Text: Juliane Gringer
Photos: ISM IndustrieService Müller GmbH, Futtertrocknung Lamerdingen eG
In agriculture, too, more and more productivity is required, and the machines used are challenged accordingly. With a four-axle high-speed vehicle with BPW axles that can also travel up to 80 kilometres per hour on the road, ISM FahrzeugService Müller has created a vehicle that a customer in Bavaria uses to efficiently and gently collect grass from meadows and fields for processing into animal feed.
Feed livestock well all year round
The customers and suppliers of the Lamerdingen fodder drying plant are primarily dairy farms, that have local protein feed produced here from the grass from their own fields, as well as arable farms that want to break up their crop rotation by growing clover grass or lucerne, or farms that are looking for a buyer for grasses and legumes that they cannot feed themselves. In addition, there are feed companies that, for example, produce compound feed for horses or small animals and buy their raw materials from the Lamerdingen feed drying plant in order to sell them to end customers in smaller containers and in feed mixtures.

Gentle yet precise and powerful

»We needed a vehicle that not only travels as gently as possible and does not compact the soil, but also works precisely and has the necessary power to fill the loader wagon quickly.«
Matthias Vögele, Managing Director Futtertrocknung Lamerdingen
He approached Holger Müller from ISM IndustrieService Müller to create a custom-made product. “We were faced with the challenge of converting a three-axle vehicle into a four-axle vehicle,” explains Holger Müller. “Thanks to our good contact with BPW, we found suitable axles and were able to equip the running gear with four BPW axles – two of which are steering axles.” The vehicle is easy on the field thanks to its 16 wheels in total: they are fitted with tyres from commercial road haulage, which are allowed to be driven at 80 kilometres per hour on the motorway and are fitted as twin tyres with corresponding special rims – this distributes the load.
Digital calculation complements manual Know-how
Every project has its own challenges, Müller explains. ISM also builds special trailers for agricultural vegetable cultivation, for example, which help customers to cut vegetables directly on the trailer while still in the field. “We have to follow the existing lanes,” explains the expert. ”Often, the vehicle should be built as low as possible – but then you also need tyres with the appropriate load-bearing capacity.” So every conversion is an individual cooperation between ISM, the customer and the supplier.

»We are there for our customers from the first idea to delivery – and also in the years afterwards.«
Holger Müller, ISM Managing Director
Support from the first idea inwards
The Lamerdingen fodder drying team is already using ISM’s fourth high-speed machine. This enables the company to meet the growing demand for domestic feed for ruminants. The hot air drying process used by the company also enhances the quality of the raw material’s proteins. “This way, you can provide the cows with more nutrients all year round than if they only eat the grass directly from the pasture in summer,” says Matthias Vögele. The company developed the process itself. Now the signs are pointing to expansion: Vögele wants to expand production capacities. The fast runners have laid the foundation for this path.
ISM IndustrieService Müller GmbH
The ISM IndustrieService Müller GmbH builds vehicles according to the individual requirements of its customers. Flatbed, crane and heavy transport vehicles or swap bodies are designed using the CAD process, and the team works out the necessary modifications before the plans are implemented in the company’s own workshop. The ISM team includes 20 people in sales and construction. In Dinkelsbühl/Sinbronn in Bavaria, they work on the individual special constructions in a 2,000 square metre hall with two crane bales – in some cases this takes around 1,000 hours of working time. For work in the field of flame-cut parts and laser parts, ISM cooperates with suppliers: for example, steel parts or BPW axles are delivered; ISM welds, has them painted externally and then takes on the completion of everything from electrics to brakes itself.