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equipmentworld.com | May 2016

18 2016

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CONTRACTOR of the YEAR

Greg and Dawn Tatro

G. W. Tatro Construction, Jeffersonville, Vermont Steep mountains and technical challenges bring out the best in this family firm

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Productivity through innovation. The new I-Shift with Crawler Gears page 6

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Vol. 28 Number 5 |

Cover Story

table of contents | May 2016

CONTRACTOR OF THE YEAR WINNER

Greg and Dawn Tatro G. W. Tatro Construction Equipment World’s 2016 Contractor of the Year says to put people first, and the profits will come.

18

Equipment 13

Marketplace

Terex TC85 compact excavator, Doosan Portable Power variable power air compressor, Ditch Witch FXT air excavators, Crysteel Class 8 Paradox and Raptor dump bodies, Atlas Copco LH series breakers, Subsite Electronics 2550GR ground penetrating radar, Western Global Abbi mobile refuelers, DuraClass tub bodies.

26 Machine Matters

37 Maintenance

54 Road Science

Skid Steer Loaders and Tier 4 Final Skid steers are especially challenging for manufacturers to bring into compliance.

Make it personal Confronting safety issues face-to-face is uncomfortable, but it has to be done.

Winning the bonus: Compaction A good base, improved technology, and operator timing and expertise combine to form super smooth pavements in the compaction process.

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 3

table of contents | continued

Features 45 Telematics 101

The fifth installment in our beginner’s guide series on telematics explains the challenge of feeding data into back office programs.

49 Vermeer HDD Training

Vermeer takes a small-class, immersion approach to horizontal directional drilling (HDD) training.

68 Better Bridges

Preservation programs grow as state DOTs battle challenging bridge conditions.

®

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Departments 7 On Record

And the theme of the show is...

9 Reporter Ditch Witch offers free online certified HDD training; Equipment operating experiences gain ground; Genie celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Data 43 Quick Excavators Pickup 79 Pro Nissan’s redesigned 2017 Titan with gas V8; advanced backup cameras on new F-150 Super Duty line.

Word 86 Final Donald Trump and Five Easy Pieces.

For subscription information/inquiries, please email equipmentworld@halldata.com. Equipment World (ISSN 1057-7262) is published monthly by Randall-Reilly Publishing Company, LLC, 3200 Rice Mine Road N.E., Tuscaloosa, AL 35406. Periodicals Postage-Paid at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and at additional mailing offices.

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4 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

For change of address and other subscription inquiries, please contact: equipmentworld@halldata.com Editorial Awards: Jesse H. Neal Award, Better Roads, 2011 American Business Media Robert F. Boger Award for Special Reports, 2006, 2007, 2008 Construction Writers Association Jesse H. Neal Award, Best Subject-Related Series of Articles, 2006 American Business Media Editorial Excellence Special Section Gold Award, 2006 Midwest-South Region, American Society of Business Publication Editors Editorial Excellence News Analysis Gold Award, 2006 Midwest-South Region, American Society of Business Publication Editors Editorial Excellence News Section Silver Award, 2005 Midwest-South Region, American Society of Business Publication Editors Robert F. Boger Award for Feature Articles, 2005 Construction Writers Association Robert F. Boger Award, 2002 Sept. 11th Feature Articles

The KOHLER Diesel KDI is a Tier 4 final with common-rail fuel injection and no DPF. So you skip the DPF maintenance costs, get savings at the pump, and laugh all the way to the bank. 速

KohlerEngines.com/KDI

Ready. Set. slow.

Introducing the new I-Shift with Crawler Gears from Volvo Trucks.

It allows drivers to travel at speeds as slow as 0.6 miles per hour and maintain a precise, controlled roll. It’s an ideal automated manual transmission for applications like pouring curbs or laying asphalt, where low speeds are crucial to doing the job right.

See the new standard in powertrains: DoWork.VolvoTrucks.US

I-shift with crawler gears

Volvo Trucks. Driving Progress

on record | by Marcia Gruver Doyle

MGruver@randallreilly.com

And the theme of the show is...

A

nine-hour flight requires entertainment, so I downloaded “Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble,” by Dan Lyons.

Lyons, a tech journalist laid off from Newsweek in the Great Recession, relates how after a prolonged search, he finally gets a job at HubSpot, then a pre-IPO Boston-area-based marketing software firm. At the time, Lyons is a decrepit 53 years of age; the average HubSpotter (the term they call themselves) is 27 years old. Misadventures, indeed.

As I read, it was hard to suppress laughout-loud reactions in the forced civility of airplane steerage. At one point, because I was shaking so hard with mirth, my seatmate asked me if anything was wrong.

The book’s tech start-up setting made a fitting backdrop as I flew to Bauma, the onceevery-three-years granddaddy of construction equipment trade shows in Munich, Germany.

We’re in an industry that likes to talk about technology; in fact, the technology banner was the highest one flying at the show. From press conferences, to roundtables, to one-onones, the word “technology” was used. A lot.

But this is hardly new. Technology has been the prevailing theme for the trifecta of trade shows – Bauma, ConExpo and Intermat – for at least five years now. When the massive Tier 4 emissions battle had a clear end in sight, manufacturers told us they were taking a second look at the R&D schemes that took a back burner to emissions control.

They found, however, that there was a grand data gift amidst all the angst of emissions control: the sensors required in engine electronic controls, and then throughout a machine, gave the industry an incredible amount of information. A second, more significant challenge then emerged: how to make actionable sense of all this data. (For a good start to sorting things out, check out Tom Jackson and Dan Samford’s five-part series, “Telematics 101,” which ends this month and is available at equipmentworld.com.)

Manufacturers – as always – seek either world domination or a significant piece of the pie, and many of them now view technology as the one true path. Increasingly we’re hearing them say the way to achieve that is not to concentrate on just how many machines they sell, but on how those machines interact with each other and the contractor’s front office, and the dealer and the manufacturer, to create one massively productive and efficient whole.

In one way, you could say there were no showstopper machine intros at Bauma. But underlying it all was an amped-up rivalry – no matter how old a company is – to be the tech start-up of the industry.

Unlike HubSpot, the company profiled in Lyons’ book, there are no beer taps and candy dispensers in the break rooms of these companies. But like HubSpot, they are telling themselves, and us, that they are leading a revolution and changing the world.

It will be an interesting ride.

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 7

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Doosan and the Doosan logo are registered trademarks of Doosan Corp. in the United States and various other countries around the world. ©2016 Doosan Infracore Construction Equipment America. All rights reserved. | 171

reporter | by Marcia Gruver Doyle | MGruver@randallreilly.com

Ditch Witch offers free online certified HDD training

S

aying it wanted to provide underground construction operators with training that “fits their schedule and best suits their needs,” Ditch Witch has launched a certified training program on horizontal directional drilling (HDD).

Offered at no cost, the onsite training extends the organization’s on-site, classroom-style training, to allow novice HDD operators the ability to train wherever they are located, including at home or on a mobile device. The program includes six training courses: HDD overview, best practices, drill pipe, tracking, HDD tooling and drilling fluids. The courses are offered to anyone who registers online. After successfully completing all courses, participants receive a certificate of completion.

One of the objectives of the online approach is to lessen the intimidation that newer operators may feel when faced with learning how to operate drills, says the company. In addition to the online courses, the Ditch Witch Certified Training program includes instructor-led classroom training and HDD simulator training, along with dealer-site training on equipment and on the jobsite. Ditch Witch says the combination of these training methods will “expose operators to real-world challenges and scenarios, help them gain an understanding of machine controls and learn proper

The new online courses are offered in conjunction with in-field instruction. operating procedures.”

The company says the program will eventually extend beyond HDD to focus on all segments of the underground industry. “The driving force behind the comprehensive training program is ‘we get crews ready,’” says Greg Wolfe, Ditch Witch director of training. To learn more, go to ditchwitch.com/training.

Equipment operating experiences gain ground

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any people outside construction have the dream of someday running a dozer or a backhoe, and two recent announcements just increased their chances of doing so.

Diggerland USA, the construction theme park in New Jersey, has opened Diggerland XL, aimed at the over-18 crowd. There, participants can have what the park calls “unrestricted fun” on three larger pieces of John Deere equipment: a 44J wheel loader, 225C LC RTS excavator and 750C dozer.

They can choose between a 90-minute package or a three-hour package, which also includes 30 minutes of one-on-one instruction. Prices run from (continued on page 10) Extreme Sandbox, set for a national expansion, inked an exclusive equipment deal with Komatsu.

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016

9

reporter | continued (continued from page 9) $199 to $349, with the ability to split the time between two people for an extra fee.

And Extreme Sandbox, a “heavy-equipment-adventure company” founded in Hastings, Minnesota in 2012, just opened a new location in Pottsboro, Texas. In addition, the company just inked an exclusive equipmentsupply deal with Komatsu. Randy Stenger, Extreme Sandbox founder and CEO, says the new location is

the first step toward national expansion. The company also says it will make its sites available for demonstrations and customer appreciation events for local equipment dealers. According to Rich Smith, Komatsu vice president of products and services, the long term hope is that climbing into the cab of a new machine will inspire the next generation to consider a career in construction.

Genie celebrates 50th anniversary

Genie’s SX-180 boom places personnel 180 feet – or 18 stories – up, and was first introduced at the bauma trade show in 2013.

G

enie is celebrating its 50th year in business, marking its establishment in 1966 when founder Bud Bushnell bought the manufacturing rights to a material lift that operated on compressed air. The company became known as “Genie,” derived from the “magic in a bottle” theme around the compressed air, which was used to raise and lower the hoist.

Now the aerial work platform segment of Terex, which acquired the firm in 2002, Genie manufactures a variety of aerial work platforms and telehandlers for several markets, including construction, rental, aviation, government and military. The company notes several milestones in its five decades: • Pioneering the first hydraulic push-around material lift using an interlocking mast design.

• Introducing the Teletower personnel lift in the 1970s.

• Introducing the articulating Z-boom in 1985 with the Z-30/20, a product that launched the company into the rental market, now its largest segment.

10 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

• Genie says it popularized the industry’s first compact telehandler, the Telelift 2306.

• Introduced in 1992, the Active Oscillating Axle allowed operators to safely maintain contact with the ground on uneven surfaces while retaining maximum power and torque.

• Genie says the X-Chassis expanding axle design, introduced in 2005, revolutionized the ability to extend and retract the axles on its booms to and from the stowed position.

• The full-drive height 40-foot scissors, introduced by the company in 2011, enabled the brand to enter a new class category globally. Current models include the GS4069 and GS-4047 scissors.

• The SX-180 gave Genie its first entry into the 180-foot self-propelled boom lift market, giving users the ability to quickly and safely lift personnel up to 18 stories. The SX-180 had a North American debut in 2014 after being unveiled at the Bauma trade show in Germany the previous year.

When the other contractors saw the power of that excavator, their jaws dropped to the floor. Powerful productivity.

That’s our Ex Factor.

– Glenn Korner, owner, Midstate Site Development

Midstate Site Development owner Glenn Korner says having Volvo on the job won them a school job by allowing them to propose a slide rail system. It required a machine powerful enough to drive the slide rail system into the ground. It saved the customer $250,000 — and got Midstate in, out, and on to the next job in just two months.

Find tips to get the most from your excavator at volvoce.com/ExFactor.

NEW VIDEOS. NEW MACHINES. NEW BOBCAT ADVANTAGE . 速

BOBCAT TESTED THE COMPACT EXCAVATORS. NOW SEE THE RESULTS FOR YOURSELF.

Bobcat tested 3-ton excavators from four different manufacturers in a neutral, two-minute digging challenge. When compared to other brands, Bobcat速 excavators delivered up to 40 percent more cycles.

