More than 1,200 people descended on the Wirtgen Group’s North American headquarters last week in Antioch, Tennessee, where the company highlighted its latest efforts at Technology Days North America 2024 to make equipment smarter, safer and more sustainable.
Equipment from several Wirtgen Group brands – including Kleemann, Hamm, Vögele and Wirtgen – was showcased through displays and exhibits, presentations and live demonstrations. The Wirtgen Group also opened its CTT (Center for Training & Technology) to those on hand, detailing its role in preparing the next generation of equipment operators for jobs in aggregates and road construction.
Technology Days 2024 was the third iteration of the event the Wirtgen Group has hosted in the U.S. The company’s Technology Days originated in Germany, where the Wirtgen Group’s global headquarters resides.
“Tech days are pretty traditional for German manufacturing companies,” says Jim McEvoy, president and CEO of Wirtgen America. “We would take a number of American contractors over for years, [but we] really can’t handle more than 100 people over there at a time. So, we came up with the idea of doing it here in North America.”
Kleemann focus
An assortment of mobile crushing and screening plants from Kleemann was among the equipment on display outside the CTT during Technology Days, with several models also involved in live demonstrations.
In one demo, five pieces of track-mounted Kleemann equipment prepped base material. The MC 110i EVO2 jaw crushing plant, the MCO 90i EVO2 cone crushing plant, the MSC 953i EVO classifying screen plant and the MBT 24i stacker operated in tandem to make natural stone products.
A second demo showcased two Kleemann mobile impact crushing plants: the MR 100i NEO and the MR 110i EVO 2. Kleemann illustrated how operators can process large pieces of used concrete through an MR 100i NEO. The brand also demonstrated how the MR 110i EVO2 produces RAP (reclaimed asphalt pavement).
Going a step further, the overall demonstration showed how the concrete product could be mixed with asphalt, RAP and foam bitumen using Wirtgen’s mobile KMA 240i cold recycling plant.
Going digital
Although Wirtgen Group equipment was central to Technology Days, the technology aspect of the company’s business is, perhaps, the most rapidly evolving these days.
Wirtgen Group equipment, for example, is now part of the John Deere Operations Center, giving operators a range of datapoints on the company’s machines. Through the John Deere Operations Center, operators can now monitor productivity and efficiency, track the location of equipment, and keep tabs on the operational status of their machines.
Although the launch of the John Deere Operations Center in the Wirtgen Group was an undertaking, the company says the opportunity digital tech presents contractors is a tremendous one – and not only for operations, but for the greater business in terms of risk management.
“If you can start to either take some of the cost of that risk out because you’ve got better data, that’s going to allow you to bid more competitively,” says Matt Graves, director of marketing at the Wirtgen Group.
McEvoy agrees.
“Contractors have a nice double-digit number of risk in every contract they perform,” he says. “So, profit is in managing efficiency. Better profits [are] in managing that risk and efficiency.”
Embracing digitalization isn’t exactly easy, though. It’s newer territory for equipment manufacturers, their dealers and those ultimately putting equipment to use.
“The challenging part with digital is it is an intangible,” McEvoy says. “We’re all very good at tangibles. We’re very good at iron. The dealers understand that. And you start at the customer. It’s something the customer wants, values and needs, so it does draw the dealer to it.”
A manufacturer’s responsibility, McEvoy adds, is to provide support in the form of training, materials and other information.
“I think a lot of our dealer networks are supporting systems on the construction side – what I’ll call the ‘yellow side’ – and they’re familiar with it already,” he says.
Now, McEvoy says a task at hand is transitioning those dealers into the Wirtgen Group’s niche.
“At a higher level, you can look at digital products like … you are almost introducing a new product to a dealer,” he says. “It’s not iron … but you’re bringing in a new product, and it’s the same type of product launch process. You have market opportunity; you have to bring the dealer up to speed on what it is you’re offering; [and] they have to set their support structure accordingly. That’s what we’re finding.”
Providing education
Training is also critical to a contractor’s success. The CTT is Wirtgen Group’s way of building up a contractor’s employees.
“It is truly a road construction and aggregates university,” Graves says. “That’s how we look at this building.”
With classrooms built in and space outside to explore equipment, Graves says the company hosts more than 3,000 students at the CTT each year.
“That’s 3,000 individuals,” he says. “Those individuals will come back multiple times. Some of those individuals come back three or four times throughout the course of a year.”
The Wirtgen Group, for example, provides new operator training as a three-day course, teaching fundamentals about the jobs tied to its equipment.
“You learn the fundamentals of the five courses of paving, and then you go outside and apply the five courses,” Graves says. “[The] same with crushing: You get them out there, and you’re talking about sizing, materials, density. You give them the fundamentals of what it is to do your job. We show you how to do it.”
The Wirtgen Group first opened the CTT in 2009 and expanded it in 2018. As Graves describes, the operators going through the facility today approach their work differently than the ones from, say, 15 years ago.
“What we’re finding is the next generation will jump on the machines, and they’ll be showing their crew foreman how to get more out of their equipment; how to service their equipment better; how to treat it better so it lasts longer,” Graves says.
