Exhibitionists

Yesterday I caught the train up to Birmingham to visit the UK Concrete Show. It's always interesting to see who else is doing what in the concrete pumping industry; as well as all the other new ideas and technologies across the concreting sector.

Having been very busy we decided we weren't going to be able to have a stall there this year and also one at Intermat in April. Transporting equipment, kitting out a space and all the additional requirements twice in almost as many months was going to stretch our resources a bit far. However it was good to pop up and have a look around.

Heaving it wasn't. I recognised many of the people wandering around as people who I had seen with stands of their own.

A few of us went up separately. One of our engineers left after an hour.

Still I enjoyed the chance to speak to a few of our clients and catch up with some of our sales and backup guys who are more often navigating their way around the great expansive corners of our country as they make sure all is well with our clients.

For those who turned up in the hope of seeing the Schwing Stetter stand, we will instead be showing off our new series 3 43 metre boom pump, our new mid range SP3800 stationary pump and our new Hi-Lo pressure control system at Intermat in April. See you there!

Open To Ideas

A few mornings ago, Rob our chief welding engineer asked me to get some video of something he had just finished customising.

A client had asked if we could adjust a truck mixer so the drum flap could open all the way up so the mixture could be properly inspected. The answer was of course 'yes' - we are an engineering company after all. So here we have the hydraulic fully opening drum flap on a mixer truck, custom engineered by the Schwing Stetter (UK) team.

Apparently the client was so impressed they have ordered a whole lot more of them!

You can see how it works here below. The first video was taken before the safety guard was attached so you can see the workings. The second is after it was put on.






See more about our customisation on our website here: http://www.schwing-stetter.co.uk/Pages/Customisation.aspxhttp://www.schwing-stetter.co.uk/Pages/Customisation.aspx.

Expert Advice

Having arrived early to ensure I was ready for a meeting first-thing about our quotations procedures, I was asked by Scott (our chief engineer) at about 8am if I could go and pick up a chap from the airport. Apparently his flight had been delayed by around two hours and, due to other commitments Andy wasn't able to pick him up at the later time.

Being in Perivale, Heathrow airport isn't actually very far away from us. If there was no traffic it would be a 30 minute round trip. However at around 8:30am? Middle of the morning rush? 30 minutes is almost taken up trying to reach the end of the road!

However, get there I did in the end (with the meeting postponed by a few hours). The chap turned out to be Andre, an engineer who had popped over from Germany (our main office and factory) for two days to help us sort out an issue with a client's machine.

Giving him a lift to his hotel on my way home at the end of the day, I found out it was one of our S61 SX mobile pumps (which is so big that the 5 axle chassis is dwarfed by the only half extended boom in this picture). He had come to sort out a difficult issue to do with the remote control system - which he had done. So now he was about to enjoy a well earned proper British cider or 2 (which he said is difficult to find in Germany) and a rest before visiting the client the next day.

Unknown Problems

A short while ago I was describing my new job to a friend and telling him about the wonders of concrete pumps. It turned out he had recently watched a documentary on concrete pumps and was genuinely interested in the concept. As he put it:

"It's amazing how many solutions there are to problems that most people don't even know exist."

Indeed until I had joined Schwing Stetter I had never really worried myself with the question of how wet concrete got to the top of skyscrapers. And here I am now selling solutions to that very problem!

It just shows how much knowledge there is out there and how little of it each of us have.

Great View

One of the things I really enjoy about this job is visiting some of the sites where our equipment is being used and in many cases noting how it is being used and how happy our customers are with it.

During one of these memorable occasions I visited a high rise development in Canary Wharf where they were using one of our SP2800 static pumps.

The offer to go right up to the top was too good to pass up. The view was spectacular (as you can see here.)

While there, I also managed to take this photo looking straight down with the actual pump visible in the picture and a truck pouring concrete into it.

It turned out to be such a great shot that I flipped it around a bit and used it in this ad which has featured in a couple of trade magazines. (You can enlarge these images by clicking on them.)

And yes, the customer was very happy with the machine!

The Schwing Stetter Blog

Hi,

I'm Simon Densley and I'm the marketing manager here at Schwing Stetter (UK) Ltd in Perivale, London (or Middlesex if you want to be particular).

As well as upgrading the company website, organising ads to go in trade magazines and ordering branded clothing, there are many interesting things I find my self doing or finding out about in this role.

For a start, the products we sell are amazing. And I'm not just saying that 'cos I'm supposed to be marketing them. What I mean is the whole concept of pumping wet concrete through pipes and the pressures involved is mind blowing. As Hughie Byrne, one of the directors pointed out the other day, a hand grenade explodes at 40bar (which is around 40 times normal atmospheric pressure). Our pumps are pushing concrete through pipes typically at over 100 bar. Our most powerful machine (SP 8800) can push at 243bar. That's some serious engineering.

That means we can push concrete to the top of any skyscraper or the length of any tunnel. And every part of that system, including the steel pipes and the couplings that join them, have to withstand those pressures, not occasionally, but every day for years and years. And they do. Only working with jet engines I think would surpass concrete pumps.

Of course we sell other concrete related engineering products as well including truck mixers, batching plants and recycling plants and they are all astonishing examples of precision engineering in their own ways when you come to know about them.

The other really amazing this here is how good the engineers are at their job. They are so versatile and can seemingly not only fashion anything out of steel but can add some hydraulics to make it do stuff as well!

So seeing as there is so much interesting stuff going on here, it seems the time has come for a Schwing Stetter blog. Enjoy!