Watch new head-to-head comparisons at Bobcat.com/New1 1.877.745.7813 Bobcat速, the Bobcat logo and the colors of the Bobcat machine are registered trademarks of Bobcat Company in the United States and various other countries. 息2016 Bobcat Company. All rights reserved. | 1303

marketplace | by Lucas Stewart | LucasStewart@randallreilly.com

Terex TC85 compact excavator now available in the US The new Terex TC85 compact crawler excavator was designed specifically for demanding excavation jobs and space-restrictive trenching work. Its short radius tail-swing and offset boom allows operators to dig right along side the machine’s tracks during excavation work. Weighing in at 18,080 pounds, the excavator’s bucket capacities range from 3.1 to 10.8 cubic yards, with a dig depth of 14foot 10-inch at 11,960 foot-pounds of digging force. The digging arm has a total reach of 25-foot 4-inch, making the excavator suitable for a range of jobs, including landscaping, general construction, water and sewer, electric and utility and municipal work. There are three track options available for the TC85, including rubber (standard), steel with rubber pads and steel. Featuring a 75-horsepower, 2.9-liter Deutz diesel engine with 221 foot-pounds of torque at 1,600 rpm, the excavator meets emissions requirements through the use of a diesel oxidation catalyst, which replaces the catalytic converter and results in a low maintenance exhaust system, with no need for regeneration or injections of diesel exhaust fluid. The engine also incorporates auto stop and auto idle features, which further impacts fuel consumption. Its duel-circuit hydraulics system uses load-independent flow distribution, which allows all functions to be controlled simultaneously, regardless of engine speed, but independent of the load. The TC85 is designed to work closely alongside walls or other existing infrastructure thanks to its specialized boom. The boom has an articulated joint, which

EDIT O PICKR’S

allows the machine to be moved to either side at full digging depth. Its 120-degree angle or articulation provides enough flexibility to work in narrow construction sites, including hedgerows, slopes and walls. The operator workstation is ergonomically designed and air conditioned, and offers increased visibility from the cab and Terex Fingertip Controls, which uses shorter routes on the joystick to reduce operator fatigue. Terex has included its latest operating system, Terex Smart Control, which acts as a central control unit and allows the machines performance to be better tailored to individual jobsite applications. The 7-inch display screen incorporates a new menu guide that is similar in appearance to modern smartphones, and provides the operator with a user-friendly interface when navigating menus and monitoring engine data.

Doosan Portable Power introduces variable power air compressor Doosan’s XP825/HP750 air compressor delivers the pressure and flow options typical of multiple units, but in one compressor. The variable settings provide versatility on the jobsite, and the Tier 4 Final Cummins QSB engine can operate at either 825 cfm at 125 psi or 750 cfm at 150 psi. Incorporating a diesel oxidation catalyst and selective catalytic reduction, the emissions system is low maintenance, with no regeneration cycles. The airend’s efficient rotor profile requires less horsepower to sustain cfm output, which results in reduced fuel consumption. In an effort to further reduce fuel use, Doosan integrated a thermostatically controlled engine-driven cooling fan with a hydraulic clutch that engages when engine temperatures get too high, which also reduces the noise produced by the compressor. A 102-gallon fuel tank provides up to nine hours of operation, whether used in general construction, road work, or pipeline pressure testing. It features a redesigned control panel, with a simplified digital display and LED backlit gauges, including machine diagnostics and service interval reminders.

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 13

marketplace | continued

Ditch Witch enters air excavation market Ditch Witch has released a new line of air excavators: the FXT30 Air, FXT50 Air, and FXT65 Air. These air systems have both air and water excavation capabilities, which the company says is ideal for locating utilities or gas leaks on below-grade work sites. All three models use a PTO-driven air compressor, which provides for efficient power transfer and continuous productivity. The filtration system uses a cyclonic separator to remove fine particles before reaching sensitive components in the vacuum system. The air systems

can be switched instantly from air- to hydro-excavation, and from high air pressure (for excavating) to low air pressure (for hand tools and moles). The new positions of many of the excavator’s components under the truck deck allow for easy access during use and maintenance operations. Operators can monitor and command all components using an electronic controller, which displays constantly updated system parameters. The excavators accept a wide variety of different tooling attachments.

Crysteel reintroduces two Class 8 Bodies

Crysteel has announced their reintroduction of the once-popular Paradox and Raptor series of Class 8 dump bodies. Both are made from high-tensile steels and come in standard and heavy duty models. The Paradox (and heavier duty Paradox RoxBox) features a traditional square body style, whereas the Raptor (and heavier duty RipRaptor) both share an elliptical body style.

These bodies are available in body sizes ranging from 14 to 21.5 feet, with capacities from 13 to 26.9 cubic yards. Crysteel says it brought these body styles back after repeated requests and inquiries from customers over the years.

Atlas Copco’s new LH series breakers offer vibration-reduction handles The LH 220, LH 270, and LH 390 are designed to break a variety of materials, including concrete, asphalt and frozen ground. Atlas Copco says that the breaker’s relatively small body is ideal for transport and maneuverability, but that they have a high power-to-weight ratio. For example, the LH220 weighs 50 pounds, but has an impact rate of up to 1,900 bpm.

Other features include oil flows ranging from 5 to 8 gpm, and working pressures from 1,523 psi to 1,813 psi. The breakers, which are around 30 inches long, can also be optionally equipped with vibration-reduction handles, intended to reduce vibration intensity and operator fatigue. The breakers can be powered using a range of equipment, including Atlas Copco’s portable power packs or a carrier’s hydraulic system, if equipped with an oil divider to regulate oil pressure.

14 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

THE PRECISION TO CAREFULLY LIFT YOUR JAW UP OFF THE FLOOR.

Meet the new Kubota SSV75. Built with the precision engineering you’ve come to expect from Kubota, it features a smooth-running 74.3 HP Kubota diesel engine, vertical loader lift arms, a tilt-up cab and more. The SSV is pure Kubota, and delivers the kind of performance that raises eyebrows.

And drops jaws. Locate your dealer today at Kubota.com/Construction. © Kubota Tractor Corporation, 2015.

marketplace | continued

Western Global’s Abbi mobile refuelers hit the North American market Released in 2001 in the UK and Europe, Abbi mobile refuelers have now been updated to better suit the North American rental market. The trailer mounted fuel storage tanks are available in capacities ranging from 264 to 790 gallons. The refueling tanks are double walled, and fully UL and ULC certified for the safe transportation and storage of fuel. Features include secure, lockable cabinets around pumping and dispensing equipment, a manway with direct access to the inner tank for cleaning and inspection purposes, and internal baffles for safe transport to and from jobsites. The newest addition to this line includes the Abbi Blue, which is designed with a separate poly compartment and pump cabinet for diesel exhaust fluid (DEF).

This decreases the potential risk of cross contamination between fuel and DEF, and simplifies refueling logistics on site. All tanks are also equipped with forklift pockets for greater maneuverability.

Subsite Electronics 2550GR Ground Penetrating Radar System features a Windows-based user interface Subsite’s 2550GR Ground Penetrating Radar System has a new user interface that uses Microsoft Windows to simplify operation. Improved software features include easier integration of GPS data and wireless connectivity, which allows operators to download web-based maps, such as Google Earth.

Built similarly to its predecessor, the 2450GR, the 2550GR can be used to locate any type of utility conduit or piping, whether metallic or not (including PVC), beneath soil, rock, pavement or other hard surfaces. GPS connectivity allows operators to see their path and marks in real-time as they scan the ground. A newly incorporated one-touch recalibration button allows users to transition from one scanning surface to another more quickly, and an earthengaged antenna provides firm contact on uneven surfaces and reduces signal loss. The system can locate pipes and utilities in one pass at depths of up to 19.7 feet (depending on soil conditions and antenna selection), and at speeds of 5.6 mph. The digitally controlled radar provides crisp images, and does so more quickly than previous models. The 2550GR can be used in a wide variety of applications, including void and sinkhole detection, concrete detection, and for locating underground storage tanks.

16 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

DuraClass unveils new tub body design

The HPT-B1 and HPT-B2 tub body line have been designed to meet all heavy duty dump body needs.

The HPT-1 features a closed fender design, and comes in 14- to 18-foot lengths in either carbon steel or stainless steel. The capacity range for this model ranges from 10- to 20-yards. The HPT-B2 features an open fender design, which decreases the risk of rust damage while reducing overall body weight. It is available in 10- and 11-foot lengths in 3/16-inch AR400 carbon steel, or in 14to 18-foot lengths in 3/16-inch Hi-Tensile carbon steel. An optional stainless steel package is available as well.

SOME MASTERPIECES HANG ON A WALL. OTHERS KNOCK WALLS DOWN.

Built precisely. Works relentlessly. The world’s No. 1 selling compact excavators* feature zero and conventional tail swing, 20% higher lift and finely tuned Kubota engines. They’re part machine, part masterpiece and all Kubota. Locate your dealer today at Kubota.com/Construction. *According to 2014 OEM Off-Highway Research, Kubota has the largest compact excavator market share in the world. © Kubota Tractor Corporation, 2016.

contractor of the year

| by Marcia Gruver Doyle |

2016 CONTRACTOR of the

18 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

YEAR

MGruver@randallreilly.com

Greg and Dawn Tatro Jeffersonville, Vermont

G.W. Tatro Construction Year started: 1956 Number of employees: 50 Annual revenue: $13 million Markets served: Site development, demolition, hydroelectric penstock, infrastructure for area ski resorts, including snow making facilities, ski trails, terminals, etc.

PUT PEOPLE FIRST AND THE PROFITS WILL COME, SAY OUR 2016 CONTRACTOR OF THE YEAR WINNERS

I

n 2004, Greg and Dawn Tatro faced a tough decision following the death of Greg’s father, Gerald, who started G. W. Tatro Construction in 1956. They could either buy out the remaining family members who were still in the business, or leave it altogether.

Even though the buy-out meant taking on a significant amount of debt, the Tatros swallowed hard and took the plunge. “If we left, we would have left all of our people and their families,” says Dawn. “We felt this was definitely the way to go.”

It’s a decision that has paid off. After talking with their staff, the Tatros set a goal of reaching $10 million in annual revenues by 2010; the company reached that goal three years early. G. W. Tatro Construction now has $13 million in annual revenues, and has two main divisions: site/civil work – including roads, water, sewer and storm water projects, and what it terms “mountain” work – serving the Northeast ski industry by installing trails and snowmaking infrastructure.

“

Fortunately, the two markets tend to offset each other; when one side is up, the other may be down, and vice versa. “The diversity just helps everything,” Dawn says. Right now, the revenues generated between the two divisions are about evenly divided, but there have been years where either one or the other side had the majority of revenues. “That’s what makes us versatile,” Greg says. “Most of our crews can work either side, allowing us to take on a variety of jobs.”

The mountain work gets the company’s equipment into some precarious places. “We pride ourselves on doing anything someone else doesn’t want to do,” is how Greg explains it. It’s a work ethic he learned from his father, who put Greg to work on a paving crew after he got in trouble at 14. “He taught me…without me knowing he was teaching me,” he says.

The Tatros like the big jobs. “Once you move your equipment onto a big job, everyday everyone knows what they’re doing, as opposed to a lot of

The most important thing is our people, and that we’re fair with them.

– Dawn and Greg Tatro

”

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 19

contractor of the year | continued

$300,000 jobs, where there are more questions about who’s doing what,” Greg says.

“You can’t put just anyone on the mountain,” Dawn says. “There are all sorts of factors…sometimes you’re dangling a winch on a ski slope, there’s snow…it’s pretty amazing the places where you can put in trails and install pipe.”

The site/civil side also has its challenges, tasks that Greg says are adeptly handled, in part, by engineers Jay LaFontaine and Cody Marsh.

“They’ve kept us on the cutting edge of the newest technologies and best practices of the industry,” he says.

“They’ve revolutionized the way we do estimating of bids, and how we set and plan our projects.”

Greg also credits Marshall Leonard, their general manager, with playing an integral role in the success and growth of the company. A 30-plus G. W. Tatro veteran, Marshall “has brought the site/civil side to the next level,” he says. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we wouldn’t be where we are today if Marshall hadn’t been at my father’s and my side.”

20 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

The Mount Snow job, for client Peak Resorts in West Dover, Vermont, involves moving 450,000 cubic yards of earth to install a 120-million-gallon snowmaking water reservoir. Last summer, G. W. Tatro tackled the project with a Cat 385, renting five articulated trucks to handle the project’s earthmoving requirements.

The reservoir portion of the job was completed in January, well ahead of schedule.

Below: Drone shot of Mount Snow.

Picture this The view from an excavator cab in Vermont’s Green Mountains can be magnificent, which is part of what prompted a small project the G. W. Tatro team has taken to heart: production of a yearly calendar.

Each year, 12 photos (from the several dozen submitted by crew members) are chosen for the cal-

endar, and each photographer gets his or her name on the photo. “We used to give away calendars with a picture of a moose on them,” Greg says. “This is so much better, and our team members get excited if one of their photos are chosen.”

The calendar project is led by Becky Loucks, the company’s safety manager, who started working with

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contractor of the year | continued G. W. Tatro Construction’s mountain division specializes in installing snow trails and snowmaking infrastructure for ski resorts located throughout the Northeast.

Justin Day, who heads up G. W. Tatro’s mountain division, also serves as the company’s equipment manager. the company as a loader operator in 2005.

Massive Mount Snow This year’s calendar includes photos taken by the company’s new drone, a purchase prompted by a massive snowmaking infrastructure project located three hours south of G. W. Tatro’s northern Vermont office in Jeffersonville. The Mount Snow job involves moving 450,000 cubic yards of earth to create a snowmaking water reservoir that can hold up to 120 million gallons of water. It also involves building a pump house and installing 23,000 feet of 24-inch pipe to move the water to the reservoir to the ski area. In order to impound the water in the reservoir, Tatro crews built a rubber dam across the river with an intake structure and 680 feet of 4x6 precast box culvert, which transfers the water to a 26-foot-deep wet well.

