Post WW II the trade of cement in bulk became very common in The Netherlands. During that period the Van Aalst company started to import cement and felt it as their responsibility to unload ships dust free and environmentally friendly. The big challenge was born and in 1954 the first prototype was built. Van Aalst managed to find a way to unload cement from ships without spillage and dust emissions. The first pneumatic unloader in the world with the -for that time- stunning capacity of 20 T/h was a fact. After the first machine was built, new and improved versions followed rapidly. Engineering developments led to a diversifaciton of pneumatic ship unloader types with unloading equipment being placed on ships, on shore and on mobile platforms. The unloading capacity was soon raised towards 100 T/h.