Ian Edwards, vice president responsible for global sales at Major, visited with P&Q at AGG1 Aggregates Academy & Expo to discuss trends in screening. Edwards relayed some of the sentiments producers shared with Major at the show, reflecting on what’s driving equipment research and development.
P&Q: Regarding screening operations, what pain points are you currently hearing about from producers? What are producers struggling with operationally here in 2025?
IAN EDWARDS: It’s always the same types of things – especially on our side with screen media. They’re looking for throughput. They’re looking for better production. They don’t want downtime in their plants, whether that’s caused by maintenance, recirculation or whatever the case may be. They’re looking to be as efficient as possible in their operation, which is fair.
Another big one today is sustainability. This is becoming bigger. It’s not just about whether the screen gives me what I want, but where else does it help? Is it part of my sustainability? Does it help the environment? Is it safe for my employees? It’s really becoming a bigger picture.
This isn’t about just selling something anymore. It’s become much larger, and you must have more of a full-circle approach to the environment that you’re working in. I think customers are really looking for that.
P&Q: How do those pain points translate to product development? You touched on efficiency and quality, for example. When you hear those things and you look at your own products, what’s the next step?
EDWARDS: No. 1 – and it seems silly to say this – but we listen. We’re not sitting in a room trying to come up with new ideas. We want to be creative, so we’re out in the field, spending time with our customers, doing plant audits with them and understanding the challenges they’re having.
Then, we take that information and work with our R&D team to say: ‘Here are the pain points out in the field.’ That could have something to do with the way something is installed; the way something is transported; the safety of installing that equipment.
There are a bunch of different ways our machinery is used. If you have screens that are two or three stories up in the air, do you want a crane lifting up side-tension panels? Maybe not, but a customer may want to use our product. So, we’ll use a modular version. There are a bunch of different pain points that might be faced. It’s up to us to make sure we’re helping them. We want to be a solutions provider, so we must be flexible and we have to be creative.