A pump house structure, built on top of the wet well, will move the water to the reservoir.

“We put the drone photos on our Facebook page,” Greg says. “where it got a lot of views and comments.”

They also used Facebook to issue video updates on the project, which was appreciated by family members since the crew was working so far 22 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

away from home.

The daunting earthmoving requirements of the Mount Snow job prompted the company to buy the largest machine in its fleet: a used Cat 385, which had to be transported from Montreal, Canada. “It took three trucks to move it, and we had to hurry because the Canadian frost laws – which would have prevented us from transporting it when we needed to – were about to go into effect,” Greg says. The 385 provided the brute force and bucket size needed on the job and Greg says the machine paid for itself this past summer. The company completed the lake structure in January, well ahead of schedule.

The Mount Snow job also stretched the Tatro equipment fleet in other ways. The company put a Cat 825G soil compactor on the job, which helped G. W. Tatro crews achieve the specified 95 percent – but sometimes surpassing 100 percent – modified compaction requirements. “We were renting it for a $20,000 a month, but then we bought it because the numbers worked,” Greg says. “We expect to rent it out to others, and it will pay for itself in a few years.” The Tatros also rented five articulated dump trucks for the project.

‘Wicked sharp’ equipment management Greg describes Justin Day, who heads the firm’s mountain operations and serves as its equipment manager, “wicked sharp” when it comes to equipment. “He did a study for us on using Cat parts versus others, and came to the conclusion we paid almost half with Cat, in part because of the free shipping,” Greg says.

Greg adds with a laugh when talking about Justin: “I used to do the scary work, but now I spend more time on the rapidly growing, larger and more complicated site/civil division side, and let Justin handle the mountain work. Since we’ve worked together for so long, he’s taken on more responsibility for our ski work and now I don’t have to worry about it.”

“Most of the time we try to buy new equipment, because of the longevity, decreased downtime and overall costs,” says Justin, who started as a shop hand with the company more than 20 years ago. The company usually turns over an excavator at 10,000 hours, if the machine’s been trouble free.

Justin is a firm believer in every250-hour oil changes. “We rarely have a major component failure and we’re

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contractor of the year | continued quite sure it’s because we change the oil so much,” he says. “We can see a problem starting to happen. Buying oil is cheaper than buying new components, or dealing with the downtime required to repair a machine.”

The company’s fleet includes 20- to 85-ton size excavators, 3- to 5.5-cubic- yard wheel loaders and D5 and D6 dozers, along with a variety of support equipment.

In order to better attack the tough Vermont soil conditions, the company either fabricates its own buckets or adds additional hardfacing to get more wear on the buckets they purchase. “We make them better, and it’s less costly than buying a specialized bucket,” Greg says. For example, the company built a rock rake bucket last year for its 966F loader, and created a skeleton bucket for a Cat 349 on the Mount Snow job.

“We have great guys in our shop,” Justin says, an operation that includes two full time mechanics.

“Our equipment is rarely broken down,” Dawn says. The company makes use of Vision Link telematics on several of their machines, and tracks differences in how individual operators use the machines.

This attention to detail is noticed by their clients and vendors.

“They bring in the equipment to get the job done, and the challenges of working on a mountain are many,” says Gregory Hiltz with Killington Mountain Resort. “In the winter, they’ll leave an excavator on site, and send down an operator and a welder at a moment’s notice. They’re phenomenal.”

“Their equipment is top notch,” adds vendor Jack Corse with Jack Corse Fuels. “They don’t have any junk.”

The company often uses the rentto-own option. “We also want to take advantage of the bonus depreciation and Section 179 tax laws,” Dawn says.

Last year, G. W. Tatro obtained a Vermont Clean Diesel Grant, which gave them $50,000 toward the purchase of a new on-road truck, with 24 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

Jay Lafontaine, pictured here with Greg Tatro, is the senior project manager on the site/civil side of G. W. Tatro.

the provison they’d scrap their old truck. “We wouldn’t have bought a new truck without it,” Greg says. “I’d rather put my money into equipment rather than trucks.”

Zap-Lock specialists For more than 30 years, G. W. Tatro has had an exclusive territory with Zap-Lock Pipeline Systems, which offers an alternative to welded pipe joints. Using a Zap-Lock Connection System, the company presses together specially formed FusionBonded Epoxy coated pipe to create a permanent bond, giving the firm the ability to install pipe much faster than conventional methods, say the Tatros.

The G. W. Tatro Construction logo, developed 15 years ago, is everywhere on the company’s jobsites. “We’ve had a lot of success with it,” says Greg Tatro. “People know it.” A wind tower was added to the logo in the past few years to represent the environmental work the company has performed.

“It’s been a big part of our company growth,” Dawn says, noting that pipelines installed with this system have been in service in the petroleum industry for more than 40 years.

They definitely have one believer in their client base: “Zap-Lock is a much quicker pipe installation method,” says Killington’s Hiltz. “They can do 3,000 to 5,000 feet a day. They’ve installed most of our snowmaking pipe since the 1980s. We were doing some ourselves, but they have a much better installation method.”

Soft skills help Greg and Dawn recently hired a business culture consultant to help their team improve the soft skills of running a business, such as how to effectively resolve conflict, communicate clear expectations and understand team dynamics. “We did not do this because we were failing, but as a way to make things better,” Greg says. “Our people told us it even made a difference at home.”

“It’s made us look at things from different perspectives and gives us some leads on how to address issues,” says Jay Lafontaine, senior project manager on the civil side of G. W. Tatro. “All of this is good, as we’re trying to get some new blood into the company.”

And, it helps illustrate the underlying philosophy at G. W. Tatro: “We believe that if you take care of your people first, the profits will come,” Greg says.

CONGRATULATIONS

to the 2016 Contractor of the Year winner and finalists IN

R

E

N

W

Gregory & Dawn Tatro G. W. Tatro Jeffersonville, Vermont

Garry Boyce

David and Eric Covington

Terry Michael Brock

Boyce Excavating Slate Hill, New York

DECCO Contractors-Paving Rogers, Arkansas

Brock’s Grading and Land Clearing Hartsville, South Carolina

Tina Dieudonne

Joseph Porchetta

Dieudonne Enterprises Harahan, Louisiana

GMP Contracting South Plainfield, New Jersey

Jeff Hansen

Jack Bailey

Hansen Bros.

Enterprises Grass Valley, California

JBR Incorporated Fredericksburg, Virginia

Michael Brown B & P Excavating Sedalia, Missouri

Roger, Roger Jr., Kevin and Damon Brown R. Brown Construction Willow Creek, California

Sponsored by:

Alfred Gorick Gorick Construction Binghampton, New York

James MacKay MacKay Construction Services Wilmington, Massachusetts

machine matters | by Richard Ries

SKID STEER LOADERS AND TIER 4 FINAL Skid steers are especially challenging for manufacturers to bring into compliance with Tier 4 Final emissions regulations. The disparity in meeting those regulations, from zero, to partial, to full compliance, is evidence of this.

“Case was the first OEM to take its entire line of skid steers and compact track loaders to Tier 4 Final,� says Warren Anderson, brand marketing manager. The SR240, released in early 2015, was part of that move.

26 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

Wacker Neuson skid steer and compact track loaders were designed for Tier 4 Final when introduced in 2014.

W

hy did Tier 4 Final have so much impact on skid steers? Three reasons. First, emissions standards for machines less than 75 horsepower are different than the standards for those with 75 horsepower and above.

Skid steer models fall on both sides of this rating.

Second, skid steer customers are price sensitive, and Tier 4 Final machines cost significantly more than their predecessors. The cost of compliance (and resulting percent of increase in total machine cost) can vary significantly on either side of the 75-horsepower break. However, the difference is still substantial for any Tier 4 Final machine when compared to an earlier model of the same power rating.

Third, skid steers have a small form factor, and Tier 4 Final compliance requires stuffing additional hardware into an already-crowded envelope. Customers complain

Powered by a Yanmar Tier 4 Final engine, the mid-frame Deere [318E or 320E] has cooled exhaust gas recirculation and an exhaust filter consisting of a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) and diesel particulate filter (DPF).

about service access on skid steers as it is. How can you add more components, while also maintaining access and the small overall size that makes skid steers so versatile?

Flexible deadlines In theory, all skid steers should now be Tier 4 Final compliant (see sidebar for timelines). In reality, they aren’t. Because of the stringency of the Tier 4 Final emissions standards, the EPA created the Transition Program for Equipment Manufacturers (TPEM) to allow OEMs more time to develop and produce Tier 4 Final compliant machines.

There are rigorous guidelines for applying these “flex credits,” and not all OEMs opted to use them.

Wacker Neuson had no skid steers until launching two models (and two compact track loaders) in late 2014. These machines were designed, from the outset, to be Tier 4 Final compliant. “If you took off the drive systems and ignored the lift type, all four machines would be

identical,” says Brent Coffey, loader product manager for Wacker Neuson. So, both of the company’s skid steer loaders are in full compliance with Tier 4 Final.

At the other end is IHI, also with two skid steers, neither of which will meet Tier 4 Final standards until late 2017. In the meantime, IHI is relying on the small volume allowance provision of TPEM, by which OEMs can produce and sell a limited number of non-compliant machines – for now. When IHI transitions to Tier 4 Final, they’ll evaluate engine options. Both the 21-horsepower AS-12 and the 82.2-horsepower AS-34 currently use Yanmar engines, as did both of their compact track loaders. When bringing their CTLs into Tier 4 Final compliance, IHI kept the Yanmar engine on the 67-horsepower CL35, but went with Kubota for the 83-horsepower CL-45. “Our AS-34 needs to stay at or near its current horsepower rating to retain its performance,” says Michael Aubrey,

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 27

machine matters | continued product support for IHI Excavator Sales. “We’ll look at engine options to fill that need.”

John Deere is also in transition.

They had only one skid steer model on the cusp, the 76-gross horsepower 326E, which went from 74 gross horsepower (at Tier 3) to its current Tier 4 Interim configuration. Their largest machine, the 100-horsepower 332E, is available as a Tier 4 Interim model through the use of flex credits.

Both the 318E (63 gross horsepower) and the 320E (69 gross horsepower) are Tier 4 Final machines. The entire Deere stable of skid steers will emerge as Tier 4 Final G-Series models this summer.

JCB is Tier 4 Final compliant on all 10 of their skid steers. All five large platform JCB skid steers now use a 74-horsepower JCB engine. The five small platform models use Kohler engines of 48, 56, or 62 horsepower.

As part of the transition to Tier 4 Final, JCB used flex credits to continue offering their 92-horsepower model as a Tier 3 unit, and dropped their second-largest model from 84 to 74 horsepower.

Bobcat added two models at 74 horsepower. The new S740 shares the same frame as the 85-horsepower S750 and the 92-horsepower S770.

The new S595 shares the smaller frame of the 66-horsepower S590.

The horsepower of their existing model lineup was unaltered by Tier 4. (Frame sizes are relative; Bobcat has six.)

How much horsepower is enough?

Gregg Zupancic, the product marketing manager for skid steer and compact track loaders at Deere, says a good rule of thumb is 1 horsepower for every 100 pounds of operating weight. “Typically the industry doesn’t publish this number, so the customer will have to do the math.”

He says that horsepower will continue creeping upward and that 100-horsepower machines, such as Deere’s 332E, will become more common in the near future.

28 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

Powered by a Cat C3.8 engine rated at 98 horsepower, the 272D2 has a rated operating capacity of 3,400 pounds at 50 percent of tipping load.

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machine matters | continued

Vertical-lift machines, such as the 60-horsepower Terex V230S, are well-suited to lift-and-carry applications.

Beyond horsepower Skid steer manufacturers also hasten to add that it’s not all about horsepower. The efficiency of hydraulic systems has become a key consideration. On larger machines, where horsepower was dropped to 74 because of Tier 4, Volvo says it went to a load-sensing piston pump that’s 15 percent more efficient and requires less engine load to do the same amount of work.

“Horsepower is an important spec, to be sure,” says Jeff Brown, skid steer loader specialist at Caterpillar. “But, it’s not the only indicator of machine performance.”

He says that design fundamentals are important. Cat skid steers, for example, have the hystat drive coupled directly to the engine flywheel, which Brown says avoids the power loss associated with belt-driven hydrostatic drive pumps.

Bobcat has worked on the torque curve and torque availability of their machines.

The new S740 has 11 fewer horsepower than the S750, but three more pound-feet of torque. Mike Fitzgerald, loader product specialist at Bobcat, says horsepowerintensive applications are those involving multi-tasking, such as loading trucks.

