Mobile yard ramps: redesign for cost, weight and range development
Before founding Frugal, Tom led the engineering delivery of a phased product-redesign programme for Thorworld’s mobile yard ramp range, reducing steel use and fabrication effort, improving product economics and developing new models for a broader, more competitive range.
Earlier career project
Materials handling
Range rationalisation
Cost and weight reduction
A 6-tonne Type 10 yard ramp developed as part of the wider range rationalisation programme.
Situation
Between 2002 and 2005, steel prices rose sharply while lower-cost imported alternatives were entering the market. The combination increased price pressure and eroded margins across fabricated steel products.
For Thorworld’s mobile yard ramps, the product range needed a lower cost base if UK manufacture was to remain commercially competitive.
The real problem
The challenge was to reset the product specification and cost structure so the range could remain UK-built and commercially viable while retaining the required safety, performance and customer confidence.
This required more than isolated design changes. The ramps had to be treated as a product family: identifying the principal cost and weight drivers, deciding what could change without undermining function, and preserving the requirements that governed load capacity, robustness and acceptance.
The engineering task was to balance cost and weight reduction with standards-led substantiation, practical fabrication and dependable performance in demanding loading environments.
Constraints
Competitive cost pressure: material cost inflation and import competition demanded a step change in cost base, not marginal savings.
UK manufacturability: the range needed to remain buildable in-house using existing fabrication capability and realistic shop-floor processes.
Performance and safety: the ramps had to retain the required load capacity, stiffness, stability and operational robustness.
Substantiation requirements: the designs required CAE and engineering calculations against the relevant requirements of EN 1398 and BS 5950, followed by prototype type testing.
Range continuity: changes needed to improve the established Type 6 and Type 7 products while creating a coherent basis for later variants.
Client:
Thorworld Industries (opens in a new tab)
Role:
Lead Design Engineer,
Prior career experience
Period:
2005–2009
Scope:
Product specification
Range rationalisation
Mechanical product redesign
Welded fabrication design
New product development
Acceptance basis:
EN 1398 and BS 5950
CAE and engineering calculations
Prototype type testing
Key moves
Resetting the product specification
- Researched the market and competitor landscape to establish the price points, capabilities and quality expectations required of a competitive range.
- Converted the findings into an updated product specification for internal review, separating essential requirements from legacy provisions that were unnecessarily driving weight or cost.
Baseline modelling and identification of cost and weight drivers
- Built baseline models of the existing ramps and assessed how the established designs performed.
- Identified the principal cost and weight drivers, including areas where additional steel provided limited structural or functional value, and ranked the resulting improvement opportunities.
Developing costed concepts in CAD
- Developed multiple alternative concepts and refinements in 3D CAD, allowing competing redesign routes to be compared before selection.
- Produced costed options so the preferred route could be selected against material use, fabrication effort, manufacturing cost and product performance.
Engineering analysis and verification
- Assessed the alternative concepts using CAE, comparing load paths, stiffness, stress concentrations and sensitivity to the principal assumptions.
- Supported the analysis with traceable engineering calculations to BS 5950, maintaining a clear connection between the design decisions and the agreed acceptance basis.
Design for manufacture with purchasing and production
- Worked directly with buyers, welders and machine operators to ensure that the developing designs were practical to source, fabricate and assemble using the available production capability.
- Refined the designs to reduce fabrication time and variability, including part rationalisation, joint detailing, tolerances, weld access, handling and fixturing.
Prototype type testing and CE-marking support
- Planned and oversaw prototype type testing to confirm performance and provide practical evidence alongside the engineering analysis.
- Compiled the relevant calculations, test evidence and design documentation into a structured technical file supporting the manufacturer’s CE-marking process.
Selected snapshots
One of the earlier yard ramp designs at the start of the programme. The range had originally been developed with external structural engineering input, at a time when material cost pressure was less acute.
Sharp rises in steel prices and increasing import competition created serious margin pressure across fabricated products, making targeted product redesign a commercial necessity.
Design development and prototype type testing formed part of the optimisation work, helping confirm the performance of lighter and more efficient ramp designs before release.
Phase 1 focused on structural optimisation to reduce steel use. Phase 2 explored further cost-saving routes through functional cost analysis. Phase 3 introduced new designs based on the earlier findings.
The broader ramp range developed through the programme, with products more clearly aligned to utilisation class while retaining the core functional purposes of the original range.
The completed range combined improved product coverage with a more competitive cost base, helping sustain UK manufacture during a period of severe material-cost and import pressure.
Outcome
The programme first optimised the established high-volume Type 6 and Type 7 ramps, then delivered new Type 8, Type 9 and Type 10 designs between 2007 and 2009. For the 10-tonne-capacity models, ramp weight fell from approximately 5,800 kg to 3,800 kg, a reduction of about 35%. For the 7-tonne-capacity models, it fell from approximately 5,000 kg to 3,000 kg, a 40% reduction.
These reductions were achieved while retaining the required load capacity, stiffness and acceptance basis. The redesigned range supported lower selling prices and healthier margins, broadened the available capacities and utilisation classes, and improved manufacturing throughput through faster and more consistent fabrication.
What this enabled
The work gave Thorworld a more competitive and coherent product family at a time of severe material-cost and import pressure.
It also established a repeatable basis for further range development, combining product specification, costed option appraisal, design for manufacture, engineering substantiation and prototype testing.
Commercial significance
Got an engineering design problem to solve?
Tell me what you're dealing with and I'll let you know whether I can help.