the sense that the company has been in this challenging market for more than 50% of its 70-year existence. This is despite the recognised challenges that manufacturers have to contend with in South Africa, including high energy costs, skills shortage and supply chain issues, amongst others.
“Despite these widely acknowledged obstacles, we remain committed to local production. The impact of our local manufacturing activities is significant, not only to our employees, but also to our suppliers and the economy at large. To provide context, we have a supplier base of over 1 200, and 90% of these are South African entities,” says Castle.
The 40-year milestone, says Castle, also reflects South Africa’s engineering prowess. For four decades, Bell Equipment has been at the leading edge of ADT manufacturing and the company to date has produced one of the most technologically advanced ADT line-ups in the world. This, he adds, is despite the fact that the ADT is by its nature a complicated machine with over 7 000 different parts.
Key milestones
Along the journey, there have been some important milestones, ranging from the incorporation of technology and setting new standards in product sizes. The technology revolution, says Castle, started with the adoption of new manufacturing techniques such as plasma cutting and laser cutting. In addition, investment in research and development (R&D) has fuelled innovation, which in turn has driven growth by setting new standards in the ADT market.
Looking back, the 2001 launch of the D-Series was a step change for Bell Equipment from a global recognition perspective. The introduction of the range provided a springboard into major global markets.
One of the major milestones was when the company pioneered the 50-t ADT, the B50D, which was the largest on the market at the start of global sales at bauma 2004. The size evolution was followed up by the introduction of the 60-t ADT, which was again the largest at the time of its launch in 2014. With the B60E, Bell Equipment also pioneered the 4×4 concept – a hybrid between a rigid truck setup and an ADT.
“In terms of models, we have one of the broadest lines in the global market to date, including three 4×4 models, two 6×4 models and seven 6×6 models. In total we have 12 variations of machines available for the global market. In fact, we have the widest model range of 4×4 models, which I believe shows that innovation is at the heart of what we do and we continue pushing the boundaries,” says Castle.
Technology milestones
While Bell Equipment’s current E-series generation, which made its debut in 2014, is to date one of the most technologically advanced ADT ranges on the market, Castle stresses that the technological revolution dates back as far as the early 2000s.
“In 2001, Bell Equipment became the first ADT manufacturer to incorporate its own on-board weighing system. For over a decade, on-board weighing has been a standard feature on every Bell ADT that we sell. On board payload weighing is very complicated, but for the past 24 years, we have paid our school fees and perfected our technology to achieve the most accurate measurements,” says Castle. “On-board weighing lets the operator know how much load is in the bin. Load and production information can be transmitted to the owner via our own telematic system, Fleetm@tic®.”
Speaking of Fleetm@tic®, he adds, Bell Equipment was the first ADT manufacturer to launch its own satellite-based telematics solution in 2003. To date, the system is standard on all of the company’s ADTs. Fleetm@tic® desktop control allows customers to keep an eye on their machines and receive alerts on a wide range of parameters.
These early core technologies, says Castle, have provided building blocks for other innovations that the company introduced in the later years. For example, when Bell Equipment introduced an inclinometer to improve its on-board weighing accuracy, the company saw an opportunity to improve the safety of its trucks with the 2009 launch of its Hill Hold and Tip Safe features that prevent rollback on slopes and rollovers due to tipping at unsafe angles.
In 2019, Bell Equipment became the first ADT manufacturer to integrate its trucks with third-party pedestrian detection systems (PDS) and collision avoidance systems as standard, well ahead of South Africa’s new mining regulations that came into effect in December 2022.
In terms of the regulations, diesel-powered, trackless mobile machines must be able to automatically detect the presence of pedestrians and other diesel-powered, trackless mobile machines in the vicinity, and provide an effective warning. Where no action is taken to prevent a potential collision, the machine must be able to “fail to safe” without human intervention by means of a system that has the means to retard the machine to a safe speed whereafter the brakes are autonomically applied (Level 9).
Bell provides a PDS gateway controller (ISO 21815-2) for a PDS/CAS to connect to a Bell ADT. The third-party PDS/CAS then does the detection and gives commands while the execution of these commands and the control of the truck is Bell Equipment’s responsibility.
Bell’s Pin 3 E-series ADTs, introduced towards the end of 2020, are built ready to integrate with a wide range PDS or CAS up to level 9. This was a natural progression for Bell because its earlier E-series trucks introduced huge advances in automation to offer industry-leading levels of driver and machine protection.
Automation drive
A focus on providing more efficient and safer ADTs has over the years consistently kept Bell Equipment at the forefront of autonomy. Since 2019, Bell Equipment’s forward-thinking approach has enabled interoperability between different control systems and its trucks.
By adding layers to its PDS ISO standards, the company has created an autonomous ready platform that uses an open communication protocol principle to integrate easily with third-party suppliers. Over the years, the company has reinforced its agnostic approach to autonomy by working closely with several technology providers such as Pronto AI and xtonomy, with several Bell ADTs now operating commercially on sites in the Northern Hemisphere.
The future
Commenting on the future of ADT technology, Castle makes special mention of the sustainability drive. To date, Bell ADTs can operate on hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO) without the need to dilute with diesel or impacting on engine service intervals. HVO can reduce carbon emissions by up to 90%.
However, Castle believes that the migration to fully electric machines will gather pace as some of the developed countries are already demanding net-zero solutions. With this increasing focus on sustainability, Castle believes that hydrogen will also play a major role in the alternative fuels drive.
“However, these solutions are not without their challenges. For example, one of the limitations for hydrogen is the storage, which doubles that of diesel. The need for more tanks on the ADT, which by its nature is designed to be lightweight, makes the adoption of hydrogen a challenge at this stage. A few years ago, one of our engineers also found that to match the power of a diesel engine on a 45-tonne (t) ADT, one would require some 6 t of batteries which, again defeats the drive for lightweight machines for increased payload capacity. Despite these challenges, I believe that technology will evolve and these alternative energy sources will become viable in the future,” concludes Castle.
