Ready-mix trends
When concrete is the same price as five years ago, your truck may be the difference between profit and loss By Eamonn Ryan In a market when suppliers are delivering concrete at the same price as five years, they can only achieve that by being smarter – particularly with the costs of their readymix trucks. Quintin Booysen, Sales and Marketing Manager at PMSA (Pan Mixers South Africa) gives PMSA’s views on trends in the ready-mix and equipment sector.
“T
raditionally South Africa has a strong culture of dry mixing whereby the mixing is done on the ready-mix truck, which required further time-consuming mixing at the production site. With the improvements in technology in recent years, this system has rather favoured pre-mix whereby everything is mixed at the batching plant. It has the advantage of allowing for a higher-quality mix through everything being batched together and mixed in one go and discharged into the truck.” This also permits a better utilisation of trucks. “There are other means to speed up the process, for instance through moisture control. When making concrete there’s always some extraneous water in the system, for instance in the aggregates, lowering the strength of the concrete. By rather doing this in the batching plant, it enables the moisture level to be closely
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Concrete Trends Issue 1 2022
monitored for a more precise moisture level and less wastage, while the trucks themselves can also have an on-board Ludwig moisture monitoring system in the drum providing live feedback throughout the journey,” explains Booysen. “You get transit mixers and you get ready-mix trucks, and in the latter what is critical in the drum itself is the number of blades inside. The more blades there are and their position result in a better quality mix and quicker mixing time. Then when the truck arrives on site, these more modern technologies result in delivery of concrete which is more consistent and predictable.” South Africa has strict axle loads and weighbridge formulas, limiting the country to loads depending on the truck axles. Booysen explains that generally the South Africa market best suits drums of 6m3 or 8m3. “However, the make-up of the
