Newsletter - August 2021

AUGUST 2021

ARMCON

WHAT'S INSIDE?

ALL NEW ARMCON

The latest updates from us, what are we up to?

Recent workshop jobs Exclusive insight into the designing of the DURALIGHT from our Technical Manager A look into how our Employee-Owned status has helped our team and customers

...ADVANCING CONCRETE DELIVERY

PAGE 1

WELCOME BACK TO THE ARMCON NEWS!

DuraLight - after all, our customers operate these mixers daily and know what they need!

If you did not know already, Armcon transitioned into being employee-owned in early 2021. This has inevitably created a lot of changes to Armcon, one of which is this very newsletter! Our recent survey in March 2021 revealed that our customers used to enjoy Armcon News - so we want to bring it back and keep you updated on what we're doing!

Welcome everyone, to the first Armcon Newsletter since the company became employee owned.

The company has undergone major transformation since the change of ownership and the new Armcon has a real focus on delivering high quality products, at competitive prices married to exceptional aftersales and customer service.

I hope you enjoy this first newsletter and I look forward to meeting you all and telling you all about our new company philosophy 'The Armcon Way.'

Sean Warburton Managing Director

So up to now, we've taken a lot of time working on feedback we've received over the last months; this includes repricing, restrucuring and redesigning. When evaluating our pricing for parts and engineering, it became apparent that we were not doing everything we could to remain competitive, and more importantly, not achieving our aim of putting our customers at the forefront. Our improved pricing strategy means our customers are able to still receive premium parts and service, but for a fair price.

We've also been around the country to see customers and get an insight into day-to-day activities so that we can have an understanding of what is required from our product range. As a result of this, there have been several changes to our

Another major change to Armcon is that we are creating more conversation with our customers through social media. We want to communicate the capabilities of our products, give helpful information and tips as well as expose our products further to help our customers. We love to showcase the engineers' work, give updates on promotions and boast the hard efforts that have gone into making sure Armcon has served its purpose of helping your business progress.

Not only this, but we have also made some serious improvements to the website. This includes content, usability and useful information - such as our new monthly blogs which discuss all things Armcon and the concrete industry!

We have one last change that the team at Armcon are bursting with excitement to announce...but you'll have to be patient and wait for our next newsletter!

And so, that's the new and improved Armcon, improving customer experience, advancing concrete delivery, and more importantly...setting a new benchmark in the industry.

ALL NEW ARMCON

PAGE 2

A LOOK TO THE FUTURE A PIECE FROM ONE OF OUR SERVICE ENGINEERS, PHIL HARVEY. AND KEVIN SMITH, PARTS MANAGER TALKS ABOUT HOW THE EMPLOYEEOWNED STATUS HAS HELPED HIS CUSTOMERS.

In a world where materials such as cement are sparse, it's become increasingly important to regularly get your volumetric concrete mixer calibrated. And not just any calibrations, they are required to be completely accurate for a business to run most efficiently.

Regular calibrations are crucial to ensure that you know exactly how much of each material is being used, and that the amount of concrete being delivered is accurate. Without a calibration there is the potential to over-deliver and under-charge costly materials such as cement, and even to deliver more concrete than you have charged for and reduce your profit margin. It is also possible to under-deliver concrete, or to fail to achieve the required compressive strength, all of which damages your reputation – getting it right is of paramount importance.

Armcon provide an independent service to all users of volumetric concrete dispensers. These calibrations comply with the requirements of QSRMC, BSI, ASTM C 685-92a and EN206. We pride ourselves on having the highest of standards when carrying out the calibrations, and our method is

simple - be concise.

We now have a two-tier pricing structure for our calibration work, a regular calibration and a premium calibration.

The reason we calibrate a volumetric mixer is to ensure the machine accurately produces concrete with the correct proportions of aggregates and cement. It is also to ensure the machine is yielding correctly. In terms of frequency, it is recommended that the calibrations be carried out in three month intervals to ensure maximum efficiency and accuracy.

accurate sample weights than required, ultimately resulting in inaccuracies with the production process and the yield anomalies which gives customers no confidence in the concrete they are producing.

This is why at Armcon we always say, 'buy cheap, buy twice!'

I have been on endless calibration call outs whereby competitors have carried out innaccurate calibrations by cutting multiple, and crucial corners. For example, taking less

Becoming an employee owned business has allowed me the opportunity to have a real input in to how we operate our aftermarket department. The result is I can offer competitive parts prices married to an unrivalled level of customer service and product knowledge. With the new 'Armcon way,' there are exciting times ahead and I can't wait to build even stronger relationships with our customers

ARMCON

PAGE 3

THE BIG REFURB

THE INDUSTRY'S MOST EXPERIENCED ENGINEERS COMPLETELY REFURBISH L&S CONCRETE'S 8 YEAR OLD MIXER. With current chassis order delays the industry faces, this service is proving to become more popular. Refurbishments mean that you can extend the life of your existing mixer. This means that whilst waiting for a new mixer order, operators can improve their performance of their old mixers... and what a better place to come than to us!

Our latest refurbishment was an 8-yearold mixer owned by L&S Waste Management. The volumetric mixer came in old, rusted and components had begun to wear away, it was only right to treat it to the full refurb!

The process was easy for our specialists. First, the mixer was removed from the chassis so our engineers had easy access to the mixer body. Every last component was removed and assessed for excess wear and damage and replaced, where required.

The aggregate bin was in a sorry state and so was removed, along with sections of the subframe.

