Pit & Quarry • April 2024 • EQUIPMENT & TECHNOLOGY

Producers and manufacturers detail the hurdles they’re trying to clear as the industry incorporates more technology into operations

The following transcripts were edited from two concurrent Feb. 2 discussions at the 2024 Pit & Quarry Roundtable & Conference. The transcript from one discussion begins on this page, while the transcript from the other starts on page S25. Both discussions were edited for brevity and clarity.

JACK KOPANSKI (PIT & QUARRY):For producers, what transformational equipment and technology have you invested in or explored? For equipment suppliers, how are you incorporating technology into your equipment offerings, and what factors are driving innovation at your company? How would you characterize the industry’s willingness and readiness to adopt the latest wave of technology?

**PAUL ROSS (DOUGLAS MANUFACTURING):**We’re investing in our products to help them last longer. We’re focusing on equipment and parts to reduce maintenance costs and the number of people required to maintain equipment.

We’re also breaking ground on a new facility to produce those products using automation. We’re aiming to reduce the amount of labor that we require while making it easier for our team members to learn the skills they need to make the products that we produce.

MATTHEW VALLE (HAULHUB): DOTs (departments of transportation) are looking at multiple ways to figure out how to digitize the entire construction process. That’s starting to push some of the digital transformation back on the OEMs to think about how, as these materials are being produced, the critical information starts to get out to the DOTs.

OEMs are now starting to outfit their equipment with digital technologies in a standard way so that DOTs can think about inspection out on the jobsite in a more digital manner.

THOMAS JORDAN (KLEEMANN): Everybody wants machines to run as efficient and as long as possible. If the folks operating them don’t understand all that technology and what’s going on, then you run into a problem.

It’s amazing how much more support folks need when they haven’t been properly trained on the technology versus folks who take the time to understand why it’s there, what it’s doing in the background and more. The training is very important.

VINCENT ROCCO (AMCAST): One thing we’ve been investing in is a hybrid of robotics assisted by humans. Where a guy would sit there and have to grind all day with a 20-volt grinder, which is a heavy piece of equipment, we have made investments in an exoskeleton type of robotic equipment to reduce fatigue, reduce injuries and with the ultimate goal of trying to make the workplace overall safer and more enjoyable.

JOHN BENNINGTON (SUPERIOR INDUSTRIES): One of the things we’ve tried to focus on is problem solving with technology improvements in areas that customers are having issues with. If you go to the West Coast, water is an issue. There are a lot of large portions in the country where electricity is more expensive than average. So, trying to run machines with less electricity or less water are things we’re focused on.

CHARLES GILBERT (ASTEC INDUSTRIES): Our customers in asphalt, concrete and aggregates are asking us for commonality. With commonality comes efficiency. That is probably our largest initiative, at least in the 16 years I’ve been with Astec.

Hopefully, with commonality comes cost savings to the customer and the end user because of the ability for us to manage those technologies.

BILL BEASLEY (XYLEM): We’ve taken technology as a challenge to help the customer get longevity out of their equipment through vibration analysis and things like that. Having a piece or a sensor that can let you know when things are beginning to wear and go bad so you can schedule the maintenance or the replacement is ideal, rather than waiting for something to break down and have to deal with those costs.

You can control pumps when you’re sitting at home on your phone, and you can start a pump from your phone.

JACK KOPANSKI (PIT & QUARRY): For producers, how would you describe your ability to effectively source equipment and parts? Is the possibility of a recession this year influencing your desire to invest in capital equipment, and what impact, if any, are the elections having on your capex approach?

For equipment suppliers, do you feel the possibility of a recession this year and the 2024 elections are having an impact on capex? What purchasing trends did you see in 2023, and what do you expect to transpire regarding the nature of transactions in 2024?

OLIVER NOBELS (SCHURCO SLURRY): In 2023, there was more of an emphasis on repairing equipment rather than replacing equipment. Hopefully, that continues to happen for the producers’ sake in 2024, because it is more cost-effective to repair rather than replace sometimes.

What all that comes down to is training and workforce. We’ve had a lot of customers request training. I know it’s not easy, but training at the manufacturer’s facility is going to be tenfold more effective than on-site most of the time.

While you want to be able to do training when the equipment’s operating, if you’re trying to do training on repairs, doing it at a facility where you have the equipment and you can see different iterations of the equipment taken apart and put back together is very beneficial for whoever’s doing the repairs.

DOMINIC NASSO (BUFFALO WIRE WORKS): We formed a tech squad, made up of application engineers and seasoned veterans on the team to help reduce cell problems in the field in real time. We utilize technology to provide solutions and do it in real time. There’s a lot of turnover in the workforce, and we’re an extension of those solutions.

