To provide customers with better service, the company adds a sophisticated and strong trailer that corners like a Formula 1 car while taking the extra load.

Heavy Transport Specialist
The Air Marine group of companies’ headquarters is located in Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysia and Asian Trucker joined a team for the commissioning of their latest piece of gear, the DOLL panther.

The company was formed in 1981 by its present Managing Director Mr William Chiew. It was originally setup as a freight forwarder and customs clearance agent.Over the last 20 years the company has grown into a successful and reliable logistics partner in East Malaysia. Today the business is expanding its operations to Penninsula Malaysia and beyond. The extensive fleet of equipment and assets is able to meet the highly specialised needs of customers and includes:
Over 250 vehicles ranging from prime movers to container chassis, from lowbeds to dumptrucks and general lorries. Lorry
cranes, concrete mixers, cement tankers and more than 120 hydraulic and crawler cranes ranging from 15 to 400 tonnes
capacity are available to handle even the most complicated transport requirement.

Beside having over 60 acres of open yard space and a 45,000 squarefeed sized covered warehouse space there are also
numerous pieces of auxiliary construction equipment such as Skylifts, forklifts, scissor lifts and man lifts. One of the latter one was commandeered by us to take pictures of the panther while being commissioned.

Majestic Marvel: DOLL panther
If you like sophistication and highly thought through technical solutions, this trailer is for you and will sure make your purr with excitement. Asian Trucker took a closer look at the trailer as it was unloaded from the ship, which itself required a special transport solution because of the sheer size of the equipment. “To minimise transport cost, we sub-assemble certain parts and assemble them on site. Look at the size! If you add a few more components, you will double the volume that is transported and with that the cost shoots up” said Ralf Grunwald, Area Manager, who fl ew in with his colleague to commission the trailer.

The gooseneck of the trailer is hydraulically connected to the 1st and 2nd axle in order to compensate the 5th-wheel load on bumpy road conditions. Hydraulic cylinders allow for the height adjustment. To do so, there is an instrument panel on the site and a remote control coming with the trailer enables the crew to manage the set-up from the cabin or the back of the trailer when they navigate tight Possibly the most amazing technical piece build into the panther are the axles. Allowing a weight of up to 12 tonnes, these are not only developed in-house by DOLL, but also manufactured by them? Why?
Because the company wasn’t happy with any of the axles available in the market, placing an ultra high emphasis on quality and functionality. “We provide one of the most sophisticated axles in the market. DOLL gives five years warranty on all components integrated in the panther’s running gear. Only the hub is a BPW component” Spitznagel explains. When
moving, the axles follow the trucks movement via hydraulics and can be additionally steered via remote control. When turning, the axles can turn to up to 55 degrees, which is 10 degrees more than for other models in this class. The result is a trailer that turns and handles exceptionally well around corners.

Air Marine is planning to use the trailer in environments with tight corners and limited space to maneuver. The panther for Air Marine has eight such axles, separated in two steering circuits. The fi rst two axles are following the movement of the truck, the 3rd axle is self-steering and the last fi ve axles are steering in opposite direction of the truck. To minimize tyre wear, depending of the load, up to six axles can be used as lift-axles. Typically, when turning, wheels would tilt and therefore don’t have full contact with the ground. In the case of the Doll panther, even when going the full circle of up
to 55 degrees turn, irrespective of any height of the platform, all wheels will remain fi rmly planted on the ground. This is giving the trailer traction and stability. For this trailer, Continental provided the tyres. The frame is also prepared to be extended and can be converted into a 20 meter long trailer from its original length of 12.57 Meters. George Lee, Managing Director of Global CV & Equipment oversaw the installation. “As the regional representative of DOLL, this is a great
moment for us. Later we celebrate another big cat being released to work in this environment” he said.

Off to the job
Ulrich Roser, responsible for Customer Training, was also present. His job included the fi nal assembly of the trailer, fi nal inspection and hand over with training for the crew. Roser said “It is great to fi nally see this in action. The panther certainly is my favorite and here at Air Marine we got crews that totally understand the potential of the equipment. The questions asked point at a highly experienced and knowledgeable team.” Although they run into a small challenge, the commissioning was done within the stipulated time and Air Marine is now able to manage heavy loads in tight spaces. “The truck that is to pull this trailer wasn’t prepared and we needed to use a separte generator for the hydraulics. With the help of Air Marine we got this done and we can say that this was a comissioning well executed”.

Wise decison
Robert Chiew is the Executive Director of Air Marine Group and he also fully in charge of the equipment for the Group. We met him as the panther went out for the fi rst test run and he said “We had a look at this piece of equipment two years ago when we went to Germany for the IAA. Together with George (Lee, Global CV & Equipment) we evaluated the trailer and
found it will work well here where we have several clients that move heavy items in tight spaces. Air Marine’s staff is already promoting the trailer as a new solution and apparently a lot of interest is there. We hope that it will serve us well. The panther may become a famous piece of equipment in the region.”

A Volvo prime mover is to be the designated work horse to pull it as it “Is a powerful but small truck that also fi ts into small spaces” Chiew explains.