Armcon Cementech MCD8M–150: in daily demand with 3 weeks of delivery.

A Derbyshire plant hire and excavation contractor reports that, within three weeks of starting service, its new Armcon Cementech MCD8M–150 volumetric mixer has enabled it to increase its out-of-hours highway maintenance and local government work. It is now operating daily on projects for Morrison Highway Maintenance on behalf of Derby City Council, as well as local contractors.

On a test-pour for Derby City Council, the MCD8M–150 demonstrated its ability to generate very high quality concrete. While the STI standard calls for a compressive strength of 10n/mm after a 7-day cure, the Cementech machine’s sample reached 18.5n/mm, rising to 26n/mm after 28 days. As a result, although there’s no formal contract as such with the Council, the machine goes out on jobs for them literally every day – and that’s within three weeks of going into service.

The company had started to look at volumetric mixers because they liked the fact that they would make us independent of the batching plant: as long as you have raw materials, the concrete is there as and when you need it. With the decision to go volumetric made, they considered Armcon Cementech stood out from other suppliers. They considered that the machine itself had excellent engineering quality throughout from steelwork to electronics. There’s no waste and it offers great ease of use.Their Company image is very important to them, and they are happy that this machine looks right and is right.”

Equally important, however, was the service that Armcon was able to offer the customer through every step of the order. We answered all their questions and arranged for thems to spend half a day with another of our customers to get a user’s perspective. And the in-service backup we provide was another important factor in their decision.

Fitted with a hydraulically-operated delivery chute and digital ticket printer – which gives precise details of both quantity and composition delivered – the mixer is capable of generating up to 8m³ of concrete at a 250 cement content. It is mounted on a Scania P-cab truck with an 8x4 chassis and 340bhp engine.