Cleveland Brothers Con-Agg division is the East Coast’s largest stocking dealer/distributor of crushing equipment and related machinery. It carries the full line of Nordberg and Svedala equipment, parts, and supplies.
“Nordberg was No.1 in the world, and Svedala was No. 2. Nordberg has been growing over the years through acquisitions. First, Nordberg acquired Tyler, Hewitt, Robins, Ceco, and Kueken. Then, they acquired Svedala. You still see the Nordberg name, but they now officially go by the name Metso Minerals,” said Dwayne Johnson, general manager of Cleveland Brothers Con Agg division, explaining the changes in the industry.
He said the changes come as a surprise to some customers.
“The equipment has changed drastically over the past 20 years. Many customers had the same equipment for a long time. Now, they’re coming in and looking for new equipment,” said Johnson.
“Buyers are not familiar with new processes or new equipment lines. Cleveland Brothers brings the experience and expertise of all its sales and service staff — as well as its many satisfied customers — to bear to help new purchasers. We don’t just sell. We know who’s tried what and what works for others and we try to offer guidance.
“Many of our customers have done things in a particular way for years and are comfortable with it. But, they want to do better,” Johnson explained. “We excel at helping customers transition to new pieces of equipment. We have a good understanding of all components — not just ours.”
Johnson, who joined the Harrisburg equipment, parts and service supplier July of 1999, has been involved in the stone business since the mid-1970s.
Another of the strong selling points for Cleveland Brothers’ Con-Agg division is Chuck Koch, the parts and service coordinator.
“Chuck has been with the Con-Agg division since the beginning,” said Johnson. “He knows that downtime is lost money for our customers, so he has developed a list of hot items that are always available. In addition, he has cultivated connections to ensure that we always have the parts in stock or have the ability to get the parts to anyone anywhere within 24 hours.”
Cleveland Brothers has an inventory of more than $500,000 in parts on hand at all times.
“We try to be very competitive in our pricing for all parts — jaw dies, pipe fittings, gauges and liners. Manganese liners are the highest-wear item on a crusher. But, aftermarket models don’t necessarily fit nor have the right specs. Customers have tried them and wound up with crusher failures and turned to us for repairs. That’s expensive. We keep everything on the shelf that is likely to fail — everything that is critical to the operation of the machine so customers can keep running,” said Johnson.
He added that Nordberg-Metso has a distribution office in Pennsylvania, which guarantees Cleveland Brothers quick access to parts.
“We keep downtime to a minimum. Cleveland Brothers is a fully-stocked 24/7 operation. I remember a customer’s stone crusher going down on a Saturday night. We opened up the store at 10 p.m. to help them. They were back up and running again Sunday afternoon,” said Johnson.
David Hyde, Con-Agg’s service manager, uses his background and expertise as an Air Force mechanic to get and keep customers up and running.
“David is extremely technical and extremely knowledgeable. He spends a tremendous amount of time on the phone with customers, trying to troubleshoot and pinpoint problems,” said Johnson.
He said that Hyde’s hands-on approach saves the customer time and money.
“Customer’s don’t end up losing time or spending money on a service call. They don’t have to wait for a mechanic to come up to the job site to get the machine running again. Many times, David can help them do that over the phone. He does a preliminary evaluation and then lets the customer decide whether or not they need to have somebody come on site,” said Johnson.
The latest trend in the industry is portable/mobile crushing equipment and Cleveland Brothers is leading the way.
“We pride ourselves on being innovative. We were one of the leaders in the state to make a Superpave product for the asphalt industry. We are also one of the leaders in the state to do on-site crushing with contractors in quarry operations,” said Johnson.
“Quarries have used our portable equipment on site at their own quarries instead of using their own stationary plant. They end up cutting holding costs and handling costs and at the end of the day the cost per ton of productive material is less,” said Johnson.
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