Torque-intensive tasks are those where the engine may bog a bit, such as applica30 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

The 74-horsepower Bobcat S595 has a rated operating capacity of 2,200 pounds. A high-flow option yields 26.7 gallons-per-minute.

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machine matters | continued

IHI says it will retain its emphasis on serviceability when its skid steers go Tier 4 Final late next year.

JCB preserved service access while improving fuel efficiency for Tier 4 Final machines.

32 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

tions involving pushing. “It’s more important than ever that customers know the kind of work they’re doing, and how much of each type of work they’re doing, since fine grading, pushing and leveling, lifting and carrying, and high-flow attachment applications all have different power requirements.”

Terex also bumped torque while reducing horsepower on their GEN2 (Tier 4 Final) models. Previous models used a Perkins 804-33T, rated at 82 horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque. The Cummins 2.8 QSF in GEN2 machines is rated at 74 horsepower, but has 221 pound-feet of torque. Moreover, the Cummins maintains its 74 horsepower from 1,800 to 2,500 rpm, while the Perkins hit its peak rating only at full rpm.

The changes allowed Terex to use new drive motors and an optional two-speed transmission, expanding the versatility of GEN2 loaders over their predecessors.

“One of the biggest challenges manufacturers face in Tier 4 compliance is finding an engine manufacture partner,” says Gregg Warfel, district sales manager of compact equipment for Terex. He says the engine supplier must have a broad range of engine options readily available, and must be able to tailor engine packages to meet the equipment OEM’s needs. The physical bulk of the aftertreatment components and larger cooling packages needed to handle Tier 4 engines’ increased heat rejection is especially problematic in compact machines, such as skid steers.

Even with the right engine package, it’s still a challenge to ensure customers have easy access to service points. Brown says Caterpillar prioritizes access. Aftertreatment components generally require less frequent servicing, if any at all, so they’re deeper inside the machine.

Items serviced more frequently, such as filters, are placed in more easily accessible locations.

Kevin Scotese, compact prod-

uct manager at Volvo Construction Equipment, says matching a machine to an application is no more difficult now than it was before the Tier 4 shuffle occurred. “You still have to look at what you want to do, the applications and attachments that apply to your work, and find a machine that’s rated for those operations.”

Cost equations Much of the Tier 4 Final value equation doesn’t involve the engine.

OEMs have tried to soften the blow of paying for Tier 4 Final by bundling other features into the package.

Warfel says that GEN2 skid steers from Terex have improvements to their hydraulics, cooling, rated operating capacities, lift and tie-down points, hose and electrical routings, operator visibility, and ergonomics, among other things.

Depending on the number and type of features, the cost increase can be in excess of $12,000, or more than 20 percent of the cost of an earlier model of comparable rating.

Brown says that even assuming a cost increase of only 10 percent, “if that cost is passed on to customers without additional performance and features, then what is the value received?”

Part of the reason for this bundling, Coffey says, is that customers are unwilling to pay anything for emissions compliance; the costs of those add-ons are a dead loss to the owner. But, customers will pay for features that lower operating costs and increase productivity.

The other factor, says Coffey, is the overlap in the past of Tier 3, Tier 4 Interim and Tier 4 Final, and the influence of TPEM. “The Tier 4 Final engine alone might only be $1,000 more than a Tier 3 or Tier 4 Interim engine, but who would pay for something of little or no perceived ROI when Tier 3 and Tier 4 Interim machines were still available?

Early adopters of Tier 4 Final were effectively penalized, and adding to the list of standard features was one

way to reduce that penalty.” Once the benchmark was set, there was no turning back.

The strategy was effective; the details of the price hikes were smeared and no single element could be related to a specific cost, least of all Tier 4 Final. “When considering the cost increase associated with the equipment and the selected emission

solutions, it’s hard to isolate the cost of the emissions solution,” says Brad Stemper, solutions marketing manager for Case Construction Equipment. As did other OEMs, Case made multiple changes, including updating fuel systems and integrating additional and more sophisticated electronic controls, creating an overall smarter machine. “So, it’s hard to say that

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EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 33

machine matters | continued any cost increases were a premium caused entirely by the compliance needs.”

The net effect, says Stemper, is that the factors that matter most, including lift pattern, lifting capacity, and hydraulic performance, remain unaffected (or in many cases have improved) in machines where horsepower was lowered to allow for simpler emissions solutions.

Manufacturers are divided on the need to “de-emissionize” or “de-tier” equipment for sale to lesser-regulated countries once the original owner is done with the machine. George Chaney, sales manager for skid steer and compact track loaders at JCB, says their machine can have this done once in their lifetimes. “By allowing sales to countries with lower emissions standards, the residual value of the machine is enhanced when compared to one that can only be resold in countries with standards similar to our Tier 4.” Fitzgerald, on the other hand, says Bobcat skid steers are not designed for “detiering.” “The cost of implementing those changes would be prohibitively high on used machines.”

The Bobcat S595 comes standard with two-speed travel. Control options include the Advanced Control System (ACS) and Selectable Joystick Controls (SJC).

Tier 4 Final timeline

A

lthough flexibility in the program allows manufacturers to deviate from this schedule, the official timelines for engines to meet Tier 4 Final standards were: • January 1, 2013 for engines from 49 to 75 horsepower.

• January 1, 2014 for engines from 174 to 752 horsepower.

• January 1, 2015 for engines from 75 to 174 horsepower.

The Transition Program for Equipment Manufacturers (TPEM) allows certain exemptions, and some manufacturers continued to sell non-Tier 4 Final equipment after these dates. However, the exemptions will be phased out over several years by power category, and eventually all equipment will have to meet the Tier 4 Final standards.

34 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

John Deere’s 318E, a 63-horsepower machine, is Tier 4 Final.

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maintenance | by Tom Jackson | TJackson@randallreilly.com

MAKE IT PERSONAL

Confronting safety problems face-to-face may make you uncomfortable, but you have to do it.

W

hen it comes to safety, most construction companies today talk a good game. They follow the rules; they document the training. But does it stick? Do you have the bases cov-

ered, or do you have a true safety culture with 100 percent buy-in?

According to Carl Uhinck, asphalt equipment manager at Kokosing, a true safety culture has the following elements: • Everybody is responsible for safety – 24/7.

• Employees will go above and beyond the normal requirements to identify unsafe conditions or behaviors.

• Everyone has the courage to act and the empowerment to stop unsafe work.

• Everybody gives and receives EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 37

maintenance | continued honest feedback willingly.

• Safety is communicated in every conversation.

• Everyone is committed.

Being a major player in the construction arena, Kokosing has always had a rigorous safety program, but about eight years ago, its top management decided to take it to a whole new level, says Uhinck. “They wanted to drive home the culture of safety and the requirement for personal commitment from each employee to work safe. Upper management passed the message down to the vice presidents, who passed it down to department managers, who took the message to the smaller teams,” he says.

Uhinck recalls a managers’ meeting in which somebody asked how many people at Kokosing work in safety. The correct answer, says Uhinck, is everybody.

Fear of confrontation Uhinck also stresses that an effective safety program has to be personal. And while that sounds simple enough, making things personal requires honesty, openness and face-to-face communication – not an easy ask in the rough and tumble world of construction.

Confrontation over safety issues can be uncomfortable. That’s why it’s rarely done.

“It’s absolutely the hardest thing to do,” Uhinck says. “You have to have the courage to approach an employee when you see something unsafe, speak up and have a genuine conversation. It’s huge.

It’s been the biggest challenge for me.”

Fear that the conversation is going to end badly causes too many people to look the other way.

But if you don’t have the conversation, what does that reveal?

“You are saying that the unsafe 38 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

Open ended questions and positive reinforcement keep safety conversations from turning negative.

behavior is OK; that it is acceptable,” Uhinck says. “Don’t think they don’t notice, because they do. They notice when you don’t set the example. Your leadership is defined by the way people act when you’re not around.”

So, how do they handle it at Kokosing? Two key ingredients: a personal safety message, and the power of positive reinforcement.

The personal safety message Kokosing asks every employee to write out a personal safety message and share it with their co-workers and managers. The

message answers one question: Why is safety important to you?

For a lot of guys, it’s family, says Uhinck – being able to go home in one piece everyday and enjoy their family life. But, it doesn’t have to be family. Maybe a guy wants to stay healthy so he can ride his Harley Davidson on weekends, or enjoy his fishing cabin. The reasons vary, but the most important part is that they’re personal and shared with other coworkers.

That personal hook gives everybody a conversational entry point when it comes to confront-

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maintenance | continued ing unsafe behaviors, Uhinck says.

Armed with this knowledge, if you see a guy working without his safety glasses, you can say: “You told us in your personal safety message that you love to watch your grandkids play baseball. If that grinding wheel blows up in your face, it may blind you, and you’ll never see your grandkids play baseball again.”

Uhinck says you follow the personal appeal with open-ended questions, such as: ‘Why do you feel this isn’t going to work?

Why is the process you’re doing now better that what we think we should be doing?’ “Making it personal for each employee usually overcomes any pushback, and typically we come to the same conclusion.” Most of the time, those conversations turn out to be much worse in anticipation than they are in reality, he says.

Uhinck admits that some people are more receptive than others.

“You have to reach every person, not just the easy ones, and that ties in with the courage aspect,” he says. “If you operate with honesty and integrity, and you have good, honest conversations with people, you’re going to reach them. You just have to have the courage to have that conversation.”

Positive reinforcement One of the methods that helped Uhinck with these conversations was the power of positive reinforcement. After all, you don’t want your first conversation (or most of your conversations) to be negative or critical.

“For some reason, it’s hard for some age groups to say ‘good job’ to other workers,” Uhinck says.

But, at a minimum, you need a seven-to-one ratio of positive to

negative comments. As a leader, positive comments should be a part of your daily routine.

“Plan for spontaneous recognition,” Uhinck says. “I plan for mine driving to work everyday, thinking about the things I’ll see that I can give positive recognitions for; things like people using the chock blocks, or wearing their Type 2 safety glasses.” Uhinck also recommends encouraging employees to pay that recognition forward and offer their own ‘attaboys’ to encourage good safety practices. Doing so makes it much easier for employees to accept the corrections or critical comments that may be needed in the future.

And keep in mind, says Uhinck, the old Army adage: praise in public, criticize in private.

It may not seem natural to recognize or reward people in the construction environment, but it

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Resources must be done if your company is going to achieve a true safety culture with 100 percent buy-in. “Yelling at people won’t stick home,” says Uhinck. “You have to reach peoples’ hearts. And once you reach their hearts, you won’t have to stand over them yelling.”

Take the lead Some companies might believe there’s a big difference between the safety programs in the field and safety in the shop. But in fact, fleet management and maintenance can (and should) play a critical role in supporting safety in the field.

In many cases, the fleet managers, technicians and mechanics know more about the machinery than any other group in the company, Uhinck says. “Each time we buy a new machine, it is our equipment manager’s job to understand the entire scope of what we buy: the specs, updates, processes, new safety devices and the lock-out/tagout procedures. And it’s our job to disseminate that to the operations group. Often times, our technicians are the lead trainers and spend a lot of time with the operators, reminding them of the safety aspects and functionality of each machine.”

Carl Uhinck, an AEMP Certified Equipment Manager, has worked at Kokosing as a mechanic and manager for 13 years. He also has nine years of experience repairing heavy equipment in the Army.

I

f you are interested in this topic and would like to learn more, Uhinck gave a presentation on Safety Culture at the most recent Association of Equipment Management Professionals Management Conference and Annual Meeting. You can download the presentation at aemp.org.

For additional study into these topics, Uhinck also had some recommended reading, including the following: • Bill Sims Jr.: Green Beans & Ice Cream, The Remarkable Power of Positive Reinforcement • Dr. Tim Marsh: Talking Safety, A User’s Guide to World Class Safety Conversation • OSHA.gov: Creating a Safety Culture • National Safety Council: www. congress.nsc.org • AEMP: The Career Equipment Fleet Manager • Gregory M. Anderson & Robert L. Lober, Ph.D.: Safety 24/7, Building an Incident-Free Culture

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quick data | by Marcia Gruver Doyle

Excavators

|

MGruver@randallreilly.com

A snapshot of new and used sales trends from Randall-Reilly’s Equipment Data Associates and TopBid auction price service.

Year-over-year change*

Auctions

NEW: UP 4%

Excavator auction prices, 2011-2016 YTD $150,000

Auction prices for the top 10 models of excavators are now $37,190 below the five-year average of $106,140.