A new aggregate bin and subframe sections were then fabricated and welded into place. The mixer body was then shot-blasted along with the chassis rails and wheels and then sprayed in the customer’s fleet colour; shot-blasting maximises paint freshness and minimises peeling of paint after wear. Then the re-build was ready to go!

We would just want to say a big thank you to the team at Armcon, we are very impressed and delighted at the refurbishment work recently carried out on one of our Volumetric mixers, we barely recognised our old mixer. It’s clear that there’s been a change at Armcon, and for the better! The service we received was great as they kept consistent communication with us from day one. A nice touch was the progress update pictures they provided, it was exciting and nice to know how it’s getting along

A completely new conveyor assembly was installed with all new shafts, bearings, sprockets, and material guides. A new fibre chopper, new steel aggregate bin extensions, new work-lights and beacons, new mud wings front and rear, new aggregate deflector, new guards where required, new wear blades, a refurbished actuator, all hydraulic motors and rams were resealed and new hydraulic oil and filters. Once the mixer had been remounted to the chassis, all the chassis cab plastics were resprayed and the cab was finished off with a professional valet.

L&S were so impressed by our work that they immediately sent in another mixer for a refurbishment!

Dominic Sales Transport and Plant Manager at L&S

PAGE 4

DESIGNING THE MOST RELIABLE MIXER IN THE MARKET

HEAR HOW THE DURALIGHT WAS DESIGNED FROM OUR VERY OWN TECHNICAL MANAGER, BEN MARSH

The new legislation put in place in 2018, meant that volumetric concrete mixers are restricted at a GVW (gross vehicle weight) of 32,000kg.

We felt that 8m³ would still make volumetric mixers a viable alternative to drum mixers and, based on analysis of typical batch sizes and number of jobs per day (using Armwatch data) it wouldn’t make a huge difference to our, customers' businesses day to day – some days there would be an extra trip back to the depot to load more materials, but other days it would be the same as it was with the old design machines. Another thing which contributed to our decisions was to lower the lead times.

So that set our design brief – 8m³ payload at 32,000kg, with lower costs and faster lead times so that we could pass these benefits onto our customers. However, this could not be at the expense of quality or durability, which must be equivalent or greater to that of the machines which our customers are used to owning and operating.

The way we chose to achieve this specification was to look at every aspect of the mixer individually and critically evaluate how we could remove unnecessary material and simplify the design to save weight, without sacrificing any strength. We also analysed all the components used to see where we could replace imperial parts with metric versions which offered better value for money. Examples include the subframe and mixer frame, which replaced complex structural steel with Strenx high strength steel pressings which are 2.5 times stronger than the material used previously, allowing less material to be used without decreasing the strength of the structure.

As Armcon were already using Hardox as an SSAB approved ‘Hardox In My Body’ member, this opened up the other products in their range to us and Armcon soon became an accredited ‘My Inner Strenx ’ member too. The cement system also went through a significant transformation, simplifying the design by using a single metering and delivery auger – removing 2 augers and the cement clutch and gear arrangement but still being able to deliver from 150kg/m³ to 400kg/m³, saving yet more unnecessary weight. A move to a rotationally moulded polymer cement bin, shed further kilos and brought advantages such as improved material flow due to the very low friction material. We went through many iterations of the cement delivery design before settling on one which gave the most consistent delivery of materials throughout the full load.

We also completely updated the hydraulic system, changing from heavy gear pumps circulating oil all the time to a load sensing system, which only pumps the oil when it is needed.This allowed us to use a smaller tank with an oil cooler, reducing the oil capacity by over 50%.

design. The direct mount lift cylinder allowed the old lifting fabrications to be removed too, further reducing weight and cost.

Maintenance wasn’t forgotten either – we improved the chain lubrication system which previously became easily blocked and routed this to the conveyor and cement drive chains as well as the chain & belt. We also added the option of an auto-greasing system to deliver the correct amount of grease to all bearings and pivot points. Other touches like making the bottom bearing changeable without removing the auger, and up rating the bearing to have a higher load rating than anything fitted to previous mixer designs reduces downtime as much as possible. Our wear blades now sit over the top of the flighting, so the steel no longer wears down – only the sacrificial part becomes worn (and it makes replacement easier too as the blades locate on top of the flighting to make positioning them easier). We also wanted to make our machine easier to use, so the extension chutes are now lighter and easier to handle (as well as safer).

We also replaced the rotary actuator with a swivel cylinder and king pin arrangement, which brought the cost down significantly and is a much more robust and reliable

ARMCON

ARMCON

A SNEAK PEAK BEHIND THE SCENES SOMETHING BIG IS COMING With new beginnings comes a fresh outlook. Over the last few months, we've been working on some exciting projects here at Armcon.

We all want the new 'Armcon way' culture to be reflected in all of our decisions in the business to provide an elite customer experience. We've got new staff, new designs, new products and a new look, added to the benefit of quality products, exceptional customer service and the most experienced team in the UK volumetric concrete mixer industry. Our ambition is to make customers excited about Armcon again and know that things have changed, and for the better!

With an industry-best, committed team we want to say thank you to our customers for being patient during this time it has taken us to turn over a new leaf. We also want to take time to listen to our customers and what they require to keep their businesses successful.

This is why we are adopting an 'open' communication approach. We want to hear from you so we can continiously improve our products and customer experience.

WHAT'S NEXT? FOLLOW US @ARMCONLTD @ARMCONMIXERS ARMCON LIMITED ARMCON LIMITED

THE NEXT BATCH OF DURALIGHT MIXERS ARE GOING THROUGH PRODUCTION THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS THE DESIGNING OF A NEW PRODUCT RANGE