Five minutes with Trimble’s Karl Lemke

Where do you feel like the aggregate industry is in the adoption curve of all things Trimble?

I think they’re honestly scratching the surface still. They’re just beginning to understand all of the capabilities Trimble brings to the different parts of the aggregate and construction industries.

What ultimately drives producers to adopt technology? Is it somebody in a company who makes change happen?

A lot of times, it’s a visionary – someone who’s lived in that environment and sees there’s a better way of doing things. They may see some technology and adopt it within their region or area. Then, they get buy-in from management and show the benefits to the management team that they can get out of it. This happens especially in the larger corporations.

It used to be you produced ‘X’ amount a year and ‘this’ is your margin. Now, that’s not good enough. Now, we’re always trying to tweak, make better and keep pushing everybody a little to adopt technology.

Is it feasible for a small or mid-sized company to do what the bigger guys are doing?

Technology is cheap enough nowadays. People always look at technology and say ‘wow.’ Adding a skill may cost you $10,000 for a loader, but you just spent $250,000 for that loader. So, $10,000 to make that loader more efficient – what does that cost you?

With smaller operations, they may not go into the detail that some of the larger ones do, but doing some basic tracking initiatives keeps them competitive. They can react quicker than the bigger guys in many cases. That’s their competitive advantage. They have a better feel for what they can do.

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