$145,000 $140,000 $135,000 $130,000

*Comparison of number of excavators financed Feb. 1, 2015 to Jan. 31, 2016, and Feb. 1, 2014 to Jan. 31, 2015. Does not include compact excavators. Source: EDA, edadata.com

$125,000 $120,000

High: Feb. 2011

$115,000

$

$110,000 $105,000

Current: Mar. 2016

138,977

$

$100,000 $95,000 $90,000

$

$85,000 $80,000

Average:

Low: Jan. 2016

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Mar.

Jan.

Oct.

Jul.

Apr.

Jan.

66,707 Oct.

Apr.

Jan.

Oct.

Jul.

Apr.

Jan.

Oct.

Jul.

Apr.

Jan.

Oct.

Jul.

Apr.

Jan.

$65,000

Jul.

$

$70,000

PRICE

Top three states for excavator buyers*

68,950

106,140

$75,000

USED: UP 2%

2016

1

Texas: 1,346 buyers

2

Georgia: 726 buyers

3

New York: 646 buyers

Trend prices for the top 10 models of excavators sold at auction, not seasonally adjusted. Does not include compact excavators. Source: TopBid, topbid.com

437,000

$

OTHER TOP BID:

Top financed new excavator*

Top auction price, paid for 2012 Cat 374DL with 1,757 hours at an IronPlanet sale on Jan. 20 in Pleasant Grove, California.

310,000

$

2013 Komatsu PC490LC-10, 3,161 hours, Ritchie Bros., Feb. 18.

Cat 336F L, 533 units

0 18,0

0

38 2 , 2 $11

AVERAGE

$

HIGH

Mar. 1, 2015 – Feb. 29, 2016; prices of excavators 5 years old and newer, U.S. sales only.

Does not include compact excavators. Only includes bids $5,000 and above. Source: TopBid, topbid.com

LOW

Final bids unit count: 1,363

New

Excavator new/used sales trends, 2006-2015* 12,000

00 0 , 7 $43 Used

Deere 210G LC, 368 units

Used high: 2006, 11,125 units

11,000 10,000

Used low: 2009, 6,589 units

9,000

Top financed used wheel loader*

8,000 7,000

New high: 2006, 11,270 units

Cat 336E L, 494 units

6,000 5,000

New low: 2009, 1,444 units

4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000

UNITS

2006

2007

2008

Other top selling machine:

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

*In terms of number of financed units sold Feb. 1, 2015 – Jan. 31, 2016.

Does not include compact excavators.

Source: EDA, edadata.com (Note: EDA reports are continually updated.)

*Financed equipment, 2006-2015, number of units sold. Does not include compact excavators. Source: EDA, edadata.com

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 43

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telematics 101

FEEDING TELEMATICS DATA INTO BACK OFFICE PROGRAMS

by Tom Jackson and Dan Samford

A

s we’ve reported in previous Telematics 101 articles, getting started in this technology is easy. When you buy a new machine from a major OEM or buy a “black box” from a third party vendor, you simply go to the designated website and keep track of the machine or truck in question.

This can yield a lot of useful data and tracking information; the low hanging fruit, so to speak.

But to get to the next level – to get your telematics data feeds to auto-populate a spreadsheet

or back office software system – is a significant challenge and one that is just now being tackled by contractors and construction companies.

There are a lot of companies such as SAP, Edwards, Timberline and Viewpoint, that sell back office software to all kinds of businesses, including construction companies. These software packages are typically referred to as ERPs, or enterprise resource programs. Additionally, there are companies that make construction specific software for bidding and estimating, job costing and tracking, and maintenance schedul-

ing and record keeping.

In an ideal world, the telematics data streaming off your machines would come straight into your company servers and fill in all the blanks in all the relevant ERPs and construction management programs. But unfortunately, the telematics data from your equipment and the programing behind your back office software probably don’t speak the same language. What you need is a translation between the two, and that (in most cases), means a custom API or application programing interface.

If you want to go this route, you’ll need to hire a consultant EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 45

telematics | continued or software programmer to develop a proprietary API to translate between your telematics feed and the back office, bidding/estimating, or maintenance software you want it to feed.

There are some telematics vendors who can export into some ERPs and construction management software, and some that can accept telematics feeds, but most of the custom programs were created in collaboration between large construction companies and their software providers.

Nonetheless, if you are considering a large and integrated telematics system for your fleet, a good question to ask vendors is specifically what ERP and/or back office programs they have previously worked with and currently have connectivity with. If they don’t currently map their data to any, don’t be surprised.

This is still a relatively new and evolving area of the industry.

Telematics standard But, do ask your vendors if they support ISO15143-3 (previously referred to as the AEM/AEMP Telematics Standard). The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) and the Association of Equipment Management Professionals (AEMP) collaborated on the details of this new standard, which will receive final ISO approval in the second quarter of this year.

ISO15143-3 establishes a common reporting protocol for dozens of types of data coming from heavy equipment. In essence, it is a common language for heavy equipment telematics feeds that is brand agnostic. It allows you to catalog and compare information across multiple brands in your fleet, without having to go to a different OEM website to view each brand of equipment separately.

More than likely, ISO15143-3 46 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

will become a key element in developing a common import language for ERPs. There are still challenges to overcome before this next phase of telematics functionality is achieved on a large scale.

The ERP and software providers may want encrypted languages because of the sensitivity of the data and the proprietary nature of their businesses. But, as competition for the contractors’ dollars and data increases, the industry will undoubtedly move in this direction.

Another aspect that will drive the adoption of telematics-toback office software programing is the substantial benefit it will bring to the company that successfully integrates the two. On big, multi-year projects, it can be difficult to get an accurate picture of the bid vs. build analysis. A lot of companies are flying blind, financially speaking, for the first stages of a project. Hours and costs have to be manually recorded in the field or shop and delivered to the financial people, who then manually enter the data into the software. Lag time between the field and the office may be weeks, or even months.

With auto-populated programs, the usage and costs are recorded and available for analysis in real time. Financial planners will be able to establish benchmarks and monitor progress, or the lack thereof, on a daily basis and make adjustments accordingly.

Will telematics bring in the Uber of rental?

M

any companies have tried contractor-to-contractor equipment rentals, only to abandon the effort as problems arise.

But, with the tracking and monitoring features that telematics offers, C2C rentals may prove to be a viable option for companies with excess machine capacity.

When you rent a machine to another contractor, you don’t know how many hours he’s putting on it until you get it back – or what condition it’s in. Using telematics, you can monitor hours and condition. So, if your renter is abusing the machine or the machine is throwing fault codes, you can pick up the phone and address the problem. It also alleviates worries about hours stacking up and the machine missing oil changes or service intervals.

Another problem: when renting by the day, week or month, it can be difficult to track exactly when somebody drops off a piece of equipment.

By incorporating telematics, you can keep your renters honest.

Ditto with insurance. Using telematics, you are able to show the exact amount of usage. It is anticipated that insurers are going to look at usage-based insurance to evaluate savings, similar to what they’re already doing using a dongle or tracking device on your car.

Daniel Samford, CEM, of Peak Performance Asset Services, consults in fleet management, telematics integration and negotiations for specialized construction equipment, vehicle purchases and fleet value evaluations. He can be contacted through his website at www.PPASllc.com or email at dsamford@PPASllc.com.

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training | by Marcia Gruver Doyle | MGruver@randallreilly.com On target: Trainer Andrew Golly with DCI, and student Aaron Adcox with Atmos Energy celebrate hitting the target cone on a training bore. “When they hit the cone, their chests are out,” says Golly. “They just beam, and then they’re hooked.”

Vermeer takes a small class, immersion approach to HDD training Although just one part of the horizontal directional drilling (HDD) market, telecoms are struggling to keep up with the fiber installation demands of an Internetravenous population. According to 2015 report, industry group USTelecom forecasts Internet Protocol traffic to grow 250 percent during the next five years.

T

his is not all good news to HDD contractors, who are struggling to man drills in the face of such demands. “Our customers are telling us, ‘we can’t work because we don’t have the people,’” Tony Bokhoven, training manager, Vermeer. And so they’ve asked for help.

In response, Vermeer unveiled

its first HDD Circuit training in February, and invited Equipment World to visit its second class in March. The company is betting that contractors will not only pay the $4,000-per-student cost (see sidebar, “HDD Circuit basics” on page 54), but that they’d also be willing to be short on personnel for two full weeks while they trained.

The two weeks were a bare

minimum to convey what Vermeer felt needed to be taught, Bokhoven says: “It’s more than just knowing how to flip switches and turn rod. We didn’t just want to teach people how to run a drill.

We want to teach them how to be a driller.”

Full immersion The resulting training course takes a full immersion approach that includes both classroom and field (see sidebar “What’s taught” on page 52), all of which takes place at Vermeer headquarters in Pella, Iowa. For example, after learning safety and drilling fundamentals, students then travel a short distance to a field to practice what they’ve just learned. Each eight-member class is divided into teams of two, one on the drill and one on the EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 49

training | continued What’s taught HDD safety • Recommended operator and safety guidelines • Recognizing unsafe behaviors • Utility strike procedures Jobsite evaluation/setup • Positioning of mud mixing system, pits, etc.

• Machine transport • Communicating with the public Utility locating, including best practices in: • Potholing • Vacuum excavation of located utility Drilling fluid testing/mixing/ best practices • Fluid types, viscosity levels Drilling/pullback • Completing a bore plan • Drill head locating Over the course of two weeks, each student will have about 26 hours each both operating a drill and running a locator. The first week, students get over-the-shoulder training.

The second week, with trainers close by, they’re on their own. Here, Dan Vroom (left) instructs T. J. Reed with Atmos Energy.

locator. As the training progresses, each team member will put in equal time on each position.

At each day’s end, there’s homework. Instructors give students the parameters of the next morning’s job – bore length, what utilities cross the drill path and where and how deep, and any other obstacles they’ll need to navigate. Using a laminated sheet, each team of two is asked to create a bore plan. “The next day, they’ll drill their bore plan,” Bokhoven says, “and at the end of the day, they will have data logged the bore all the way through and will know how close to their plan they actually were.”

“The laminated bore plan is probably one of the biggest training tools we’ve used,” says Dan Vroom, 50 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

customer training lead. “Most of them have never used a bore plan; they just figure it out on the job.”

Student T. J. Reed with Atmos Energy verifies this. “I hadn’t done a bore plan before,” he says. “We know what locates we have to cross, but since our bores are short, and we come into an open pit, you can get it done pretty quick.”

While some of the students going through the training were drilling novices, others had been on the job several years. Still others were sent by their firms to become company HDD trainers.

Knowledge gaps Regardless of the experience students bring to class, there are still gaps in their learning. For student

Equipment care/maintenance • Drill maintenance and inspection • Maintenance impact on machine performance and wear

Aaron Adcox, also with Atmos Energy and Reed’s teammate, the drill represented the biggest challenge, simply because he hadn’t drilled before. “T.J. went over the drill controls with me one night and we worked on it for a couple of hours,” Adcox says.

One of the biggest knowledge gaps the trainers have seen with students – both novice and experienced – is understanding pitch.

“A lot of guys have a hard time understanding what ‘take 10 percent out of the rod’ means and how that correlates to depth,” Vroom says.

Adcox echoes this. “When they talked about ’10 percent,’ I didn’t understand it. But when they actually drew it out on the plan, you can see the steps.” It’s a lesson

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training | continued Student Jarred Holland with TB Landmark Construction communicates with his drill operator to execute a pullback.

Adcox apparently learned well, according to his teammate Reed.

“We had a 2-foot box to reach and he put it right in the middle,” Reed says, and then laughs: “Beginner’s luck was all that was.”

Another challenge is locating. “There’s probably more of a learning curve on the locating side than on the drills,” Vroom says. “For example, some students didn’t know a sonde can have two different frequencies. Now they know how to check and change frequencies.”

“The perception is that the guy on the drill runs the show, but they learn that it’s really the guy on the locator that’s driving the bus,” Bokhoven says. Even though the drill operator has a display, the locator is the one who’s seeing the power box at the end of the street, or where the locates are. Students also learn how vital the person running the vacuum excavator is to the process. “He’s the one seeing the obstacles in the bore path, and 52 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

he’s the first one to see the ground conditions change,” Bokhoven says.

One aspect students seem to pick up more quickly is the equipment.

“The particular machine doesn’t throw them off much,” Bokhoven says. “Equipment guys are intuitive about how things work.” The students train on just-off-the-factoryfloor Vermeer D20x22 S3 rigs, along with DCI DigiTrak F5 locators. “We have D20x22 Series II drills back home, so these are slightly different, but nothing major,” reports Reed.

OTJ training with a twist Before leaving for the day, trainees make sure the locator batteries are being charged, the water is fresh, the hoses are curled up, the equipment is washed down and that everything is ready to go to work the next day. “We try to make it as much like a job as possible,” Bokhoven says.

