Looking ahead to 2024, the Wirtgen Group has a multitude of exciting developments and advances slated for next year and beyond. Wirtgen’s upper management sheds light on what’s in store for customers.
Consisting of Wirtgen, Vögele, Hamm, Kleemann, Benninghoven and Ciber, the Wirtgen Group (a John Deere company) is responsible for the design, development and distribution of machinery for the road construction industry. This includes pavement construction, materials processing and more, Australia-wide and globally.
Next year is an exciting prospect for the group, with a ongoing focus on supporting sustainable and alternative solutions for industry clients.
These solutions target issues such as productivity and providing options to make road pavements more resilient in changing climatic conditions.
The current state of the economy will also present its own set of challenges for the company, as well as issues related to recruitment and retaining skilled personnel.
Despite these challenges, Wirtgen Australia Managing Director, Stuart Torpy, says the company has an optimistic outlook at 2024, with many opportunities to continue the product development and guidance for which the Wirtgen Group has become known.
“We’re always working on new developments in our wide range of equipment and the systems that importantly support the customers that use them. Our focus has been on deploying technology to assist customers increase efficiencies, whether that be at a machine or project level,” he says.
Setting the standard
One product that the Wirtgen Group continues to grow is Hamm’s Proximity Detection System, or PDS.
As Craig Yeats, Product Support Manager Hamm – Wirtgen Australia explains, Hamm’s PDS aims to ease concerns around accidental interactions between people, machinery and plant.
“Installing a PDS onto a roller can help prevent injury or damage on every job site. Increasingly, the request has been for systems that will automatically interrupt the drive and stop the machine should the operator not notice an imminent collision,” Yeats says.
“Hamm can now provide a standardised gateway for fully integrated proximity detection and control. The potential safety benefits of this cannot be overstated.”
As part of this push towards PDS, Hamm has adopted the ISO standard for the integration of these systems.
For the operator or fleet manager, this means they can select a PDS of their choosing (that’s also ISO compatible) for use on the Hamm system.
“ISO compliant means a language does not need to be developed every time a PDS goes onto a new machine. Hamm opted for this to eliminate the need to rewrite software to suit every PDS provider. It also benefits the third party PDS provider because they can develop a platform that should work with any other ISO-compliant OEM,” Yeats says.
“They can elect to use a warning system to alert the operator and other workers of possible danger, or a full control system to stop the machine when required. The customer is not restricted to a generic offering from the OEM – just like choosing new tyres or windscreen wiper blades for your car, you can pick whatever PDS suits you best.”
The PDS technology can be applied to all new rollers across the Hamm EASYDRIVE platform, with the extra ability to retrofit these systems to compatible rollers already being used. As a result, PDS can also be programmed for integration in two of Hamm’s newest machinery models, the HC Series of soil compactor and HP 100 multi tyred roller.
The former is a brand-new model that replaces both the H Series and the long-serving 3000 Series of soil roller. As Yeats explains.
“There is a lot to like about this new machine – operation, servicing, components – everything has been improved and optimised,” he says. “One of the standout improvements is the operator platform – along with the rest of the machine, the cabin has been completely redesigned with the operator in mind.
“This new HC Series also optimises the range of models offered, in that the same platform is used for all emission standards. So, when we eventually make the shift to Tier Four/EU stage V emissions standards, only the engine changes, the rest of the machine is exactly the same.”
The HP 100 multi-tyred roller is a mid-sized pneumatic tyred roller that fills the gap between Hamm’s 3.5-tonne HD14 TT and its larger HP180 and 280 models that max out at 18 and 28 tonnes respectively.
“Of course, both these machines come programmed for PDS integration,” Yeats says.
Accurate data and information
Wirtgen is also working to further develop its WPT technology, or ‘Wirtgen Performance Tracker’.
Brett Ferris, Product Support Manager Wirtgen Australia, says WPT is an extension of the previously used ‘Job Data’ function that could be used to provide insights and estimates around machine production.
“WPT takes this many steps further, by capturing GPS position, exact width of cut, depth of cut, fuel usage, water usage etc, and puts all this information into a job report that is sent via email direct to the customers email on the phone or computer. This means that the need for manually measuring a job site is eliminated, saving the customer labour costs, but also making the job site more efficient,” Ferris says.
“The accuracy of WPT has been proven to be down to one to three per cent of what a manual measure up has been.”
This feature is a plus for managers, who can be notified when jobs have been completed, as well as data sets around the movements of a machine during a particular shift.
“If a milling machine, for instance, has been sitting idle waiting for trucks most of the shift, it’s a good indicator that the job requires more trucking on the logistical side to get the most from the machine, meaning the machine is making the customer money, rather than burning fuel and labour at their cost,” Ferris says.
To support the use of sustainable methods, and to further increase efficiency, Wirtgen has also developed Autotrac. This feature provides precise automatic steering for wheeled recyclers to maximise their output, as well as environmental outcomes.
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Autotrac helps to solve legacy issues related to cold recycling, the process of turning a road or sub-base from a soft or failure state and turning it into a solid base.
“With cold recycling, no additional quarried material is needed to be brought to the job. This saves the end customer thousands when we look at trucks needed, fuel, labour, and of course less trucks on the road helps to reduce impacts on the environment,” Ferris says.
