W.I. Clark's Team Blue Crushes Connecticut With Kleemann Line
Thu September 24, 2020 - Northeast Edition #20 CEG
In 2013, W.I. Clark acquired the Kleemann line of aggregate and recycling products when the Wirtgen Group brought the products to the United States. W.I. Clark had already been a Wirtgen Group dealer for milling machines, Vogele pavers and Hamm compactors. The dealer also represents John Deere (of which the Wirtgen Group is a subsidiary) construction and industrial equipment in the state of Connecticut
"W.I. Clark had sold aggregate equipment for many years, but having the Kleemann products allowed us to sell to all applications in that business," said Mark Brester. Brewster had been a main line salesman for W.I. Clark since 2002 and took on responsibility for aggregate and recycling equipment in 2017. "The Kleemann product line is in a league of its own and put us in a position to have the equipment the premier aggregate producers in the state of Connecticut need in their operations as well as the Connecticut's recyclers."
As W.I. Clark has always known those customers have a different set of demands and needs that need to be addressed.
Aggregate producers and recyclers not only have their own language, but they also had a very unique set of circumstances unlike a contractor with a fleet of equipment. A contractor who owns a fleet of 25 machines can certainly be hurt by one machine going down, but it is unlikely that it would stop the entire operation. However, an aggregate producer/recycler can have its entire business come to a screeching halt when its machine is not running.
According to Brester, "That puts the demands on the dealership to a whole new level. Our technicians need to be trained well. Our parts department has in stock the right parts and to source immediately those parts they need not in stock. When we sell a piece of equipment, it has to be the right piece of equipment for the application at hand.
"We needed everyone involved in the Kleemann product to be a product specialist, so we came up with the concept internally of ‘Team Blue," consisting of individuals within W.I. Clark who would receive specialized training and would be ready to react when the Kleemann customer needs us."
Team Blue at W.I. Clark:
Mark Brester, aggregate/production class equipment specialist
Mike Greenwood Sr., assistant service manager/Kleemann tech advisor
Geoff Bleiler, rental manager
Russell Hansen, service administration
Mike Greenwood Jr, field service technician
Jeremy Kastelli, field service technician
Kyle Levesque, shop service technician
Mike Lallier, shop service technician/screeners
Chuck Bakutis, Kleemann parts inventory management
Here are three different examples of how W.I. Clark's Blue Team has come through for aggregate customers. One recycling, one screening and one rock crushing.
JRD Properties
JRD Properties is recycling 50,000 yds. of material just off I-84 in downtown Waterbury, Conn.
This giant pile consists of a mixture of rock, dirt, asphalt and concrete and other debris that is being recycled into a 1-1/2-in. minus product and then sold locally. The area is extremely tight on space and a traditional recycling spread made up of a jaw, cone and screener just would not fit.
To make it work, Mark Brester of W.I. Clark, and the rest of Team Blue at W.I. Clark installed a Kleemann MR110 track-mounted impact crusher. This single machine takes up far less real estate, yet does the job that required three machines in the past.
The Kleemann MR110 Impactor features include:
an independent pre-screen that effectively removes fines to by-pass the rotor. This frees up the rotor to crush what's only needed. The pre-screened fines and crushed material can blend back together underneath the crusher box. This improves machine throughput, wear life and fuel efficiency.
The diesel/electric power (versus diesel/hydraulic) operates at a consistent rpm and constantly adjusts the amount of material being fed to the impactor box to optimize productivity and keep operating costs as low as possible.
The classifier sizes everything discharged from the Kleemann (here 1-1/2-in. minus) and recycles anything larger back to the impactor.
The Kleemann impactors use a material flow design concept where each component gets wider as it moves through the machine. This reduces potential blockages and maximizes material flow for optimum performance in these types of applications.
As much as all users are careful, every crushing operation will have uncrushables fed to the system. When the MR110 rotor is immediately stopped from spinning at 1,700 rpms, the energy is relieved by a "blowout" plate. This is easily and quickly replaced and the customer is back to work minimizing very costly repairs.
A Kleemann stacker was added to the spread to lower significantly the customer's overall operating costs
JRD Properties partnered with S & S Asphalt Paving in certain aspects of this project. Bill Kirhoffer was the key person who fed the impactor daily.
"The operator in this type of setup is a huge part of the operation," Brester said. "Bill has proven to be very skillful at mixing from the pile the right combination of materials; dirt versus asphalt versus concrete, which makes all the difference in the quality of the end product."
