Beyond standard solutions: ROXON’s approach to modernization
Why ROXON’s modernization services are known for tackling even the most complex material handling challenges
When you ask Project Manager Arto Hyttinen about a typical modernization project, his answer is immediate: “There really isn’t one.” His colleague Teemu Lahti adds: “Our task is to identify and understand the customer’s production to be able to propose improvements and best solutions.”
Between them, Arto Hyttinen and Teemu Lahti have several decades of experience in industrial material handling equipment modernizations. What sets ROXON’s modernization services apart isn’t just technical expertise – it’s the willingness to tackle unique challenges and develop entirely new solutions when needed
The courage to take on special projects
While many might expect ROXON’s modernization work to focus mainly on upgrading ROXON-manufactured conveyors, the reality is quite different.”ROXON equipment has long service lives, and our maintenance services extend those lives even further,” Hyttinen explains. “It’s not at all unusual for modernization needs to emerge only after several decades of use. We recently worked on a belt conveyor supplied in 1969 by Ky Murskauskone N. O Vartiainen – from the early pages of ROXON’s history – that had been in operation for 50 years.”
ROXON’s modernization experience covers all types of material handling equipment, regardless of manufacturer. As the conversation deepens, it becomes clear that ROXON’s modernization services are actually known for something specific: both the project managers and designers have a genuine interest in exploring customer needs and developing completely new kinds of material handling solutions when needed.
Consider: a belt feeder over 70 meters long operating outdoors for the food industry. A massive solid fuel drop tube in an underground cavern requiring improved dust and explosion prevention protection. A unique weighing slag chute built for the metallurgical industry that’s one-of-a-kind in the market. These aren’t standard projects – they’re examples of what happens when expertise meets genuine curiosity about solving customer challenges.
Finding better ways to work
Different modernization needs arise from the problem situations customers face or from their desire to find new ways to work better.
“One customer wants more efficient material handling, another wants to increase equipment utilization rates. Someone might have old equipment that’s worn to the point where capacity increases are no longer possible,” Hyttinen explains. “The best information about how current equipment performs or how it should perform always comes from the customer themselves. Our task is to help map solution alternatives, design new solutions and their implementation, and manage modernization projects.”
This philosophy reflects something fundamental about how ROXON works: the customer is never left alone. When a project starts, the modernization team takes full responsibility for ensuring delivery meets agreed objectives – even when fixing a project someone else started.
Guiding projects from concept to completion
At ROXON, complete responsibility means the person who makes the offer and closes the deal also manages the project all the way through to handover, ensuring everything proceeds as agreed.
“Our approach is clear for the customer,” Hyttinen describes. “They always know who to contact and who knows the project details inside and out.”
In modernization projects, ROXON aims to keep design and project management in-house as much as possible. “We handle tender and implementation design, procurement, and site management. We typically outsource machine shop manufacturing, use selected proven partners for installation along with our own service organization and utilize ROXON components for spare parts wherever possible.”
Lahti explains the complexity: “Customers’ production environments often impose dimensional constraints on equipment, and these types of limitations can require developing entirely new solutions. We think about not just equipment operation but also future serviceability. In our design, we must also consider how much equipment can be preassembled outside the customer’s production facilities, so that installation and commissioning can be completed with minimal disruption to production.”
“With good planning and the right partner choices, we’ve succeeded in executions” Hyttinen notes. “When the whole picture stays in our own hands, we can ensure the end result works exactly as intended.”
Real-world impact: Case examples
1. Train unloading system capacity increase
Challenge: The customer needed additional material storage volume in their train unloading system and wanted trains to unload faster.
Solution: An existing 31-meter radial stacker was extended by 5 meters, and the radial stacker’s radial movement was increased from 130 degrees to 185 degrees. This required significant changes to load-bearing steel structures, including new pylon and bogies. Design and manufacturing were completed in a total of 9 weeks, and all modifications were installed and commissioned during a ten-day shutdown. Line capacity was also increased from 3,100 tons per hour to 3,700 tons per hour simply by increasing conveyor speed.
2. Eliminating chute spillage problems to increase conveyor availability
Challenge: In a port application, the chute feeding the ship loader from a conveyor belt collected spillage that had to be manually cleaned every shift. Spillage conveyors were also in use but didn’t operate reliably.
Solution: ROXON first investigated on-site and determined that there was no easy fix. The conveyor discharge chute’s wall angle on spillage side was too small, and the drop height between conveyors was so low that the chute couldn’t be designed with sufficiently steep angles.
The search for a solution began by 3D scanning the area and pre-designing different solution alternatives. In collaboration with the customer, it was determined that without height increase, the proposed alternatives wouldn’t meet desired requirements. The solution emerged through continued pre-design work—raising the feeding conveyor’s drive end within the existing gallery. This modification enabled both adequate chute angles and an improved spillage conveyor design.
The modernization’s total cost estimate was approximately €700,000, but since the conveyor conveys material worth about one million euros every hour, the investment was immediately seen as worthwhile. The solution eliminated the need for manual cleaning, improving both safety and productivity.
3. A more affordable and safer solution for mine conveyor counterweight tensioning
Challenge: In a mine conveyor several kilometers long, releasing belt tension during maintenance was a laborious operation that took too much time during maintenance shutdowns. Additionally, due to the risk of low belt tensions on emergency stopping, the customer wanted to duplicate the required rope brake. The customer had considered modernization to a hydraulic tension device.
Solution: In initial discussions, ROXON proposed winch tensioning, which is excellent for long tensioning distances and improves dynamics in stopping situations compared to counterweights. It’s also easy to install two independent rope brakes on a winch, and maintenance moves to ground level. Belt tension can be released “at the push of a button,” so shutdown work startup accelerated, and operational safety also improved.
Experience that delivers
Whether it’s a 50-year-old crusher needing renewal or a completely unique material handling challenge, ROXON’s modernization team brings the same approach: deep technical expertise, genuine curiosity about customer needs, and complete responsibility from concept to commissioning. It’s this combination that allows ROXON to tackle projects others might consider too complex or unusual – and deliver solutions that work exactly as intended.
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ROXON’s modernization services combine decades of material handling expertise with genuine customer partnership. For more information about modernization possibilities for your material handling equipment, contact ROXON’s team.