We want everybody to get home at night. That’s why we talk about 100 percent safety.
Portable Plants: As Volvo evolves on the technology and safety fronts, how do you ensure your dealers are carrying out what you need them to do in the field, particularly on the quarry side?
Young: First, we offer training to our dealers. It’s super important for us.
I’ve said it since my days in uptime: We want to deliver a consistent experience and something customers can count on. That’s for uptime and that’s for safety.
That means it starts with a culture of safety. That’s been at the core of Volvo – its brand and its enterprise. So when we meet with dealers and talk about training, we start with safety because that should be embedded in everything we do.
If there’s new technology, we want to make sure they’re trained on it so when the customer engages with them, they can go out and service those solutions.
Portable Plants: Also during the press conference, Volvo touched on recent facility investments in North America. What do those investments tangibly mean for your customers?
Young: When we make that investment, it’s not only about what we have there but it creates resiliency in our supply chain.
Having resiliency and efficiency in our supply chain is super important. It helps strengthen our partnerships with supply partners and with our dealers so we’re better at delivering.
There’s also an aspect where having that footprint in North America helps support the product, because we have strong partnerships we bring to the table. It should give customers confidence – and it does – when we have that locally produced and can provide a faster solution and the support that comes with it – because we’ve invested in our supply base and strengthened that. That’s what customers are looking for.
If I can also mention parts supply: In terms of the Northwest, we’ve had parts supply in Reno, [Nevada]. We also have it in the Southeast and in Canada. We’ve been constantly expanding that footprint because we know it’s not only about being proactive, but also how quickly we can react with parts support. We’ve been delivering parts availability at the highest level in the last year.
Portable Plants: Lastly, autonomy: It’s been something to watch the last couple of years here in aggregates. Where is Volvo on this front? Is this something you’re hearing about from customers? Do you have any updates to share?
Young: We do have an autonomous group: Volvo Autonomous Solutions. They work with all of our brands – Volvo Trucks, Mack Trucks and also with Volvo Construction Equipment. That’s kind of at the core of where we do research and development.
But to your question – are customers asking about this? Yes, more than they have in the past.
I think customers are seeing that technologies like this – with the challenges of finding people and with the training to do the jobs they need done – provide opportunities where technology can enhance efficiency and productivity. So, we’re getting more questions.
I think we’re still probably in the early innings when it comes to smaller sites – a quarry versus a mine. You still have to rationalize how that adapts to what you’re doing in a quarry, because a quarry is a logistics operation. It’s quite dynamic, more so than a mine.
It’s about making sure we’re working closely with partners and our internal teams to say: ‘This is how we can provide that solution.’ It is something we focus on.
Instead of focusing only on autonomous solutions – or AI – we really want to drive customer outcomes. What is going to drive value for them on their site?
We don’t want to impose a solution on them. We want to work with the customer to find the solution.
Portable Plants: Anything else to add?
Young: I want to make sure people understand that we are heavily invested in North America on the construction equipment side to support customers in the quarry and aggregates space. We do quite well in that space today. Our product lineup is a good fit for it. We’re seeing expanded interest from customers, and with this investment, this is our step to say how important that market is.