Thu April 14, 2022 - Southeast Edition #8 CEG

The purchase and use of Cemen Tech volumetric concrete mixers have been leading to new revenue streams and new retail business for many contractors. The mix design, high quality of concrete pours and the ability to "adjust on the fly" the amount of concrete used on any given project was just the recipe for Atlanta based contractors' Blackjack Paving and Sunbelt Asphalt.

The time and money savings of having a driver of a truck with a pre-determined volume and mix for each job site provides effective tracking of every single yard of concrete poured and detailed access to production data. Online scheduling and real-time dispatch communication technology of the driver helps improve the overall process.

Sunbelt Site-Mix's Mark Edgar (L) and Spencer McCroskey

Sunbelt Site-Mix's Mark Edgar (L) and Spencer McCroskey

Rather than the traditional means of having a concrete mixer transport material in a rotating barrel that may be getting hot or drying while sitting in traffic, the Cemen Tech process provides concrete "on demand or on the fly." From the psi of the pour all the way to the overall mix, all aspects of final composition and pour can be changed at any time. From the fiber to the concrete coloration to the moisture level, it's all completely on demand, with zero waste and the customer gets exactly what they pay for — fresh, brand new concrete.

Once the Cemen Tech trucks are purchased, stockpiling essentials, including 67 stone (or 89's if needed), sand, additives, chemicals, hardeners and siloing cement dust, is the first order of business for concrete production.

Blackjack Paving and Sunbelt Asphalt both utilize the Cemen Tech Accu Pour system that feeds all jobsite info directly from their offices into a driver's iPad. The driver goes to the site, creates the mix and the quantity, and makes the pour without having to check in with anyone.

At Sunbelt Asphalt based in Auburn, Ga., Spencer McCroskey and Mark Edgar have been using Cemen Tech products for just over three years. The need and demand for concrete pushed the purchase.

Sunbelt was ordering cement two weeks in advance and just hoping it would arrive, according to McCroskey and Edgar. The decision was made to take care of themselves and produce their own cement through the purchase of Cemen Tech trucks. With its ability to produce its own concrete, the demand from other contractors pushed Sunbelt's concrete production to more than 90 percent going to other contractors and led to the start of one of its newest companies: Sunbelt Site-Mix.

"We have three trucks, and mostly one truck stays with us while the other two go to supply our customers for outside sales. The competitive advantage is that we can easily move from area to area on a job site or from customer to customer and create a unique mix at each stop," said Edgar.

"On cold days, we can add a little more calcium or a little less water than a concrete plant for our needs at the site to compensate for weather conditions. So rather than waiting hours and hours for concrete to dry, we can adjust the drying time by changing the contents of the mixture," McCroskey said.

"If one of our local counties or municipalities needs a couple yards for a night job. We can easily accommodate them by going to a site without them having to fire up a concrete plant in the middle of the night for an emergency concrete job," Edgar added.

"We're paving people. It only took a couple of months [but] with these trucks now we're concrete people too. It's the easiest business to get into. It doesn't require a lot of extra employees and is profitable in a short amount of time. These trucks pretty much paid for themselves within the first year of ownership," Edgar said.

At Blackjack Paving based in Fairburn, Ga., Brad Kaufman and Jay Herzog have been quite successful with their Cemen Tech purchases. So much so, that they now own four Cemen Tech trucks and have created a subsidiary company, Blackjack Concrete — all in less than one year.

"The true benefit of the volumetric truck is that it makes the exact amount of concrete you need," Kaufman said. "Let's say you need an extra yard or two that wasn't in the original order; we can make it while we're there. When most contractors need 3 yards of concrete sent in a conventional concrete truck, to ensure they have enough for the job they're ordering as much as 4 to 7 yards. They're paying for the extra amount that probably won't be used."

"These trucks are essentially a concrete plant on wheels," Herzog said. "For larger pours, if we do something like an entire subdivision or anything on a larger scale, we stockpile the aggregate, the sand, have a water source, bring a mobile cement silo onsite. So, in essence, we can do a constant pour with a couple trucks and just constantly keep feeding it material for a continuous creation of concrete.

"With this process, we can easily be set in place for the needs of a building contractor where we could do six to eight driveways a day for subdivision construction."

"In the past, we would have to locate and source the concrete we needed and hope that the concrete would show up when and where we requested delivery. With Cemen Tech, we control the process from start to finish," Kaufman said.

"Dealer support from Reynolds Warren has been fabulous. We decided to move forward with these purchases because of their support and then these products sold themselves," Herzog said. "We did this because of the Sunbelt Asphalt team. They've always been kind of a business partner of ours. They're on the north side of Atlanta, we're on the south side and we help each other out. We support each other through information sharing and logistical support in our service areas. They've been running Cemen Tech trucks for several years and they motivated us by showing how great of a revenue stream this can be for us. It was just a good business decision." CEG

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