Block Machine Supplier in Iraq: Factory, Spare Parts and Contract Terms

A block machine supplier in Iraq is judged on four inspections rather than four claims: the frame while it is still in build, a trial run on your own mould, the record of the same model already running in your country, and a contract that names the spare parts route, the installation crew and the acceptance test. Everything else, including a thick folder of photographs, is sales material.

What do you have to see in the workshop before you pay?

Start with the frame, because it is the part you cannot add later, and the weight table is its honest summary: 34 t on a QST1800, 20 t on a QST1500, 17 t on a QST1200 and 14 t on a QST8-15. Ask for the welding and stress-relief records of the frame number you are buying. A builder of its own frames shows plate thickness, machined faces and the imported parts: the hydraulic proportional system and the PLC touch screen.

Two answers arrive in one sentence if the factory builds what it sells: how long the frame stands after welding before the faces are machined, and who signs the geometric check on the guide rails and mould platform.

• Mould build: wear-resistant alloy steel, CNC machined to micron level, heat treated on its own hardening cycle, from mould frame, core, base plate, guiding assembly and positioning mechanism.
• Heat treatment paper: ask for the hardening cycle sheet for your own mould, because wear life is decided there rather than in the steel grade alone.
• Frame weight and pallet size travel together: a 1,400 × 1,400 × 30 mm pallet belongs to a 34 t frame, a 980 × 680 × 20 mm pallet to a 12 t machine.

Does the trial run use your mould, your mix and your pallet?

A trial on the factory demo mould proves that the machine moves and nothing more. Ask for the test on the mould set you are ordering and stand at the panel. Read the forming cycle there, 15 to 25 seconds on the QST1800 series and 15 to 23 seconds on a QST8-15, the vibration frequency of 3,800 to 4,500 times per minute, the excitation force, 68 kN on a QST6-15 and 280 kN on a QST1800, and the rated pressure, 25 MPa or 31.5 MPa by model.

Then read the mould, because cavities decide output before the cycle does: on the QS press series a 390 × 190 × 190 mm hollow block runs 5, 10 or 12 pieces per mould, so one stroke on the largest frame doubles the smallest. Set that beside the shift figure, since up to 220,000 standard bricks per 8-hour shift on a QST1800 is cavities multiplied by strokes.

What does a local installed base prove that a catalogue cannot?

Ask for two or three owners of the model you are buying in your own country, with their permission to call, and ask for the maintenance record rather than an opinion: how long a mould lasted, how many working days went into waiting for a part, who came out for the first fault. A plant running a whole line with 3 to 4 persons shows the crew level the machine really needs.

• Ask what the machine drew in practice: 44.9 kW on a QST8-15, 57.6 kW on a QST1200 or 104 kW on a QST1800, and whether the site supply carried the starting current.
• Ask about the pallet fleet: a QS-1200A cuber moves about 3,800 pallets per shift, a QS-1000G-A about 1,700, and the owner knows which figure his yard keeps up with.
• Ask whether the spares came from the builder or from a local distributor, because that answers who you call next.

How do the moulds and spare parts reach you, and on whose account?

Ask for the packing list before the container is sealed, not after it is opened, and make sure it holds three lists: the machine with its loading plan, the accessories arriving with it, and the wear parts you will reorder, each with a weight. A mould shipped by sea and a mould shipped by air are two different decisions, so send us your destination port and we quote the inland leg.

Then fix the route in writing: who packs, who books, who clears, and who is called when a crate is short. The same logic governs the handling units added later, because a pallet feeder cycling in about 13 seconds only keeps producing while its consumables are on the shelf.

Who installs the machine, trains the crew and writes the manual?

Ask for the name and the employer of the engineers who will come, not only their number. A factory that sends its own commissioning engineers answers follow-up questions on the gearbox and the vibration unit; a trader who subcontracts the visit usually cannot. Ask who arranges the entry paperwork, and what the crew must do alone on the final day: change a mould, set the cycle, clear a fault code.

Language belongs in the same clause. Ask for the manual and the interface labels in a language your operators read, and for one page before you order rather than a promise afterwards. Then confirm how a fault is traced from a distance: the automatic lines carry cloud remote monitoring and the unit network is self-organising.

Which contract clauses turn a promise into an obligation?

A quotation answers a buying question and a contract answers a delivery question, and that page of clauses costs nothing beside a frame standing idle. If a supplier will not put the acceptance figure in writing, the figure was never yours.

• Model and configuration table: host frame with weight, size and installed capacity, the mould set with cavity drawings, pallet size and count, and every auxiliary unit by model number.
• Accessories list: what is inside the crate and in what quantity, so nothing is negotiated after arrival.
• Acceptance criteria and acceptance site: which product, which mould, how many cavities, which cycle, and whether the signature is taken at the factory or on your site.
• Packing method: how the frame, the moulds, the pallet stack and the electrical cabinet are protected, and how the units sit in the container.
• Shipping and arrival information: port of loading, port of discharge, the port you nominate, and every document the supplier must hand over, with its date.
• Payment milestones and receipts: each instalment tied to a named completion stage and backed by a receipt, never a calendar date alone.
• Claims clause and warranty scope: the evidence required when a part fails, meaning machine number, fault code and photographs, and which items count as consumables.

How do you spot a trading company passing a machine through?

The first tell is the model name and where the parameter table came from. A builder's model number maps to a frame drawing, a weight and a pallet size in one document: QST1500 at 11,500 × 4,500 × 2,800 mm and 20 t on a 1,350 × 1,150 × 30 mm pallet. Where the name changes between quotation and drawing, or the table carries capacity but no weight or pallet, a machine is being priced rather than built.

The second tell is the delivery promise set against the workshop schedule. Ask for the schedule line your frame stands on, the date it enters machining, the date it goes to painting, and the machine number assigned to it. A real schedule can be photographed and moves when parts arrive late; a verbal date that never moves with the parts list came from a calendar. Ask who signs the acceptance test.