Merford Ready For The Future
The Philosophy Behind a Fair Operator Cabin
No matter how much we may want it, a completely sustainable and climate-neutral world is – for the time being at least – far off into the future. But that does not mean we should simply accept the current state of affairs. Today a growing number of sustainable initiatives and fair innovations are arising that have an impact on our planet in general, and on the offshore industry in particular. It is Merford’s ambition to contribute to these developments within its own discipline: the operator cabin. The result of this contribution is the Ecocab NEO: a cabin composed of sustainable and environmentally friendly components. In other words, a fair operator cabin.
Sustainable Ambitions
It’s evident that the way in which today’s world operates is not sustainable in the long run. For that reason many industries are searching for alternative components for their products and different energy sources. Wind, solar and tidal energy come to mind here. There is a great deal of focus on innovations – a sign that major changes may be close at hand.
Merford, situated in Gorinchem in the Netherlands, makes a contribution to these initiatives by broadening its horizons when it comes to its own expert product: the crane operator cabin. The company has a reputation to uphold – efficiency, safety and health are the key themes in manufacturing its cabins and components. For example, Merford has developed an ergonomic operator chair that protects the operator’s physical wellbeing from any harm: the Ergoseat. And many of Merford’s cabins are equipped with an industrial climate-control system and filter casing, which safeguards the cabin’s interior climate and air quality at all times. Merford’s continuous efforts in improving its product offerings have given the company a leading position in the industry.
In many sectors, for instance the transhipment of containers and bulk in ports, the steel industry or the offshore sector, Merford is regarded as a top supplier of high-quality operator cabins. As a consequence, the development of a fair and sustainable operator cabin was to be expected. Merford’s most important motivation however is the realisation that the world needs initiatives of this kind to truly advance and the company hopes to bring about a change in those industries that lie within its reach.
Ecological operator cabin
The Ecocab NEO cabin was developed on the basis of a crystal-clear philosophy: wherever sustainable alternatives are feasible and reusable materials are available, this idea must be followed. In 2014 Merford was fully realised that a meaningful change could also be initiated in the production of operator cabins, despite the small scale of this product sector. Marco Kers, Senior Engineer at Merford Cabins, started working on the design of a universal crane cabin, the Ecocab NEO, and started searching for sustainable and reusable materials that make the cabin a fair cabin. Although finding sustainable and reusable materials turned out to be far more difficult than expected, preparations were completed in 2015 and the first Ecocab NEO cabin was finished in time to be presented at the Offshore Energy exhibition in Amsterdam.
Read the article in full in Offshore Industry 8-5, available at Offshore Energy 2015.
Visit Merford at Offshore Energy 2015, booth no. 11.093B.