Quarry Southern Africa January 2017 | Page 30

At the launch of Bell Equipment ’ s new range of articulated dump trucks ( ADTs ) in September last year , Bell ’ s CEO , Gary Bell , said that the company doesn ’ t rely on its brand name . “ Our products need to perform , and what we see with our E-series trucks are world-class machines , capable of taking on any of the competitors anywhere in the world ,” said Gary Bell . The company has made a number of improvements on the E-series trucks , and to test drive one of them is a revelation . The safety features are top notch and according to Tristan du Pisanie , product marketing manager ADTs at Bell , the E-series is more durable , more reliable , and it has an increased loading capacity . Gary Bell said at the launch that the company invested a lot of capital in the research and development of the E-series . “ As a benchmark , the development and testing of this range was about 10 times what was spent on our D-series ,” said Gary Bell .

While the D-series has a proven reputation for good performance , low lifetime operating cost , and reliability , he explained that the time had come for Bell to make advancements in terms of performance and improved capacity as well as to deal with emissions requirements , particularly for the company ’ s northern hemisphere markets . “ We ’ ve been able to move our durability and reliability up a couple of notches , and our three years of experience with our E-series small trucks has shown that the reliability factor that ’ s been built into the trucks has taken us a good way forward from the D-series .
“ We ’ ve also taken the opportunity to load more intelligence into the vehicles . The systems and information we can offer you today is more sophisticated than in the past and paves the way for more autonomous control in the future . There are also subtle things , for instance , some of the safety features that are way above what the rest of the market has at this time . A number of other value added electronic features additionally make a big difference
With a new Mercedes engine , the B40E has more grunt to negotiate the ups and down of haul roads on a quarry .
The new Bell B40E ADT is a significant upgrade of the previous D-series .
The B40E ADT was launched in September last year and Bell has already received a number of orders for the dump trucks .
Leon Louw Bell Equipment Bell Equipment
28 _ QUARRY SA | JANUARY 2017