Koppen Construction has built its reputation on delivering quality infrastructure in some of Australia’s toughest climates. Director Scott Koppen tells Roads & Infrastructure how a partnership with Wirtgen Group has helped.
Building a career in road construction in Australia requires the ability to face a broad spectrum of challenges head on – from harsh climates and unpredictable weather, to the logistics of covering such a vast continent.
Nowhere is this truer than in the remote pockets of northern Queensland, where civil infrastructure business Koppen Construction has earned the trust of governments and private clients alike.
Road infrastructure is a key area of speciality for the business, with its dedicated bitumen and stabilising divisions combining to offer full end-to-end solutions, from material supply to maintenance.
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Director Scott Koppen says delivering timely results in some of Australia’s most isolated areas requires an extremely high degree of planning, discipline, and communication.
“We’re based in Cairns, and work in some pretty remote parts of far-north Queensland,” he says. “There are a lot of logistical problems that come with that. We’ll often be without mobile reception and have to rely on satellite phones.”
This also means finding equipment you can trust to get the job done – especially when the going gets tough.
Koppen says this is why his business has turned to machinery from Wirtgen Group time and again for more than 10 years.
“Our relationship with Wirtgen started with our first stabiliser,” he says. “Since then, we’ve added pavers, milling machines, and have recently purchased a second WR 240 stabiliser.”
Koppen says the purchase of this second stabiliser was driven predominantly by the needs of a major project that Koppen Construction is currently undertaking with the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, on the Flinders Highway near the outback town of Julia Creek in the state’s north.
This project involves the strengthening and widening of the road in a section of floodway, using foam bitumen technology and lime stabilisation techniques to maximise flexibility, durability, and flood resilience.
The foam bitumen process involves mixing a bitumen binder with a small amount of water to create a foam, which is then blended with reclaimed material to create a flexible and rainfall-tolerant pavement. The use of lime stabilisation on the Flinders Highway project aims to further enhance volumetric stability.
“We also use one of Wirtgen and STREUMASTER’s spreader trucks to spread the quick lime for this application,” Koppen says.
Pavement stabilisation has become an area of increased focus for the Koppen Construction business, as the process offers a range of sustainability benefits – something Koppen says is only magnified in remote areas and arid climates.
“Many of these areas have pretty limited water,” he says. “Stabilisation enables water savings, as it involves mixing the water directly into the ground – rather than having water trucks spraying it everywhere, where it evaporates or blows away in the wind.”
Koppen says alternative methods would likely necessitate trucking water into these regions at great expense.
“Water conservation is really important where we are,” he says. “On the Flinders Highway project, we’re relying on bore water – so we’re limited by what the bore can produce.”
Stability manifest
The Wirtgen WR 240 is designed as a versatile, all-rounder cold recycler and soil stabiliser, with its 2.4-metre working width and maximum 510-millimetre working depth providing flexibility for a range of applications.
For Koppen, there are several factors that set the WR 240 apart.
“I buy Wirtgen because of the overall build quality of the equipment, as well as the precision of their technology,” Koppen says. “We also do a lot of work with foam bitumen, and Wirtgen’s stabilisers have this patented foam bitumen spray bar package available, which allows us to inject the foamed-up bitumen into the gravel as we’re mixing.
“And they have the process all computerised, so it’s measured properly and accurately to provide that quality assurance. We always know it’s going to do a great job.”
For the Koppen Construction team, there’s also the added confidence that Wirtgen Group will be ready with backup support at the drop of a hat – especially when the pressure is on in the middle of nowhere.
“Wirtgen’s support has always been good,” Koppen says. “Often these machines are working on main roads or busy intersections. If you rip a road up and your machine breaks down, that can mean huge traffic disruption.
“I’ve been on a job in Cairns where we needed a part on a Friday afternoon, and their team sorted it out and had us back up and running on Saturday morning. You can’t complain about that.”
This article was originally published in the April edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.