“Cold recycling and stabilising are different from milling as it’s sometimes hard to see what’s being cut. We are relying on job markings to identify where the previous cuts are.
“Autotrac is using the same hardware as WPT to draw a ‘straight edge’ between point A-and-B, so the lines are matched into a perfect grid formation. Alternatively, we can set a first cut as the design, allowing each additional cut to be identical.”
Ferris says Wirtgen foresees Autotrac becoming a popular option for recycling and stabilising contractors who want to get the most out of their production and minimise overlaps, accelerating production and reducing wear, labour and fuel costs to enhance profitability and job quality”.
“The best part about working for Wirtgen is just when I think that the technology couldn’t get much better, we bring out something new and exciting to push the sector forward,” he says.
“Autotrac is brand new, with the first into Australia arriving into our warehouse any day now, I am looking forward to showcasing that around the country.
Greater assistance
Included as part of the Wirtgen Group’s service is constant after-sales support and maintenance on request. A lot of these services are centralised in the company’s Operations Centre.
Mark Drury, Product Support Manager, Road and Mineral Technologies – Wirtgen Australia says the Operations Centre acts as a central platform for current and future digital solutions offered by the Wirtgen Group.
“Its primary purpose is to provide a user-friendly platform for customers to plan, monitor, and analyse various aspects of their road building projects,” he says.
“In terms of service, if the customer requires it, we can use Operations Centre to be the customers “third hand” to assist with flagging opportunities for operational improvements, maintenance planning and fault responses.”
The John Deere Operations Centre can be accessed through a desktop or a free mobile app.
If users are currently benefitting from WITOS telematics systems in their Wirtgen Group machines, they can merge them into the Operations Centre platform.
This means users won’t have to use two different systems. The new roadbuilding operational view gives operators a summary of consumption and utilisation data for all connected machines working within the same jobsite. These are broken down into categories such as milling, compaction, paving and more.
If machinery is equipped with the Wirtgen Performance Tracker, users can also access performance data such as distance, area, and volume for the jobsite.
When a machine begins to work in a new location, jobsites are automatically created and managed in the system.
Reports can also be generated from the system on an ad-hoc basis or schedule regular reports to be delivered by email.
These features help to save users time and reduce the total administrative workload.
“The operations centre is bound to evolve, and we are excited about its potential to serve as the foundation for innovative digital solutions. Our roadmap includes plans for the integration of existing solutions such as WITOS paving and Spective Connect,” Drury says.
Important aspects
Torpy says the company will continue to expand upon its services, assisting an industry that is still treating its wounds in terms of economic and skilled personnel shortage-related pressures.
“We’ve got many offerings to assist customers get through any challenges they may have, whether that be financial or otherwise, in good times or bad,” he says. “If we know a customer’s challenges, we’re more than up to the task of working a way through them that meets the needs of all parties.”
This also extends much further than just its customers.
The Wirtgen Group has taken up a leadership role in the wider industry, designing machinery and advocating for the use of sustainable construction methods and practices.
One such topic is the implementation and development of resilient roads.
Roads Australia predicts that to 2024-25, the estimated spend on road construction activity will be equal to $106 billion. And yet annual maintenance budgets are in the order of $7 billion.
Recycling, rehabilitation and resilience can all play a part in sustaining the quality and rollout of Australia’s sparse road network. Torpy believes the solution is within the sectors reach.
“Resilient roads and pavements are not a new concept. It should always be the aim of road designers and constructors to design and build roads that will cost effectively over their life provide the amenity required of our road transport task,” he says.
Torpy adds that Wirtgen is playing its part in this space.
“The Wirtgen Group has always been at the forefront of technologies and innovations that address bottlenecks, aid efficiencies, and overall produce a positive benefit in the infrastructure field,” he says.
Whether this be inventing the first diesel-powered road roller, or introducing road milling machines to the world, we’ve quickly attacked issues and supported ways of doing things more efficiently to address the needs of the day.
“By staying engaged with all sectors of industry we design and build equipment that enables these pavements to be built. And by staying at the innovative edge when it comes to proven technologies, such as foamed bitumen, Wirtgen has enabled those designers and constructors to build the pavements required.”
But discussions around this topic, as well as the adoption of other sustainable practices, are just in their infancy. As Torpy adds.
“The bigger issue the industry faces is breaking through the resistance that can be encountered at an asset owner level to more widely adopt products or technologies that can aid resiliency of pavements and deliver the cost-effective pavements required of today and into the future,” he says.
“Looking at the condition of Australia’s road networks and the competition for funding to maintain them, something has to change if we’re to stay mobile, safely. “Wirtgen are passionate about being part of the discussion and the solution.”
Despite these challenges, Torpy says he’s looking forward to the introduction of new technologies across Wirtgen’s range, with products such as Autotrac and WPT forming only a slice of the total 2024 release slate.
“We’ve taken great strides in developing and offering to market technologies that can take the load off operators, which permits either greater focus on remaining human demands, or good outcomes from operators who perhaps don’t have decades of experience,” he says.
“We’re about to see new roller models arrive in the country that’ll fill some voids and improve on already proven products particularly from the perspectives of efficiency and operator amenity.”
This article was originally published in the December edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.