Kalmar Industries has delivered six DCE160-12 diesel forklifts to Swedish steel producer Uddeholms Tooling. The value of the deal was not released.

The forklifts, from Kalmar's medium range, were designed with an emphasis on reliability, a quality vital to effective operations at Uddeholms' steelworks in Hagfors, Sweden. The steelworks produces and transports 65,000 tonnes of steel each year.

Three of the DCE160-12s are destined to work on transporting steel between smelting furnaces. They are specially equipped to cope with temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Celsius.

To protect the driver and sensitive parts of the machine against heat and splashes of liquid iron, the three trucks are equipped with additional heat protection features, including protection of the driving wheel, the lighting and the heat-reflecting panes as well as the cylinders, hoses and hydraulics.

The tyres are also equipped to deal with excessive heat. Two of the three trucks will also be used outdoors, and feature a 180° rotating driver's seat.

Bengt Eriksson of Uddeholm's transport operation, which operates about 70 machines with capacities up to 32 tonnes, said, "we compared various machines and found Kalmar's best met our requirements".