Manufacturers' Innovation, Plant and Equipment Award

The first of the two manufacturer categories went to previous winner Kocurek.

The conversion came about when Kocurek was approached by a UK contractor with the request to design and manufacture a demolition excavator derived from a standard mining excavator.

For this project, a Cat6015B was selected by the customer and delivered to Kocurek. A unique set of requirements were requested that were fundamentally different from any tracked demolition excavator previously manufactured. The Kocurek customer requested a combination of the two categories on a fully converted base machine – high reach and heavy duty. A working range of between -19 m (-62 ft) and +70.0m was required with varied attachment weights.

The engineering team at Kocurek devised a modular system that could be interchanged onto the front of the heavily modified base machine for a variety of working conditions. The result is a demolition machine that had undergone substantial modification to achieve the design specification.

Final build specification resulted in multiple interchangeable front equipment’s with a working attachment range from 2,500 kg at 70 m to 12,000 kg at -19 m. The initial start point of the project was a machine with firmly established roots in mining. The end result was a multi-use demolition excavator that weighed 225 t. This machine however was easily dismantled and transported to even to the most confined city locations. Kocurek brought the machine to market in May 2017 and it was delivered directly to its maiden working site where is has been working on the demolition of a major London football stadium.

Awards judge Dan Costello said: “Apart from brilliantly addressing the visionary needs of a customer, Kocurek established a template to address the needs of the demolition industry for years to come.”