But there’s one key difference: this “jobsite” doesn’t have any pro-

duction requirements. If a mistake is made, or a lesson can be taught, everything stops while instructions and adjustments are made. “The beauty of it is, they’re allowed to do it wrong,” Bokhoven says, “because that’s how we’re going to teach them. All the tooling they need is at hand, and there’s no danger of a utility strike.”

The setup in Pella gives Vermeer the ability to offer consistent and repeatable training, Bokhoven says.

Classroom training takes place in a newly created space in the company’s Global Pavilion, after which students head out to a nearby 11.5acre field to put their head knowledge into practice.

After class One overall goal is that each student becomes more valuable, both to their employers and to themselves, Vroom says. That value extends to not only knowing the “how” of best practices, but the “why” behind them.

HDD Circuit basics All students must be employed by a sponsoring contractor.

Per student, contractor out-of-pocket costs include the $4,000 tuition, travel, and room and board at a local hotel for the twoweek course.

Upon successful completion of the course, including a written test, each student receives a certificate of completion and a laminated card that details their training.

Vermeer runs the program once a month at its Pella, Iowa, headquarters. Class size is limited to eight students, and classes currently run from February through October. Some classes will be conducted in Spanish. Contact: HDDCircuit@Vermeer.com.

Today’s drilling crews, for example, need to be aware of installation efficiencies, Vroom adds. “It’s critical, as more utilities go underground, that we start using the ground space efficiently,” he says.

If crews try to avoid existing utilities by just going deep, they have to pull back more product, the install takes longer and it creates deeper potholing requirements for future work.

The back of the HDD Circuit laminated wallet card shows how much time a student spends on each topic.

After each class, Vermeer is reaching out to the student, sponsoring contractor and that contractor’s local dealer. In addition to the students having a direct line to instructors, contractors and dealers are asked if they’re starting to see value. “There’s also some conditional information – such as how to handle cobble – that they don’t learn here, and that’s where their dealers come in,” Bokhoven says.

So how will Vermeer know if this training is having its intended impact? “We want contractors telling us they’re having fewer premature failures,” Bokhoven says.

“We want to hear they’re getting more footage in the ground and that there’s less damage to machines. And internally, we’re tracking whether or not we get fewer last-minute requests for immediate help in running a machine.”

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EquipmentWorld.com | May 4/3/16 9:412016 PM 53

road science | by Chris Hill PART

|

ChrisHill@randallreilly.com

WINNING the BONUS

CRITICAL 5

COMPACTION As it stands in the proper order of roadway construction, compaction is the fifth component of creating smooth surfaces for bonus-winning pavements, following cold milling, material transfer vehicles, and the paver and screed.

This month, Equipment World continues its seven-part series on how to optimize pavement construction to win bonuses – with a look at compaction.

Part I: Part 2: Part 3: Part 4: Part 5: Part 6: Part 7:

Smooth Pavements through Cold Milling Smooth Pavements and Material Transfer Vehicles Smooth Pavements and Asphalt Pavers Smooth Pavements and Asphalt Screeds Compaction for Super Smooth Asphalt Pavements Super-Smooth PCC Pavements with Slipform Pavers Super-Smooth PCC Pavements with Stringless Controls

54 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

pavements need to achieve ultimate smoothness.

Rollers compact asphalt in either one of two ways; via static compaction, in which the weight of the machine provides the force, or by vibratory compaction, in which the drums of the roller provide impact force on the paving surface. Equipment can be solely static, solely vibratory or can be manufactured with both capabilities.

Static rollers are available in drum configurations (typically threedrums) or pneumatic tire configurations. Vibratory rollers come in dual- and single-drum layouts. A combination roller will often have a vibrating drum in front and static pneumatic tires in back.

Base and production All the steps in the paving process are tightly joined in a vertically integrated mechanism – meaning

each step along the way affects subsequent stages. So the work at the end, compaction, is only as good as the work at the start.

“The more we think about smoothness from the beginning – what opportunities do we have to achieve smoothness, where should we put our effort for it, where’s our money best spent – I think we’re either going to find in most cases you’re really not worried about smoothness anymore other than to not screw it up,” says consulting engineer, Mike Robinson. “If you can get to that point, then it becomes how uniform can we be, how good a density can we get, how high a quality can we get.”

Robinson has roughly 30 years of experience in the paving industry and has worked for multiple paving companies, in addition to the California Department of Transportation, over that time span. Based in Nevada, he is a registered profes-

A Hamm HD+ 120 roller used in the paving operation on the northern approach to the Huguenot Bridge in Virginia.

D. Allen Covey, Virginia DOT

T

he purpose of compaction is to remove air voids and align the aggregate material in the asphalt mix so that the particles interlock, providing the stiffness and density required in a roadway. But the goal isn’t to make pavement as hard as possible, as asphalt pavements need a small amount of porosity. Compacting too much can also create deformations that negatively impact rideability, which is the entire premise of smoothness.

The compaction process is really begun by the screed, as this paver component takes the head of material and forms it into the familiar shape of a pavement. But, that’s only the initial compression.

While the screed makes the asphalt look nearly perfect when it’s revealed behind the paver, it takes a roller to attain the higher density

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 55

road science | continued

sional engineer in Arizona, California, Wyoming and Nevada.

He says that as contractors are working on compaction, they should also be mixing the asphalt mixes, hauling them and paving at a steady rate. This is critical to keeping the roller patterns consistent. It also ensures that compaction operators aren’t trying to play catch up or a “back and forth” game of correction when people aren’t paying attention.

“In this industry, we don’t step 56 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

Atlas Copco

An Atlas Copco roller finishing the edge on a countryside road.

back enough and say: what could we have done to do a better job?,” Robinson adds. “Most of the time, we don’t realize what we’re capable of, in terms of quality, but we’re happy with it because we’ve met some fairly arbitrary minimum standard. We don’t think about what we could have done better, and sometimes, a little bit more effort in that department would result in a lot better product.”

Chuck Deahl, president of Illinoisbased Fat Boy Roller, agrees that

having the fundamentals in place before the rollers even touch the asphalt mat is key.

“Smooth pavements start with a good base that gives us confinement,” he says. “If this is a milled surface, we have to make sure we have cut enough depth to eliminate roughness, and use a grade and slope control on the milling machine.”

Deahl, who has been in the business for 50 years, spoke on the complexities of compaction at

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road science | continued

“

What is the definition of a roller mark? A different density on one side of the mark compared to the other side of the mark.

And if you get density, guess what you don’t get? Roller marks.

So people say ‘I have to get the marks out.’ No, you don’t have to. If you roll it hot enough, you don’t leave the marks. And then, you get both the smoothness and the compaction.

– Jim Sherocman

”

Washington State DOT

Rollers operating in echelon during paving work on SR 520 in Washington State.

Operation “In terms of then maintaining the smoothness, it’s compacting the mat while it’s hot,” says Jim Sherocman, another 50-year paving veteran, whose experience includes the Ohio Department of Transportation, paving contractors and equipment manufacturers.

“You want to compact it while it’s hot, because we all know if you don’t, you don’t get density and you don’t get smoothness,” he says. “Things are just that simple.”

Sherocman adds that roller timing and spacing is a common problem he sees in the field, and relates that contrac58 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

Two Caterpillar rollers working in echelon on a warm mix asphalt project near St. Louis.

Missouri DOT

an education session during the 2016 World of Asphalt this March in Nashville. He works with paving crews to improve quality and help them achieve bonus smoothness and density.

“Balanced production is balancing the paver speed with the front roller; and balancing the rollers in each rolling zone: breakdown, intermediate, and finish,” he says. “Usually, we use a double drum vibratory in the breakdown zone; pneumatic roller or double drum vibratory in the intermediate zone; and another double drum vibratory roller in the finish zone, in the static mode.”

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road science | continued Compaction operation has changed over time

T

he key tenants of compaction haven’t changed much since the first roller made it onto an asphalt mat.

But, how the machines are operated has seen some adjustment in the past few years.

Chuck Deahl of Fat Boy Roller offers his top five changes in operation.

1. The use of two double drum vibratory rollers in echelon as breakdown rollers. This provides coverage with two rollers in the same temperature zone, which improves production without requiring too many passes, to achieve density, and results in smooth pavements.

tors often leave too much space between rollers, which can allow the mat to cool.

“By the time they get to the finish roller, they’re trying to get density and beat the heck out of the pavement. And all that does is leave indentations and roller marks, which defeats the smoothness issue.” He recommends running rollers in echelon, staggered but parallel, and overlapping to limit “ruining the smoothness,” as he puts it.

“I’ve asked more than one contractor ‘Is there any requirement in this state for both rollers to be in the same county at the same time?’”

Sherocman is joking, of course, but he says he has seen the spacing between roller and paver vary 60 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

wildly through the course of a day on multiple jobs.

“Maintaining a consistent compaction pattern right behind the paver is the key to the compaction issue, and is critical to ensuring the smoothness you get out of the paver,” he explains.

To make up for errors in timing and spacing, Robinson says a common corrective action is overcompensation and trying to speed up the rollers, which he says is the opposite of what needs to be done.

“You need to make sure to have a rolling envelope and stay at the front end of it so you have room to recover if conditions change, or you get a mechanical issue,” he says. These challenging scenarios

Caterpillar

Caterpillar’s CB64B tandem vibratory roller can be equipped with Automatic Adjustable compaction that automatically adjusts drum amplitude to match what the asphalt mat can take.

2. The application of intelligent compaction systems on double drum vibratory rollers.

3. The use of oscillating or intelligent vibratory rollers that allow the front vibrating drum to be put in a horizontal vibrating mode vs. a vertical mode. This allows some rollers to be operated with one drum in oscillating mode and one in static mode to achieve density and smoothness.

4. The application of pneumatic tire rollers with vibration in the intermediate (mid temperature) rolling zone. Properly applied, this provides density and smoothness.

5. The use of square profile tires that replace round bias ply tires (that cut the mat and leave deeper penetrations from the tire). Square tires on some mix designs allow a roller to be used as an intermediate and finish roller.

road science | continued

62 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

A screen used with Atlas Copco’s Dyn@Lyzer intelligent compaction system. These systems provide the operator with details on mapping, roller patterns, and estimates of stiffness or density.

Atlas Copco

could include mat tenderness or a skin developing on the mat from increased winds. “All of the sudden, your rollers are creating bigger creases, a lot more tearing when they’re turning and so forth, and if you‘ve got some room to slow down or change your pattern a little bit to recover from that, then it’s not a big deal.”

Deahl also believes correct settings on a vibratory roller is an often overlooked component.

“There are two operational settings on a double drum vibratory roller that help to achieve density and smoothness – amplitude and frequency,” he says.

Amplitude is the height the drum comes off the mat in one rotation.

Frequency is the number of times the vibrating shaft in the drum oscillates per minute.

“The highest frequency or vibrations per minute (VPM) on large double drum vibratory rollers is 4000 VPM,” Deahl explains. “The impacts per foot (IPF) number controls the impact spacing to get both smoothness and density. You have to keep them close enough together so you get density and smoothness.”

The acceptable IPF range is between 10 and 14. Any lower, and the impacts will be visible and will reduce smoothness. Any higher, and overcompaction becomes a problem. To Robinson’s point about speeding up the roller, Deahl says operators must travel slow enough to keep the front roller at the right speed in relation to the VPM setting. To determine the proper speed, he says, divide the VPM by the minimum impacts per foot. For example, 3,000 VPM divided by 10 results in a speed of 300 feet per minute.

“Do not ‘over speed’ the travel speed of a double drum vibratory roller,” he says. “I recommend rollers operate at low amplitude and high VPM 90 percent of the time.”

Equipment advances While it is difficult to argue that compaction requires a certain degree of finesse from the operator, technological improvements to rollers have added more certainty to compaction results.

Once in the arsenals of just a few select manufactures, intelligent compaction systems have become nearly a pre-requisite on the job site, and have garnered much of the attention in roller advancements in recent years. There are subtle differences between manufacturer’s proprietary systems, but they all typically collect and calculate variables to determine stiffness or density, temperature, pass count and

location on the mat, using GPS. “Intelligent compaction, in terms of mapping, is a tremendous benefit,” says Robinson. “Just so the roller operator knows where he’s been and where he needs to be.

No matter how good an operator is, just the mental challenge of figuring out where you are and where you’ve been throughout the day to get uniform coverage – that’s the kind of thing we use tools like intelligent compaction to do for us.”

“With the latest generation of our intelligent compaction system, Dyn@Lyzer, operators can access real-time material stiffness readings to ensure they’re completing the specified number of passes to

road science | continued

Volvo

Two Volvo rollers finishing off a new lane.

achieve optimal compaction,” says Tim Hoffman, Atlas Copco’s product manager for rollers. Dyn@Lyzer also tracks pass count, as well as surface temperature, via sensors on each end of the roller. In addition, an accelerometer mounted to the drum measures the mat’s relative stiffness.

