We were approached by Les Équipements Gaétan (LEG) about a partnership to develop a boring machine on wheels, designed to handle the installation of anchors and boring under difficult conditions. During anchor installation, workers have to travel long distances between installation sites. The idea was to develop a mobile boring machine that could travel over rough ground at the same speed as other equipment (such as tractors), yet still provide high-performance boring.
After conducting a needs analysis and gathering the necessary information, we agreed on the shared responsibilities of our partnership. We then divided the vehicle design into two sections: a utility carrier, which could be adapted to serve other functions besides boring, and the boring equipment, including the drilling mast and accessories.
We handled all the engineering work, including design, finite element analysis (FEA), manufacturing drawings, component and manufacturing purchases, overseeing the manufacturing process, and providing the instructions for assembling and starting the vehicle.
The mobile platform’s modular design makes it easily adaptable to other transportation purposes such as a carrying platform for forestry materials and equipment. We also used the same principle of modularity to design the boring equipment. This makes accessory installation more flexible.
In addition to the project itself, we also created technical documents, parts and operation manuals, and maintenance manuals to facilitate customer service.
Our selection and integration of components met our client’s productivity requirements and helped us develop a boring machine that outperforms all the competition.
Using this boring machine on wheels was shown to significantly increase available production time per anchor.