HIGH PROFILE product adjacency. Prior to the acquisition, at TerraSource we were getting ready to develop a cone crusher because we didn’ t have one. Being part of Astec brought cone and jaw crushers plus impactors via Telsmith and Kolberg-Pioneer. One product range marriage that is getting a lot of traction now is the combination of our vibratory feeders with cone crushers. Through Jeffrey Rader we supply the Centroload Feeder which is a vibratory feeder with a radial head. It is designed to feed a cone crusher, so it doesn’ t choke. It’ s got an even feed, which does a couple things. It doubles the life of your crusher plus you’ re able to better manage your material flow. And so for most of the cone crushers Astec sells today, it is also being offered with a Centroload Feeder because if you want your crushers to last, you need a heavy duty feeder not a belt feeder. If you walk into a minerals processing plant, especially one handling soft rock minerals or aggregate – you are often going to see today a combination of different Astec solutions, including TerraSource screens and feeders.
Q Are many of the heritage and well known brands that were part of TerraSource being kept within the Astec family?
In the majority of cases, yes – they are being kept as sub-brands under the Astec umbrella brand. For us, that is a great solution as it combines the globally known Astec brand with many of those heritage product names that brought us all together. These families of brands are still important as in many cases they still have a lot of meaning to the customer – who will still talk about a Gundlach or a Telsmith or a Tabor. They still know that Astec runs the overall business, and that overarching brand represents a lot of things like global strength and reach and investment.
Q Where do you go from here in terms of growth within Astec Industries?
One of the things that is great about TerraSource – and Astec as well – is that it still feels entrepreneurial. We’ re not done acquiring and building as we want to be the ultimate asset manager for our customers. Everything we do is, how can we provide better service and parts and give you extended life on your piece of equipment. It is all about performance. That means we have to have 95 % plus availability on our wear parts. They’ ve got to be sitting there ready when they are needed – in mining you can’ t survive with even a week’ s lead time for critical parts. In terms of the competitive marketplace, Astec is a global major already in terms of asphalt, concrete, and aggregates. In mining, we are nowhere near the likes of Metso or FLS in size but there is definitely a tonnage per hour that’ s really wide open for us to serve – and especially in the soft rock space as mentioned before. At the end of the day, that’ s why we have and continue to have a presence in places like Chile, South Africa, India, Australia, China and Sweden.
Q Is the new company now able to offer more comprehensive solutions to mining?
The market verticals in the industries we’ re in is tremendous. In mining we see an ability now to offer a turnkey plant solution, similarly to what we already do as Astec in the asphalt and concrete space. We have that complete plant solution covering feeding, crushing, dry and wet sizing plus washing and dewatering. Another aspect of the product portfolio on the equipment side is that we have static plants but also mobile tracked and modular options such as solutions from Telestack with tracked conveyors, radial stackers, and mobile hopper feeders. Digitalisation is also worth a mention. Astec from its Astec Digital side has brought a lot of digital capability into Terrasource. Its Signal Connectivity Suite is a unified digital platform for rock to road – covering aggregates, asphalt, and road building. It connects plant and mobile machinery to provide real-time operational metrics, telematics, and production data on a single cloud-based interface. We are now bringing this into mining as well. With Astec Digital, processing is becoming smart processing.
PRECISION SIZING ZERO WASTE.
With the Gundlach Crushers ® line, Astec has engineered one of the most comprehensive product sizing offerings on the market. Delivering consistent output, efficient operation, and proven reliability in demanding applications, our equipment is leading the industry.
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