Caterpillar offers Cat Compaction Control on its machines, which also includes temperature sensors and mapping systems to measure coverage, rolling techniques and pass counts.

“Cat 10-ton asphalt compactors 64 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

can now be equipped with Automatic Adjustable Compaction, a feature that automatically adjusts drum amplitude to ensure that the compaction force of the drum is optimized to what the mat can take,” says Bryan Downing, global sales and support consultant for Caterpillar Paving. “This ensures compaction progresses as fast as possible, while alleviating the operator of the responsibility of choosing the correct amplitude as the mat conditions change. The result is a smoother, more uniform mat.”

Volvo Construction Equipment

launched its intelligent compaction system, Density Direct, last year, and offers similar features to other systems, with the addition of a new algorithm specifically designed to estimate density, rather than a stiffness factor.

“Systems like Density Direct provide the ability to map the operating path of the roller and for the operator to see how many coverages by the roller have been made, and the uniformity of pavement panel coverage,” explains product manager Dale Starry. “The operator can see the actual pavement surface

Atlas Copco

The Atlas Copco CC5200 is an example of a combination roller with a drum in front and pneumatic tires in back. temperature, real time, as compaction is being performed. Pass mapping and temperature mapping will have a major impact on nearly every compaction application.”

Tim Kowalski, Hamm applications support manager for Wirtgen America, says the company’s system, Hamm Compaction Quality, also keeps track of roller passes, stiffness values and temperature range.

“This helps the operator to be more consistent in his rolling pattern and temperature range, and should deliver more consistent density and smoother ride,” he says. “The best thing all of us, as manufacturers, can offer the roller operator is the intelligent compaction system. This will help any operator become a better operator;

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by showing them what they are doing and where they are on the mat.”

An intelligent compaction system may seem like a panacea for getting quality compaction, but there are several other equipment advances on which manufacturers are focusing to affect both performance and operator comfort.

As for the latter, Atlas Copco believes operator stations are one of the leading equipment features helping operators create high-quality pavements.

“We optimize visibility and comfort on our rollers with ergonomic operator stations,” Hoffman says. “Some rollers feature a sideways-sliding seat and a steering module that rotates with the operator to improve visibility for optimal control and compaction.

The right seat gives an operator optimal visibility of the surface and increases comfort by reducing body strain from twisting and leaning to see the work area.

When the operator can view the drum’s edge and surroundings clearly, he or she can stay on the roller longer and remain focused.”

Starry says another significant compaction equipment change contributing to smoother pavement surfaces is higher vibration frequency.

“A double drum vibratory compactor operating in either the breakdown or intermediate rolling positions will reduce the spacing between drum impacts, which, in turn, reduces pavement surface irregularities,” he says. “The ability to adjust drum amplitude selections will minimize the depth of the vibrating drum depressions.

This also contributes toward improved rideability results.”

Starry also cites Volvo’s automatic start and stop vibration feature. “For Volvo large double

drum vibratory compactors, we have a unique feature which automatically engages vibration in the leading drum a few seconds before vibration starts in the trailing drum. This leads to less drum marking and smoother pavements.”

Kowalski says a major advancement for Hamm is an oscillation feature, which can be used when vibration can’t, such as when encountering incorrect temperatures or sensitive areas that are too close in proximity to handle the vibration.

“Operators like this because they can get the last amount of density, using oscillation instead of vibration and static, because there is enough temperature in the mix that the oscillation will keep adding density without damaging the mix or the surroundings. This will also help remove any roller marks in the mat when finishing,” he explains.

The skill of the operator still reigns supreme, and future equipment advancements will continue to provide features that support that skill to a greater degree.

“When it comes to improving smoothness, good technique is a must,” says Caterpillar’s Downing. “So future developments will trend toward those things that make it easier to apply good technique consistently.”

Hoffman holds the same sentiment, believing visibility improvement will be a key enhancement.

“In the future, I think we will begin to see the addition of cameras to view and monitor the asphalt’s surface and surroundings on pavers and rollers.

We’ve come a long way since we developed intelligent compaction, and we’ll just keep improving as new technology becomes available.”

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 67

better bridges | by Chris Hill

| ChrisHill@randallreilly.com

Preservation programs grow as state DOTs battle challenging bridge conditions Dire statistics about bridge conditions in the U.S. make headlines every year; either through condition reports from the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) bridge inventory figures, our own Better Roads Bridge Inventory Report or through period state-level reports from the Road Improvement Program.

The truth is, while there are still a relativly large number of structurally deficient bridges across the country, roughly 58,500, that figure has dropped in recent years.

It’s still not good, as the American Road & Transportation Builder’s Association estimates with current funding levels, it would take 21 years to replace or upgrade all those bridges.

Being labeled structurally deficient only means a

68 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

bridge has at least one structural defect that needs to be addressed. It doesn’t necessarily mean the defect is critical, but it does sound ominous to the general public.

To rectify and help prevent these defects from becoming worse and leading to the need for a replacement or rebuild, bridge engineers turn to preservation techniques. These projects are designed to either sustain or improve the condition of a bridge that’s already in good condition, but do not necessarily improve the structural integrity or even add capacity. The main purpose is restoration.

As defined in the FHWA Bridge Preservation Guide, these techniques are “actions or strategies that prevent, delay or reduce deterioration of bridges or bridge elements, restore the function of existing bridges, keep bridges in good condition and extend their life. Preservation actions may be preventive or condition-driven.”

Preventive maintenance Bridge preservation boils down to preventive maintenance (PM), which involves efforts to prevent deterioration and maintain, or even improve, the functional capacity of a bridge. PM steps that may extend bridge life include sealing or replacing leaking joints (or even eliminating deck joints altogether), deck overlays, cathodic protection (CP) systems for decks, electrochemical chloride extraction (ECE) treatments and concrete

deck repairs in conjunction with installing a deck overlay, a CP system or an ECE treatment.

Cyclical preventive maintenance is a system that schedules particular maintenance activities on a predetermined basis. This would involve, for example, installing a bonded polymer overlay every 10 to 15 years, a rigid overlay like silica fume and latex modified concrete every 20 to 25 years, or sealing concrete decks with a waterproofing penetrating sealant every 3 to 5 years.

That sounds straight forward, but with thousands of bridges in some states a cyclical plan is sure to miss a few structures. So, preventative maintenance, as FHWA’s definition of preservation points out, is often condition-based, which means an issue is found through inspection.

States have different preferred methods in their preservation toolboxes, and what works well for one state may not hold up to conditions in another state.

Indiana has recently adopted the practice of applying thin overlays, such as polymeric overlay materials, to be placed periodically.

“Most of our preventive maintenance efforts have been focused around waterproofing and eliminating bridge joints,” says Jeremy Hunter, bridge design manager with the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT). “Then, we try to waterproof the decks, whether it’s polymeric overlays or another material.

We’re trying to start doing routine surface sealing on a cyclical basis of the bare concrete decks, and then also crack filling.”

Hunter feels the agency has made significant improvements to their bridge decks using crack filling because of the frequency of crack shrinkage, even on new decks.

“We haven’t really had a good way to address that, because surface sealing is a part of every construction contract that we do. But then we know that those

Image: Washington State DOT

Exposed rebar on the 4th Avenue Bridge between Camano Island, Washington, Stanwood, Washington and the I-5 corridor.

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 69

Image: Montana DOT

better bridges | continued

cracks will continue to expand until that surface seal doesn’t really cover them and prevent the intrusion of the chlorides.”

Hunter says INDOT has really struggled with expansion joints.

“I’ll talk to the construction people about it and I’ll talk to our asset managers about it, and they’ll say they felt like the contractor really went above and beyond doing the best job they possibly could. But, we still get these failures, simply because it’s so hard to replace an expansion joint. It has been one of the biggest issues.”

Iowa Department of Transportation Bridge Preservation Engineer, Gordon Port, echoes the troubled experience with expansion joints.

“We’re in the process right now of trying to replace some expansion joints because they almost always leak at some point in time,” he ex70 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

plains. “That causes deterioration of substructures and even superstructures, and the corrosion of steel beams. Particularly of concern to us, is that you can always blast and clean a steel beam, but when you get precast or prestressed concrete beams that get moisture in them and you get corrosion—that’s a little more challenging.”

Port says Iowa’s top preservation activity is installing high-density polymer concrete overlays, where 1/4-inch of the surface is milled off and 1 1/2-inches of overlay is added. “We’ve been using these since the 1970s, and that’s probably been our most effective long-term preservation activity. It probably wasn’t thought of as preservation back then, but it definitely extended the time before additional work was needed on the decks.”

For the North Carolina Depart-

Montana DOT workers place a latexmodified concrete overlay on the Clark Fork Bridge. ment of Transportation’s Division 1, which is the northeast corner of the state extending to the Outer Banks, latex modified concrete with hydrodemolition preparation is the preservation technique of choice.

Latex modified concrete is a hydraulic cement with aggregates added when mixed with a latex emulsion. It was designed in the late 1960s and is essentially a waterproofing compound that reduces porosity. RK&K Consulting Engineer and NCDOT Division 1 Resident Engineer, Jeff Thatcher. says it’s providing mixed results in his experience.

“The consistent challenge is we’re using these new technologies like latex modified concrete and we end

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better bridges | continued up with problems in the field where it doesn’t fit exactly like it should on the plans,” he says. “Then we’re forced to make decisions based on absolutely no anecdotal evidence as to what’s going to happen 40 years down the road. I don’t have 40 years of history with latex modified concrete to go by.”

Thatcher’s concern touches on an issue with bridge preservation, in that it’s a relatively new aspect of the bridge construction industry. “We don’t have enough history with it yet to know where you can bend and what must remain rigid,” he adds. “These specifications were developed based upon, in a lot of cases, research done in academia that we’ve now translated into these specifications that we’re trying to use in the field. We don’t have the control over our circumstances in the field that they have in academia.”

But, Patrick Martens, bridge preservation engineer with Bridge

Preservation & Inspection Services in Jefferson City, Missouri, touts the use of latex modified concrete.

“It gives the longest lasting surface and shields the deck from chloride infiltration,” he says. “In environments where deicing salts are used, it is important to understand that you have to protect a bridge from the top down. Latex concrete is a material that was designed especially as a wearing surface for bridge decks, and when properly applied, it can sustain a 25 to 30 year protective life over the deck. It is important that the overlay is well bonded to the deck, and that is where hydrodemolition is a valuable process to properly prepare the deck; giving superior surface preparation, removing all deteriorated concrete, and not leaving any microfractures in the substrate.”

Procurement process Techniques aside, a dragging pro-

curement process is one of the top challenges to a state’s bridge preservation program.

Hunter says a big part of the struggle in Indiana is not so much what to do, but how to get to the point that they’re actually doing the work. INDOT’s entire project plan development process was based on large projects, which could take nine to 10 months for procurement under the best of circumstances.

By implementing changes in the agency’s design manual and plan development process, specifically for preventative maintenance, Hunter says they’ve drastically reduced the procurement timeline.

“Now, we’re looking at a 30 to 60-day process,” he says. “It’s really critical, because some of these preservation line items are almost at emergency status. You see something that’s broken and you want to get out and fix it quick, because either it’s going to cause substantial deterioration or it’s a safety issue.”

72 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com Rubbertrax_Equip0216_PG.indd 1

1/7/16 3:13 PM

Limitations on Iowa DOT’s bridge crews, such as limited road closure times and low manpower, created a backlog of projects. The agency took data from these projects to build a case for increased funding and an accelerated procurement process.

“We took that information and went to management, and they increased bridge maintenance funding and started with $2-$3 million,” he says. “We got that up to about $9 million a year now and it doesn’t go on our program. It’s a funding source we can use and it’s dedicated, allowing us to react a lot quicker. We can do a certain number in a year or two if we can get plans made, and they don’t have to go to the (Iowa Transportation) commission. If we change our mind, we can change our mind. We don’t have to go back. We can react a lot faster and we’ve got it dedicated to a dozen or so activities that we’re willing to fund. It doesn’t mean we’ve got all we need, but it has helped out a lot.”

Martens agrees that a streamlined procurement process is key to addressing preservation issues.

“Beyond the obvious need for more funding, being able to quantify the benefit of bridge preservation and then educate the key decision makers who develop policy is crucial,” he says. “Many front line managers understand the effectiveness of preservation and how it can extend the life of our bridges, but it is often a hard thing to prove and sell to upper managers. Preservation is a mindset, and it requires a sustained commitment.”

