Fortaco Group has designed and manufactured a completely new type of cabin for Mantsinen Group Material Handling.

Fortaco Group is one of Europe’s largest subcontractors in heavy equipment manufacturing. Comprehensive cabin design and manufacturing projects are one of the company’s strong expertise areas.

In autumn 2015, Mantsinen empowered Fortaco to design a new cabin, in two different sizes. Mantsinen Group operates two business units; Logistic Services and Material Handling Machinery. The cabin was launched during spring 2016 at the Bauma construction trade fair in Germany. Mantsinen material handling machinery is typically used in ports, factories and terminals to handle various materials from dry bulk to general cargo.

“The schedule for this project was exceptionally fast. After seven months of signing the agreement we delivered the first cabin to the customer,” says Jussi Malmi, Senior Vice President, Business Unit Assembly, Fortaco Group.

According to Malmi, the project required seamless cooperation with Mantsinen. A considerable amount of time was spent, especially on the initial design phase, including interviews with end customers. Respectively, the development phase was proceeding fairly rapidly, which made the fast delivery schedule possible.

Safe and efficient working environment

”Sometimes, the customer has very specific ideas about what a cabin solution for heavy machinery should look like, but in this case we made a fresh start,” Malmi says.

The machine operator is sitting high up, therefore cabin safety is the high priority for Mantsinen. In addition to good ergonomics, other important factors are good visibility, varying weather conditions and cabin insulation to reduce strain caused by vibration. The cabin material is stainless steel, which is a rarely used material, according to Malmi.

“When designing two different cabins at the same time, a narrow and wide version, the advantage was modularity; we were able to use the same parts in both cabins. This, in turn, lowers the need for investments, for example, in certain tools and interior design components,” Malmi adds.
Ensuring the alertness and wellbeing of the operator should be the starting point for all cabin designs, as it increases productivity and minimises the number of mistakes, according to Malmi.

Further information

Jussi Malmi
Senior Vice President, Business Unit Assembly
Fortaco Group Oy
+358 45 146 8355