"What's great about this setup is that we are using one machine to make one product," added Kirhoffer. "In the past we would have needed a jaw, an impactor and a screener. This has everything we need in one compact unit. I really appreciate the diesel electric power system; if something gets stuck in a belt, it just trips off a breaker where normally the belt would be ripped to shreds."
"We really appreciate working with W.I. Clark. They are truly professionals. They have been great at selecting the right machine for this job and training us on its proper operation. S & S Asphalt has been doing business with W.I. Clark for more than 30 years, however, this was our first experience using them for aggregate equipment. Mark Brester with W.I. Clark checks in with us on a very regular basis to see what our needs are. He knows the machine inside and out and has been a tremendous help to us."
O&G Industries, Southbury Plant
The O&G Quarry Southbury, Conn., plant recently purchased a Kleemann Mobiscreen MS 953I EVO.
According to Tom Alexon, quarry superintendent, "The plant was purchased primarily for the production of a 3/8-inch minus product for the use in NovaChip paving, which is in high demand. In addition, we have also used the Kleemann for some asphalt plant cleanup rescreening and classifying, but it is primarily being used for the 3/8-inch minus product production. Material that is processed through this plant has ¼-inch stone removed and the 3/8-inch minus product separated."
"The NovaChip paving process is where you pave over an existing surface using Vogele 1800 spray jet pavers and eliminate milling, but the spec for the aggregate is very tight," Alexon added. "With the increased popularity of this paving process, the demand for this stone has increased dramatically, which is what drove O&G to be looking for the new screening plant."
"One of the things that attracted us to this particular screening plant is that it is a dry screening process — thus, there are no environmental issues with water contamination."
With O&G's setup, because they are screening a 3/8-in. minus, the top decks are removed so that the screens are not worn out. Thus, material is dropped directly to the middle deck; 1/2-in. and larger materials are separated as one product; 5/16-in. material also is separated out, as well as a true 3/8-in. material.
"All of the products that are being produced, we currently have a market for," Alexon said. "Thus far, the screening plant has met all of our expectations and it has been making spec with a single pass through the screening plant, which is where O&G has really seen the benefits of this purchase. In the past, it had taken two trips through the screening plants to make spec."
Another significant benefit with the Kleemann versus O&G's previous screening plant is fuel consumption, Alexon said. "The Kleemann is easily consuming half the fuel versus its predecessor. The difference being the Kleemann operates at a much lower rpm. The screening plant itself is significantly larger and operates at a lower rpm — the combined effect is larger production numbers with lower fuel consumption."
The plant's mobility also gives O&G some flexibility in how it is used.
"The screener, with its mobility, can be used all over the O&G plant. Wherever screening or recycling needs to take place and with its mobility, it is much more efficient to haul the Kleemann around the O&G plant than it is to haul material by the bucket load to the screening plant."
Rockhead Quarry
Rockhead Quarry is producing four products: 1-1/4-in. stone, 3/4-in. clean stone, 3/8-in. clean stone and stone dust. To produce these products, its crushing spread consists of a
Kleemann MC110ZI EVO with a 44 by 28-in. jaw
Kleemann MCO9SI cone with classifier
Kleemann MS703I. screen
Nick Ferraina, plant manager, commented on several features of the Kleemann plant and the services provided by W.I. Clark.
"I have really been impressed with the continuous feeding system featured in the Kleemann crushing spreads," he said. "The crusher maintains a continuous, consistent flow of material through the jaw that gives you rock on rock crushing in the cone, providing improved fragmentation. The end result is a better product."
"The new configuration that W.I. Clark and Kleemann gave us eliminated a massive spread that ate up a lot of real estate, took up twice the manpower, consumed twice the fuel and had twice the wear parts. The noise level while crushing is excellent and really helps keeping neighbor complaints to a minimum.
"This new spread is compact and portable. We could easily move the entire setup in half a day. When we made this purchase, we shopped the Kleemann and W.I. Clark and compared feature-to-feature and the economics of operation, it just made sense to go with Kleemann and the W.I. Clark Blue Team.
"W.I. Clark has given us tremendous support. They have a regular schedule of visits to check on our operations and how we are getting along with our new setup. Their training is excellent and ongoing. It certainly helps that the Kleemann equipment is interface user-friendly and has good accessibility to the areas that need maintenance. As an example, we are able to change the screen mesh in less than a half hour." CEG
This story also appears on Aggregate Equipment Guide.