JOHN BENNINGTON (SUPERIOR INDUSTRIES): In 2023, because interest rates were still relatively low, people were buying new – partly because of interest rates, but also because the rental fleets had been completely used up. You could find some rentals if you were lucky, but they just bought.

Then, toward the end of the year, as interest rates started going up harder and harder, we saw a real shift back to rental fleets.

The following transcript was edited from a concurrent Pit & Quarry Roundtable & Conference discussion.

KEVIN YANIK (PIT & QUARRY): For the producers, what transformational equipment and technology have you invested in or explored? For the suppliers, how are you incorporating tech into your equipment offerings?

WILLIAM WETTA (DSC DREDGE): We’re a dredge manufacturer. Most of our equipment takes about 18 months to make – start to finish. Most of it is custom. We’ve been spooling data off of our equipment and some competitive equipment for the last five years. So, we’ve got five years of data off of about 100 machines.

Our 2025 goal as a company for pit mining is to have fully autonomous dredging – not remote-control dredging – where you load a mine plan up in the machine. We’ve got a full staff of electrical engineers, automation engineers and others who are strictly working on that.

The data we’re analyzing shows how poorly the equipment is being operated via man. It’s about the simplest automation you can do.

BRENT MCMANIS (WEG ELECTRIC CORP.): One of the things we like to look at is the cost of sensors that we can put on an electric motor, gearbox or bearing. As technology is improving, the ability to get that back to the cloud through Bluetooth 5 really allows us to put more data in from motors and rotating equipment.

In developing that software, the AI machine learning that looks at that motor and gearbox says: ‘There’s something going on there. Go out and take a look at it.’ So, there’s that aspect of it, and I always like to think there’s a safety aspect, too.

There’s a tremendous amount of data out there – not only from the machine, but from your automation equipment. All of that can be brought into the AI platforms to help you better predict failures and show what’s going on in your process.

DAMIAN MURPHY (PECKHAM INDUSTRIES): We’re catching up to the bigger boys in the equipment management to bring technology to managing a fleet. With that tech, we’re getting our biggest bang for our buck now. It’s attacking the labor issue, and it’s better, more consistent and presents fewer problems. The computers in there are really impressive.

MICAH TYSVER (CRUSH MODE): One of the biggest topics right now is AI. What we’ve been utilizing – and some of our customers use – is this: For any of our units, we can download all operations manuals and parts manuals into a database. If the customer calls and gives us a vague description of the unit they’re look for, you can type a few keywords into an AI database, and it will pull up exactly what part number you need. And it’s super quick.

SHAWN BONNINGTON (VIZALOGIX): To Micah’s point, I think there is a disparity between understanding what AI is available today versus the expectation that we see from this industry. AI, by and large, is kind of just a large language model. It’s great for sales, for marketing, for the descriptions of associating imagery. But everybody wants decision intelligence.

I think that’s kind of the next landscape of understanding in the industry. There’s a difference between artificial intelligence and decision intelligence. How do you help operate and manage a remote quarry with datasets?

KEVIN YANIK (PIT & QUARRY): For the producers here, what’s inhibiting your ability to incorporate new things into the business?

SCOTT ALEXANDER (SUMMIT MATERIALS): I think we’ve got a lot of potential going forward at Summit because we really haven’t put into place a lot of new technology to improve operations. We’re right in the throes of that right now.

We’ve done things like put in a CRM software to manage our sales process or work on our maintenance programs to be more predictive. But there’s more available in the industry, and we haven’t embraced that fully.

Internally, we created a center of excellence that continues to improve every department. It’s working across all regions. I know there’s a lot more opportunity than what we’ve ventured into as an industry. I’m optimistic once we engage that further, it’s going to help with our costs.

TRAVIS WELLMAN (CEMEX): One challenge we’re experiencing and in the crawling stages of is on the data side. You’ve got multiple streams of data depending on the manufacturer, depending on the equipment you have, depending on what you’re monitoring and your maintenance systems.

That’s the challenge for us. If you’re not developing something in house, how do you give third parties access to your complete information so your tools can work like they’re supposed to, and you still want to maintain security, too.

MATT NICHOLS (DODGE): I think the sensor technology has gotten really good and affordable. In the future, I think we’ll be able to determine that if a piece of equipment runs at a set temperature or vibration that it’s going to last a set number of weeks. I think the technology will eventually get there.

As we learn, we’ll be able to predict potentially when it’s going to fail. A lot of that’s advancing today, but when we get to that next stage, it will be really beneficial.