A brief handbook for an autonomous construction site, written with the help of MB Crushers customers
How to organize a site in the most efficient and cost effective way? It's the question many operators ask themselves before starting a job, or even buying new equipment.
- What are the most compatible machines?
- How can I cut costs?
- How can I easily do the job?
- Is there a way to take advantage of the waste material?
- How can I organize my construction site safely?
These are just some of the problems that companies want answers to. Especially during this time where rules are more restrictive, we must work under strict safety protocols. Those who work on job sites need solutions make their job easier.
Concrete ways of making work on site easier
At least this is the word on construction sites all over the world, in particular those where they’ve installed MB Crusher units: crusher buckets, screeners, drum cutters, grapples, and shaft screeners, on their equipment.
This is where the idea of collecting stories of our customers experiences came from. Allowing us to better understand what opportunities and solutions new equipment and new technology can offer as valuable allies on the job site.
Brief handbook for an autonomous construction site
written with the help of MB Crusher customers
- Keep the site organized and clean
Effective site management helps eliminate danger and significantly reduce accidents. Benefits of an organizes jobsite: more efficient use of space, freedom to move, and fewer accidents on site. But above all, how important is it to choose suitable and efficient tools for the job?
This is what happened in Luxembourg during the construction of the European Union council’s new building. Here, a BF120.4 crusher bucket and an MB-S18 screening bucket, were both installed on Kobelco excavators, crushed and separated the resulting material from the demolished Jean Monnet building to construct the brand new Jean Monnet 2, a 22 story tower.
The MB jaw crusher processed 9,000 tons of demolition material, ensuring a daily production of 500 tons. The MB-S18 screening bucket selected and cleaned the material to speed up the process. A recycling station was practically created on the construction site.
The advantages? Reduced waste material hauling costs, an organized and clean construction site without material stockpiles, and the autonomy to produce crushed material.
Easy! Two excavators and two operators are all you need.
A cleaner construction site is safer. With MB Crusher equipment, it’s also cheaper. - Improve logistics
Limiting what gets transported on and off your site means saving money and reducing traffic around the job. This applies to construction sites in urban and residential centers and in places in high altitudes where transporting materials and machinery is complicated and above all, expensive.
A solution? Install the MB Crusher unit directly to your construction equipment. Which is what a company in Friuli, Italy, did. They were contracted to do different jobs for Civil Protection force and organized a construction site in record time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The job involved containing an escarpment, where it’s wasn’t possible to build reinforced concrete retaining walls due to the vertical drop of 15 meters. How did they decide to proceed? By removing the previous barrier and building a new one made of wood and stones. There were a few logistical problems. How were they going to bring the drainage gravel to the construction when the nearest supplier was an hour away? Then, there was another problem. The truck could only arrive 492 feet from the construction site so they also needed to find a way to transport the crushed stones to its final destination.
Mission impossible? No! Because by installing a MB-S10 screening bucket to the excavator already present on site, they began to select and clean the material they acquired from the previous barrier, while a MB-C50 crusher bucket crushed the stones. They then screened the material again to obtain regular sized and clean pebbles to make a state-of-the-art drainage system.
Material ready on site at no additional cost, eliminating hauling expenses, and a drastic reduction in processing time. Easy!
It was also easy for a company in Montana, United States, who dealt with major hauling and supply problems. Before using MB’s crusher bucket, they threw away most of the stones from their excavation, since taking them to a disposal center would have been too expensive and would have required downtime. Since they already had an excavator on site, they decided to install a BF120.4 crusher bucket to crush the material and reuse it as a base for road work.
What used to take two hours, now only takes 15 minutes. Easy!
- Recycle the waste material and limit the purchase of new materials
Crushing and separating material on site allows the construction site to be autonomous and free from disposal and transport costs. The job is easy. In fact, the material recycled with MB Crusher products can be immediately reused on site for fill, new construction, and other jobs. Or it can be put back on the market and sold.
This is how a company in Germany thought to install a MB-L200 crusher bucket on their Komatsu WA100 wheel loader. By simply sitting inside the cabin, the operator cleared their site from waste and inert material, and rebar.
They practically created their own recycling center on site, then made it into a new service of their business. In fact, now they also take delivery of other inert materials to be recycled, with their crusher, they sell the crushed material at a 0-20mm to customers who need aggregate. Not only that, their yard also has the BF120.4 crusher bucket which produces crushed material to use as substrate. A quick and easy solution.
The same can be said with natural rocks, which can be crushed, screened, then recycled on the spot, then reused. All you need is an excavator, an operator, and MB Crusher equipment. With MB Crusher units, material doesn’t need to be transported, instead, it’s the equipment that produces it on site at the desired output size.
The three Rs, reduce, reuse, and recycle, make circular economy more accessible, especially during this time, when receiving a supply of material can be slowed down or even impossible. - Become autonomous
Recycling the material directly on site also means becoming independent and cutting costs rather than relying on third party services.
Before purchasing the MB-L140 crusher bucket, a company in Australia bought the material from an external supplier, but this meant purchasing and hauling expenses , and a longer turnaround, depending on who they purchased the material from. In short, wasting time and money. They installed an MB Crusher unit on their Bobcat and turned it into a real crusher. Thanks to the design and structure of the MB crusher, the crushed material is good quality and ready to use. In fact, they now recycle the material from demolished houses and reused it on other construction sites, a method that’s required by Australian building permits to prevent contamination. Not only that, they are also building a private road, at no additional costs, by reusing the material as a substrate.
It’s easy to be independent!
- Safety on the job
With the crusher bucket, it is possible to crush the material down to the size you need, and if there is iron, you collect it and put it in a separate pile.
You just need the excavator’s operator, who alone can install and operate the unit, he can also adjust the output size, separate the rebar, and provide maintenance to the unit.
The job site is clean and organized, while saving money. The processing cycle is shortened and there is no need to use additional machinery; for example, a company in Russia crushes directly over the truck. “We work smoothly – they emphasize – we have not had machine downtime and our operator is completely autonomous and works safely.”
Avoiding extra steps significantly reduces costs, speeds up operations, and thanks to the BF90.3 crusher bucket, a company in Denmark reduced the possibility of accidents. A nice, tidy, and organized yard, with no scattered debris, represents greater operational fluidity. They even crush the material to the right output size for substrates directly onto the bed of the truck. In just one easy step!
Lastly, the only thing that can be recommended is to read the instructions carefully before using the equipment. Remember that MB Crusher units are an investment that pays for itself in a short time, does not weigh on the transport costs of the fleet, are simple to use and require little maintenance.