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Hill Quick Hitches & Buckets At The Forefront For Quality, Safety & Performance
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Leading excavator attachments manufacturer, Hill Engineering Ltd, is experiencing an ever increasing demand for its products in the UK and Ireland, as well as from across Europe and the USA.
Ireland-based Hill Engineering provides top quality, highly reliable, world-leading attachments, including the unique 'Safety First' Auto-Loc quick hitch, together with a range of exceptionally durable excavator buckets.
As an extremely forward thinking company, Hill continues to invest heavily in both research & development, as well as in its manufacturing resources.
The 'Safety First' Auto-Loc fully automatic excavator quick hitch is a notable example of their product innovation.
With the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) having issued a number of safety alerts and now proposing a ban on the production of semi-automatic hitches, following four fatalities over the past year where attachments have accidentally become detached from such devices (generally attributed to incorrect operator use), some contractors and plant hirers are recommending that only fully automatic versions be allowed on their machines/sites.
The Hill Auto-Loc has been purpose-designed to put operator safety first and is fully compliant with and actually exceeds all existing UK and international safety standards and legislation.
As the Auto-Loc is fully automatic, there is no need for the operator to leave the excavator cab to remove or insert a safety pin when changing from one attachment to another. This completely eliminates the risk of a safety pin being inserted incorrectly or not being inserted at all.
Its unique, advanced design also enables the operator to visually confirm from within the cab that the bucket or other attachment is securely locked in position – a vitally important and potentially life saving safety feature and one which, surprisingly, is not available with most other hitch manufacturers.
The Auto-Loc's innovative design even goes beyond the current British Standards by ensuring that attachments can only be released when the boom is in a safe working position. And, as an additional safety feature, an optional non removable safety pin can also be fitted to help guarantee complete operator peace of mind.
Originally established in 1994, Hill moved to new £4.5million, 85,000sq.ft, purpose-designed, state-of-the-art premises in 2006, whilst retaining its original nearby factory in Newry, Co.Down, as a dedicated research & development facility.
Hill Engineering also produce a range of heavy duty steel excavator buckets, enabling them to provide a top quality hitches and buckets package for its customers, and the company is currently investing around £2 million in the robotic automation of their entire bucket production line.
Designed for 360° excavators, Heavy Duty buckets are fabricated from heavy duty steel, with drop forged side wear plates, a box beam for extra strength and wear straps fitted as standard. They can have optional fixed pins and/or approved OEM tooth systems incorporated on request.
Severe Duty Rock buckets are also available, with Hardox internal and extended wear plates and bossed heads fitted as standard.
The latest introduction to the Hill buckets range is the unique Ground Force bucket. Its advanced compact design, with the head sunk lower into the bucket, provides a substantial increase in ground force when compared to a standard bucket.
A unique feature is that it can be fitted with or without a quick coupler, thus achieving an even greater ground force.
With a standard bucket and hitch the loss in ground force is 12%, whilst using the Ground Force this can be reduced to 6%. Additionally the Ground Force has removable pins and can therefore be attached direct to the excavator, further increasing ground force by 5%.
Together with improved clearance between the bucket and cab, all these factors put the Ground Force at the forefront in bucket design and performance.
All Hill products are ISO 9001 and CE accredited and as a customer focused organisation with a flexible approach they can tailor equipment to meet individual customer requirements.
Hill Engineering Managing Director, Ian Hill, said: “We constantly strive to design and manufacture top quality products to the highest possible world-class standards, with safety always an over-riding consideration”.
“I consider Auto-Loc to be the safest and best engineered quick hitch on the market today and the Ground Force bucket also provides exceptional superior performance”.
