How feedback affects equipment development

This year’s Hillhead featured more than 500 exhibitors. Photo courtesy of The QMJ Group

Listen to the market. Fill a gap. These components are typically pieces of the formula manufacturers use to develop and launch new equipment.

The equipment showcased at trade shows like ConExpo-Con/Agg and World of Concrete is often the result of a long series of discussions had between manufacturers, dealers and customers. With feedback in hand, engineers get cracking on designing equipment that meets the latest wants and needs of aggregate producers.

Much of the equipment unveiled at Hillhead 2018 this summer evolved from these kinds of discussions, including a number of crushing, screening and washing developments. As an example, Terex Washing Systems launched the AggWash 300 system, an offshoot of the AggWash 60 that’s been available now for a few years.

“We brought the 300 to market to address the requirement that we see for high-production, high-tonnage plants geared toward recycling,” says Oliver Donnelly, business line director at Terex Washing Systems. “In this particular case, the AggWash 300 is a plant that [offers] rinsing, sand production, scrubbing and aggregate production – all on one chassis.”

Like Terex Washing Systems’ AggWash 300, CDE’s new AggMax 163-SR leans on existing technology as a platform yet offers new features that were identified as beneficial to customers.

“This is a variant of our recycling where we can scrub material coming from a demolition/recycling application and produce three aggregates, one sand and some thrash material coming off the back,” says Tony Convery, chairman and founder of CDE Global.

“From the experience we have with many of the machines before, it has a lot of access platforms, it’s pre-built before it leaves our factory,” he adds. “When we get to a site, we can build this machine in one and a half days.”

Quick setup time is, of course, a key factor for manufacturers of modular plants. Chris Reed, modular product line manager for the Americas and Europe at Terex Minerals Processing Systems (Terex MPS), has experienced the value modularity offers customers.

“Modular [plants] offer some really great benefits to the customer from the standpoint of still having some flexibility to move from site to site or around a quarry but [with] the access and safety of a stationary plant,” says Reed, whose company showcased the modular MC1000 cone crusher at Hillhead.