A giant goes on a journey

At the beginning of the year, DACHSER’s Air & Sea Logistics branch in Cologne sent an 80-tonne convection furnace on a journey around the world.

The 17-metre-long and five-metre-wide “autoclave” (high-pressure heater for the thermal treatment of fabrics) had to cover quite a distance – from Coesfeld in North Rhine-Westphalia to Penang on the West coast of Malaysia.

It all began with a veritable obstacle race through the Münsterland region: In order to clear the way for the giant convection furnace, street lamps and traffic lights had to be dismantled, and power and telephone cables raised. A river barge transported the autoclave to Antwerp. From there, an ocean-going vessel transported it to Singapore. The autoclave was hoisted onto hydraulic pistons with the help of on-board cranes and conveyed to Penang on a RO/RO barge. In Penang the next hurdle was waiting: there was no floating crane capable of unloading such heavy loads – one would have had to be organized from Singapore. Thanks to DACHSER’s experienced partner on the spot, this obstacle, too, was overcome: the flatbed trailer was driven directly onto the RO/RO barge, from where it loaded the autoclave and transported it to the consignee. This transport solution saved enormous costs for floating cranes – both in Singapore and in Penang.

What does RO/RO mean?

RO/RO is the abbreviation for Roll on Roll off. In logistics it is used to refer to modes of transport, for example RoRo ships. These are modern transport vessels that convey movable goods using the RoRo method. By contrast with the LoLo method, the load is driven onto the ship.
Advantages of the RoRo method are the short transshipment times, the low-impact load transshipment, the simple port infrastructure and the flexibility in load assembly.

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