A Wisconsin contractor’s robotic units give him the ability to finish jobs when others are still getting started.
Sawing Co. invested in an entire toolbox of concrete cutting
and demolition attachments for its Brokk units.
Photos courtesy of Interstate Sawing Co.
Sometimes an eye for innovation and the courage to take a risk is enough. For Duke Long, owner of Interstate Sawing Co. in West Bend, Wis., that formula is the very secret to his success. And it’s led his company to approach demolition work from a unique perspective.
In November 1996, with his wife Sandi by his side, more than 10 years of experience in concrete cutting and 15 more in road construction, Long launched Interstate Sawing.
“Sandi and I sold everything we had,” Long says. “I bought two road saws and a brand new pickup, and we paid our mortgage upfront for the entire year. We housed the company out of our garage and had only $30,000 to get through the first year.”
After the first nine months, the Longs realized the company would do more than just survive. With additional equipment and staff, it seemed the two knew the secret to make a business grow. Others took notice.
“Our local bank saw that we were growing and came knocking on our door asking for our business,” Long says. “They wanted to give us a line of credit and help us finance five more trucks.”
Today, the company has 25 employees and business isn’t showing signs of slowing. It’s growth Long attributes to his passion for innovation and a willingness to step outside his comfort zone. Venturing into the unknown with the purchase of a Brokk remote-controlled machine was one of those risks that proved to be the turning point, Long says.
One hour
Long has a saying when describing Brokk machines: “You won’t believe it.” It’s what he tells customers about them, because as Long says, that’s what he’s experienced with them.
“I’ll come out to a jobsite,” he says, “and the person will look at me and the Brokk robot and ask, ‘What are you going to do with that thing?’ I tell him, ‘Give me one hour. You won’t believe what I’m going to do with it.’”
for confined spaces.
Brokk’s remote-controlled units first caught Long’s eye 10 years ago at the World of Concrete. Long was immediately intrigued, but he wanted to take some time to learn more about the machines. In 2007, with the ideal project at hand, Long decided to finally purchase his first Brokk robot.
“I knew I had the perfect job for the machine, but I was still nervous about the purchase and the unknown,” Long says. “But I ripped the Band-Aid off, purchased the machine and took it on our first Brokk job at a nearby high school that needed some concrete cutting.”
In addition to Interstate Sawing’s contract for cutting, the school district had solicited bids for demolition. The area that needed the demolition work was very sensitive and in a confined space, with surroundings that couldn’t be touched.
The company that originally won the contract didn’t want to get close to it. So Long’s team stepped in and took on both the concrete cutting and the demolition work.
“I’d cut the concrete and crush it as we went along, which kept everything very stable,” Long says. “It worked great, and I was amazed by the Brokk machine’s capabilities.”
Along with the Brokk unit, Long invested in a toolbox of concrete cutting and demolition attachments. The toolbox allows him and his crews to perform breaking, crushing, cutting and lifting of concrete slabs, to load debris with a bucket and remove it from the site. It’s a unique combination of capabilities that has not only expanded opportunities, Long says, but has helped him stand out from his competitors.
With those tools at hand and the capabilities they provide, Long has been able to morph his business from concrete cutting into a unique hybrid combination of concrete cutting and demolition work.
Spreading like wildfire
work at a high school in Menomonee Falls, Wis.
The first year Long morphed his business, the very nature of it changed, he says.
“Everyone was talking about these robots, and I was going from job to job,” Long says. “Within that first year, I knew incorporating Brokk robots into our equipment fleet was the best thing I could ever have done for the company.”
Customers throughout Wisconsin were hearing the buzz about Long and his remote-controlled demolition machines. But the chatter didn’t stop there. Interstate Sawing was getting jobs in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and North Dakota, too. Thanks to the Brokk machines, Long was growing his territory and extending his work year.
Brokk robots are not only remote controlled but they’re fully electric, meaning they’re both emission-free and quiet during operation. That combination means they can perform indoor work in winter months without causing disruption for businesses.
“Being located in Wisconsin means we’re mostly seasonal work,” Long says. “The robots have allowed us to go into hospitals, food plants, factories and schools – places that can’t have exhaust in the buildings. This has stretched our season to March through January, going from four months of downtime to only one or two. That’s a huge difference right there.”
As the season and number of projects have grown, so has Interstate Sawing’s fleet of Brokk machines. Long now has six units, ranging from the Brokk 50 to the Brokk 400, and the work they do continues to impress customers and prospects, he says.
Innovation redefined
While Long attributes much of his company’s growth to always keeping an eye out for the next best thing, he’s also always looking for ways to make that next best thing even better. This has included thinking about innovative new ways to use the Brokk machines, and Long has even created a few attachments of his own for the units.
“The Brokk robots’ capabilities are truly unbelievable,” he says. “Every job I’m on, I’m always coming up with new ideas. Along with all of the company’s attachments, we’ve made plungers that we have attached to the Brokk equipment, which enable us to easily pick up a 5-ft. x 5-ft. slab of concrete with no trouble at all.”
In fact, at one location, Interstate Sawing removed 10,000 sq. ft. of concrete in two days.
Along with plungers, Long’s team has designed and engineered air compressors, chisels for soft demolition and platforms for Brokk machines to sit while being hoisted by a crane. When Long gets an idea for an attachment, he’ll work with a machinist to design, build, test and tweak until it’s perfect.
Cash back
meaning work can be performed indoors without
causing disruption.
It’s been five years since Long purchased his first Brokk robot, but the possibilities continue to excite him. Last summer, Long and one of his crews took a job at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. The project entailed soft and hard demolition of a building called Evans Hall. The crews were to take down 24 staircases – four sets on each of the six stories – as well as all the ceilings and plaster. Evans Hall is a historical building on the college campus, so all the demolition needed to be done without sacrificing its historical integrity.
Traditionally, this job would have been completed using all manual labor – and dangerous labor at that. Labor would normally be completed with hammers, which causes mesh and plaster to scatter. With the Brokk machine, an operator was able to stand 20 ft. away while working from the inside out, effortlessly demolishing staircases and tearing the plaster off the mesh. Interstate Sawing completed the job in four weeks.
“After the work was completed, I was told that what we did with the Brokk robot would have taken 20 guys to keep up, and that was just in the first two hours,” Long says. “After that, the difference was incalculable.”
On top of the efficiency, Long’s team came in at one-third of the budgeted cost for soft demolition. That means two-thirds of what his customer budgeted for soft demolition, and 100 percent of what was budgeted for hard demolition went straight to his customer’s bottom line.
“It definitely put us on the map with that customer,” Long says.
Being a first-generation concrete cutting and demolition business owner, Long says he’s enjoyed paving his own way.
“Fail or succeed, it didn’t really matter, I was never going to be happy unless I pursued concrete cutting in my own way,” Long says. “I knew I could do it better than everyone else.”