One of the tricks of wily survivors in the construction industry is to be forever on the lookout for ways to economize operations, while maintaining service and quality. Rankin Construction Inc., located outside Buffalo, NY, in business for 25 years, recently discovered a new way to cut costs and generate revenue. The company added a Bodine concrete pulverizer to its fleet. Rankin, a sewer, water and road contractor, was founded as D.L. Stephens Contracting and, later, Stephens and Rankin. The company had been stockpiling broken-up concrete with embedded rebar for approximately a decade. The solution of what to do with this 18 ft. (5.5 m) high, 2-acre (.8 ha) pile fell to Bryan Snyder, Rankin’s supervisor of equipment maintenance. He, in turn, looked to Bodine Manufacturing, a North American leader in the design and manufacture of heavy-equipment attachments. Bodine’s headquarters are 24 miles from Rankin’s location. Robert Johnson, Bodine design engineer, met with Snyder and John McClellan, Rankin’s operations manager. Johnson suggested that Bodine’s improved design concrete pulverizer would do the job. Bodine built the pulverizer, model APCP-230, to fit the Hitachi 330 dedicated to do the job, delivering it in just three weeks. Within the next five day, Rankin’s personnel agreed that the pulverizer was everything promised and more. It not only pulverized the concrete, but also cut the rebar to 3 ft. (.9 m) lengths and separated it. After two weeks of operation, the separated scrap rebar was sold to Thompson Metals & Disposal. Thompson sent its Caterpillar 225 equipped with a magnet to collect the metal. Rankin recovered more than half the cost of the pulverizer. “Not a bad payout,” said a Rankin employee. In addition to the huge pile of broken road concrete, Rankin had a variety of other types of concrete scrap including barriers, utility poles, pipe and bridge decking embedded with three layers of steel. “It [the decking] was more than a foot thick, so we thought it would present a challenge. However, Bodine’s ’big jaw’ won out. We busted up that bridge decking in no time,” said Gordon Diamond, Rankin machine operator. Douglas said the purchase of the Bodine pulverizer matches perfectly with the company’s philosophy of looking constantly for opportunities to do the job better, safer, quicker and more economically. And, with the longevity predicted for this unit, Rankin expects the payout will continue well into the future. Rankin employs approximately 200 people during the construction season, and 80 to 90 people off-season. Its fleet includes 11 hydraulic excavators, two road-milling machines, six Caterpillar D-4 and D-6 bulldozers, three graders and five wheel loaders. In addition, Rankin operates its own asphalt plant. For more information, call 800/269-0257.This story also appears on Construction Equipment Guide.
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