Many of the Mack trucks used by USA-based Brundage-Bone, the world’s largest concrete pumping company, spend much of the day suspended in mid-air.
Since its founding three decades ago, Brundage-Bone has consistently used Mack Trucks in preference to other brands.
The concrete pumping trucks work on infrastructure sites that ready-mix trucks cannot access, including high-rise buildings, stadiums and bridges.
Four outriggers stabilise the vehicles when pumping concrete, which lifts some or all the truck tyres off the ground.
The truck’s position places a unique strain on the suspension, steering and many of the components. Concrete is also abrasive and wears down parts it contacts. Each truck loads to full capacity.
Brundage-Bone Concrete Pumping president and chief executive officer Bruce Young says that the vehicles complete 100% of truck hours and km at maximum capacity.
Uptime is essential. The pumping units are highly specialised and very expensive, as well as being few in number.
“Eliminating any downtime is key to success since there are limited backup options if even one of the trucks is out of service,” says Young.
Mack Trucks has invested heavily in uptime solutions tailored to the concrete pumping industry.
On the vehicle side, it worked with Brundage-Bone to find specific solutions to maximise payload and reliability.
While, on the service side, Mack Trucks provides its customers in the concrete pumping business with dedicated service and support in the USA. Manning its support hotline are professionals with extensive experience from the industry.
The team integrates with Mack Trucks GuardDog Connect telematics system, which monitors the health of vehicles.
Most of Brundage-Bone’s 450 concrete pumping vehicles are Mack TerraPro Cab-overs. But, as Brundage-Bone has developed its business to include a concrete recycling division, Eco-Pan, its vehicle fleet has diversified.
The concrete recycling side of the company makes use of 60 Mack Granite Flatbed trucks with knuckle booms, a vehicle configuration that is the product of Mack’s work with the company to design a new truck that maximises payload.
Now, Brundage-Bone is updating its fleet with mDRIVE, which it hopes will help them recruit and retain drivers. Even though everyday reliability is the largest factor in choosing its vehicles, the truck as a working environment is becoming an increasingly important factor.
“We’ve started to focus more on driver comforts,” says Young.
