Special to CEG
It is undeniably beautiful: the smooth, calculated efficiency of a paving train moving down a stretch of highway. Lines of dump trucks stand waiting to maneuver into position. A material-transfer vehicle feeds hot-mix asphalt (HMA) into a paver. And up there at the front, leading the entire paving train, is a milling machine, chewing up the old pavement to make way for that sturdy, new black hot-mix.
The milling and crushing of asphalt pavement is sometimes thought to be the “dirty work” of the road construction industry. It is a task that many HMA producers prefer to avoid. That’s why Pavement Products & Services Inc. (PP&S) specializes in that service. It is filling a very special niche in the marketplace. And there is a lot of milling and crushing to be done across the nation.
Jack Hagood, president of PP&S, said the 10-year-old Greenville, SC-based company has a milling crew out in the field almost every single day for 10 months straight during the paving season.
“We run five milling machines for five crews,” said Hagood. “And we’re continuously in a cycle of five, or sometimes six, days of production a week. That part of the workload has to stay consistent, so we are constantly bidding Interstate jobs, private jobs, city, county, airport — whatever it takes to keep those milling machines busy every day.”
Four of the company’s five milling machines were manufactured by Roadtec. Hagood said PP&S has used Roadtec equipment for all of its 10 years in the business. So when a job on South Carolina’s Interstate 85 was going to require a special 8-ft. (2.4 m) drum — a drum that PP&S did not have — Hagood did not hesitate to ask the people at Roadtec for help.
PP&S intended to use the Roadtec RX-50B cold planer to mill up 11 in. (27.9 cm) of asphalt and base on the Interstate highway’s shoulder. The shoulder was exactly 8 ft. (2.4 m) wide — just a little bit narrower than the cold planer’s widest drum of 8 ft. 2 in. (2.5 m) — and just a little bit wider than its medium-width drum of 7 ft. 2 in. (2.2 m). Roadtec didn’t hesitate to help. It built a special drum to meet the 8-ft. (2.4 m) specification for PP&S.
“We milled out all that asphalt and base at once and the contractor was then able to come in behind us with his paving crew and do their work,” said Hagood.
He added that the special drum proved to be invaluable because not only did it allow the crew to completely mill up the shoulder in one pass, but it got it done in a remarkably short period of time.
“We produced 50-percent more than what we estimated we would do on the project,” said Hagood. “Along with the contractor’s help, we completed that job about 10 days ahead of schedule.”
After PP&S completed the shoulder work on Interstate 85, the company moved to another area on the same highway to mill the top course from the main roadway. Milling work was to be done only at night, and the job needed to be finished in two weeks. Hagood said it was a high-pressure job, but one that the company was ready to face with its Roadtec cold planers.
“We had a project manager who was pushing pretty hard,” said Hagood. “As a result, we were starting at 7 p.m., when it was still light out, and working steady through the night until 7 a.m., just as the sun was coming back up. Believe me, those were some pretty long shifts.”
For the job, PP&S utilized its Roadtec RX-60C cold planer. This high-horsepower, high-production unit can make cuts of 7 ft. 2 in. (2.2 m) in width, all the way up to 12 ft. 6 in. (3.8 m) in width.
For work on Interstate 85, the PP&S milling crew used two RX-60C cold planers to take up 1 in. (2.5 cm) of asphalt over 64 lane mi. (103 km). Hagood said the milling machines moved along down the Interstate at a remarkable pace on this particular job.
“We were able to get production quantities on that job that we’d never had before,” said Hagood. “We had some days when we got 35,000 to 40,000 sq. yds. with those two machines. And that was a company record for us.
“Plus, we made the primary contractor happy. We had been given two weeks to complete the job, but we were actually finished in about one week.”
Hagood said that since PP&S started bidding contracts, Roadtec has been there to help his company along. The Chattanooga, TN, manufacturer’s ability, flexibility and high standard of customer service has made the company an invaluable partner to PP&S.
“We know Roadtec will always be there for us,” said Hagood. “They’ve basically shown me the ropes about the equipment. I am very comfortable with making buying decisions with them because I know they will be able to maneuver to get me whatever special needs I have for any project.”
Hagood said he is particularly impressed with the one-on-one relationship he has developed with his Roadtec sales representative.
“Our sales rep is more than a salesman,” said Hagood. “You could call him a technician, parts specialist, or administrative advisor. Whatever we need him to do, he can do it. Every time we make a call, he proceeds to handle it. Until the matter is taken care of to our satisfaction, he is with us every day, every minute, or whenever we need to talk to him.”
The success PP&S experienced with Roadtec equipment on the two consecutive Interstate 85 projects is only a small example of how Roadtec has aided the growth of this contractor. But Hagood emphasized one other element that has been instrumental to the company’s success: people.
“Sure, the equipment has done a lot for us this year,” said Hagood. “But our people continue to be the success of PP&S, day in and day out. Without the good people that we have working with us, we wouldn’t be achieving these high production amounts.”
(This article appears courtesy of Aztec’s “Hot-Mix Magazine.”)
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