Systematic preservation maintenance programs

S

ystematic preservation maintenance (SPM) programs provide a guideline for bridge preservation. The FHWA says such programs, at a minimum, should have the following: Goals and Objectives – Clearly defined goals and objectives for the SPM program.

Inventory and Condition Assessment – The availability of tools and resources to conduct bridge inspections and evaluations.

Needs Assessment – A documented needs assessment process that outlines how PM needs are identified, prioritized, and programmed.

Cost Effective PM Activities – The ability to demonstrate that the proposed PM activities are a cost-effective means of extending the life of a bridge.

Accomplishing the Work – The availability of tools and resources to accomplish the PM work.

Reporting and Evaluation – The ability to track, evaluate, and report on the planned and accomplished PM work on an annual and/or as-needed basis.

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 73

OUR LONG-LASTING EQUIPMENT NEEDS LONGER-LASTING OPERATORS.

Find a wide range of jobsite safety tips and other resources at ditchwitch.com/safety.

safety watch | by Tom Jackson | TJackson@randallreilly.com Most safety precautions regarding cranes pertain to when the machine is in operation.

But, the process of assembling or dismantling a crane can be fraught with danger.

In this instance, a 37-year-old Hispanic carpenter’s helper had been called upon to help the crane operator take apart the sections of an 80-foot lattice boom crane. The carpenter’s helper was from Mexico and did not speak English.

The company crews conducted daily safety huddles each morning before work, in both English and Spanish. On the day of the accident, however, the safety huddle was canceled because the site supervisor arrived late.

The crane operator was educated and certified to work with this type of crane, and usually used a team of two trained workers to help him with the breakdown. On the day of the accident, though, both were unavailable.

The accident happened early in the morning. The crews were working with a sense of urgency because the concrete bridge decking was on a truck en route to the site. The carpenter’s helper had been asked to knock out the four pins holding two sections of the lattice boom together so that an additional section could be added. To gain better access to the pins, the helper ducked under the boom and began hammering them out from the inside.

Illustration by Don Lomax

Attempt to disassemble crane boom proves fatal

The helper knocked out the first bottom pin, but when he knocked out the second bottom pin, the boom section, hinged on the two top pins, swung down and pinned the worker to the ground. There was no cribbing or blocking to prevent the free end of the boom from descending.

A hydraulic crane was brought in to lift the boom off the victim, and EMS personnel were called to the scene. But, resuscitation proved unsuccessful, and the carpenter’s helper died shortly afterward.

Recommendations: • Always provide job specific (and machine specific) training to every individual on the site in a language they understand.

• Don’t get in a hurry. Had the operator taken a half hour or so to find and place cribbing under

the boom, this accident could have been avoided. He should have also checked to ensure that boom pendants (suspension cables and lines) were properly located before removing a connecting pin.

• Don’t skip daily safety meetings.

If a supervisor can’t make the meeting, have him arrange for a subordinate to conduct the meetings instead.

• Make sure that all workers are trained in all aspects of the job.

The operator was trained to run the crane, but only partially knowledgeable about assembly/ disassembly.

• Never attempt to disassemble crane boom sections from inside the lattice frame. Always stand outside the frame and give yourself plenty of room to move away if the boom drops.

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Date of safety talk: Attending:

Leader:

_____________________ EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 75

alerta de seguridad | por Tom Jackson | TJackson@randallreilly.com La mayoría de las precauciones de seguridad en cuanto a grúas se refieren a la máquina cuando está en operación. Pero el proceso de ensamblar o desarmar una grúa puede estar teñido de peligro.

En este caso, un ayudante de carpintero hispano de 37 años había sido llamado para que ayude al operador de la grúa a desarmar las secciones de un brazo extensor de estructura entramada de 80 pies. El ayudante era de México y no hablaba inglés.

Las cuadrillas de la compañía realizaban reuniones de seguridad diarias cada mañana antes de trabajar, tanto en inglés como en español. El día del accidente, sin embargo, la reunión de seguridad fue cancelada porque el supervisor del área llegó tarde.

El operador de la grúa había sido entrenado y certificado para trabajar en este tipo de grúa, y usaba comúnmente un equipo de dos trabajadores capacitados que le ayudaban con el desarmado. El día del accidente, sin embargo, ninguno de los dos estaba disponible.

El accidente ocurrió temprano en la mañana. Las cuadrillas estaban trabajando apuradamente porque la plataforma de concreto del puente estaba en un camión camino al área de trabajo. Al ayudante de carpintero se le había pedido que sacara a martillazos cuatro pasadores metálicos que mantenían juntas dos secciones del brazo extensor, a fin de poder añadir una sección adicional. Para tener mejor acceso a los pasadores, el ayudante se agachó debajo del brazo extensor y empezó a martillearlos hacia afuera desde la parte interior.

El ayudante sacó el primer pasador de abajo, pero cuando golpeó el segundo pasador de la parte baja, se deslizó hacia abajo la sección del brazo extensor enganchada con los dos pasadores de arriba, aplastando al trabajador contra el suelo. No había armatoste o bloqueo que impidiera que baje el extremo libre del brazo extensor.

Se trajo una grúa hidráulica para levantar el brazo

Illustration by Don Lomax

Intenta desarmar el brazo extensor de una grúa esta fatales

extensor que estaba sobre la víctima, y se llamó al personal de emergencia a la escena de los hechos. Pero la resucitación fue infructuosa y el ayudante de carpintero murió poco después.

Recomendaciones: • Ofrezca siempre una capacitación específica para el trabajo (y para la máquina) a cada individuo que esté en el área de trabajo en un idioma que ellos entiendan.

• No se apure. Si el operador se hubiera tomado una media hora o algo así en encontrar y colocar una armazón debajo del brazo extensor, este accidente habría podido evitarse. También debió haber revisado para asegurarse de que los colgantes del brazo extensor (los cables de suspensión y alambres) estaban ubicados apropiadamente antes de retirar un pasador de conexión.

• No se salte las reuniones de seguridad. Si un supervisor no puede llegar a la reunión, haga que éste coloque a un subordinado para que conduzca las reuniones en su lugar.

• Asegúrese de que todos los trabajadores están capacitados en todos los aspectos del trabajo. El operador estaba capacitado en operar la grúa, pero sólo conocía parcialmente acerca del armado y desarmado.

• Nunca intente desarmar las secciones de un brazo extensor de grúa desde adentro de la estructura entramada. Siempre manténgase de pie fuera de la estructura y déjese un amplio espacio para alejarse si la extensión cae.

Sponsored by

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Fecha de la charla de seguridad: Asistentes: 76 May 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

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pro pickup | by Jason Cannon

| JasonCannon@randallreilly.com

Nissan unveils redesigned 2017 Titan with gas V8

N

issan has officially unveiled the truck intended to compete against Chevrolet’s Silverado and the Ford F-150. The new Titan gets its inspiration from its beefier brother, the XD, but lacks the 5-liter Cummins V8. Instead, the 2017 half-ton Titan Crew Cab is powered by Nissan’s 5.6-liter, 390-horsepower Endurance V8 gasoline engine. The truck is planned for launch later in the model year, in both Single and King Cab variants.

“Titan shares its aggressive style with the Titan XD, but the two

vehicles are completely different underneath the skin,” says Fred Diaz, division vice president and general manager, North America Trucks and Light Commercial Vehicles, Nissan North America.

“Between Titan and Titan XD, we will cover about 85 percent of the full-size truck market.” Titan is built on a separate chassis from XD, and is approximately 228.1 inches long (14.7 inches shorter than the XD) and 79.5 inches wide (same as XD).

Cab size is shared between the two vehicles.

“We’ve said before that even the lug nuts are different from Titan to

Titan XD,” adds Diaz. The Titan will be available in 4×2 or 4×4 drive, with three bed lengths (5.5, 6.5 and 8 feet) and in five trim levels – S, SV, PRO-4X, SL and Platinum Reserve. Nissan also announced that it will bring the gas-powered Endurance V8 to the Titan XD. In the XD, the engine will be mated to a 7-speed automatic transmission.

A V6 gasoline engine will also be available, but Nissan says details on that engine will be announced later.

While Nissan didn’t announce pricing for the new Titan, it did put a sticker price on the gas-powered Titan XD. The new 5.6-liter EndurEquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 79

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• Motor graders • Off-highway trucks • Trenchers • Directional drills • Hammers/shears • Asphalt and concrete pavers • Cold planers • Compactors • Lasers • GPS systems

pro pickup | continued ance V8 gasoline engine joins the Cummins 5 liter V8 Turbo Diesel as power plant options for the XD. The gasoline V8-equipped Titan

XD will initially be available in five Crew Cab trim levels, in both 4×4 and 4×2 drive configurations. All Endurance V8 engine models come

standard with a new 7-speed automatic transmission, with Adaptive Shift Control and Downshift Rev Matching.

New Ford Super Duty backup cameras let you monitor towing from multiple angles

W

hile the latest F-150 models almost park your boat or trailer for you, Ford figures Super Duty customers want a bit more control. To address this, Ford has equipped the next-generation Super Duty models with a host of cameras to assist, regardless of what you’re towing. Ford calls this patents-pending feature Trailer Reverse Guidance. It uses three (of up to seven) cameras available on 2017 Super Duty models to allow the driver to see multiple angles of the trailer when in reverse, as well as a color-coded overhead view.

While a camera in the tailgate tracks the motion of the trailer, two side-view cameras shift the driver’s view of the trailer from the in-dash display as the trailer’s angle changes. Ford is also debuting a customer-placed camera from the factory, which can be attached to the back of a trailer to give the driver a better view of the overall environment. A center high-mounted stop lamp camera is available as well, providing a view into the cargo box and assisting the hookup of gooseneck and fifth-wheel trailers. –Wayne Grayson

The in-dash display provides views from three cameras on the 2017 Super Duty models.

EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 81

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18 2016

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48 36 82 G. W. Tatro Construction, 82 Jeffersonville, Vermont 85 Steep mountains and technical 12 challenges bring out the 29 best in this family firm 83 51 57 82 74 53 8 23 61 42 82 82 81 47 33 66 N IO 82 AT RM 85 FO N I ED 65 OR S ON IBC SP Productivity through82 innovation. The new I-Shift with Crawler Gears31 page 6 39 35 4/25/16 3:04 5 PM 15 17 40 21 85 83 85 73 83 73 41 BC 72 IFC 63 85 82 11 6

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EquipmentWorld.com • May 2016

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2015-03-17 12:12 PM

final word | by Tom Jackson TJackson@randallreilly.com

Donald Trump and Five Easy Pieces

I

f you’ve never seen the movie Five Easy Pieces, I heartily recommend it, especially in this summer of our political discontent.

In it, a young Jack Nicholson (Bobby) plays an oil field roughneck who has been called north to the family home in Washington state, where his father is dying. He dreads both the trip and the confrontation, although we don’t know why. To make matters worse, his ditzy girlfriend, played by Karen Black (Rayette), insists on going with him.

When he gets there, we discover that Bobby’s family is rich and cultured; all world-famous classical musicians, and that Bobby had abandoned a promising career as a pianist to sling pipe, drink beer and chase women. In fact, he loathes the high life and the sophisticated, intellectual dinner guests who show up at the compound. Bobby endures the high-brow chit chat as best he can, until one of the guests begins patronizing Rayette’s curious country mannerisms, at which point he rips into the guest and everybody else in the room. It’s one of those epic rants that only Jack Nicholson can do so well.

The reason Five Easy Pieces, which premiered in 1970, comes to mind today, is that Hollywood hasn’t made a movie about a real blue collar character since. The movie industry, for all its talk of being daring and edgy, is much too timid to look into that gulf between America’s elites and the blue collar workers

86 April 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com

who keep the machinery of civilization running.

Until Donald Trump declared his candidacy, there hasn’t been a national political figure who could claim to have credibility with blue collar America. Prior to 1972, the Democrats were the party of the working man. But in 1972, the Democrats nominated George McGovern, a far-left politician who was crushed in the general election by Richard Nixon, who appealed to the “silent majority.”

A decade later, Ronald Reagan dished up enough patriotism to create the Reagan Democrats. But aside from appeals to patriotism and law and order, the Republicans have never done much to improve the lot of America’s blue collar class. They aggressively shipped factory jobs overseas and stonewalled any attempt to create a serious infrastructure budget for the country. They nominated Mitt Romney as their last presidential candidate – the epitome of the banker elite. And they’re all for raising the retirement age to 70, having no inkling of what it would be like to work on a construction crew at the age of 70.

Only Trump seems to understand this.

Like him or not, agree with him or not – he pushed the Republican Humpty Dumpty off the wall, and now all the king’s horses and all king’s men aren’t going to put it back together again. It’s the price they’re going to have to pay, maybe for decades to come, for ignoring the fact that working-class Americans make up 58 percent of their party.

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