Manufacturer Insights: Reflecting on 2020 and forecasting 2021
Leaders from mobile equipment manufacturers offer perspective on the year that was, as well what to expect in the coming year
Finding ways to succeed
The industry remained resilient throughout 2020, says Superior’s John Garrison
Throughout this challenging year, the Superior Industries team remains resilient. We’re focused on customer and dealer relationships – and we continue to supply the solutions, service and parts support they need – while staying safe in the process. We’ve adapted to new ways of working in our manufacturing facilities, offices and remotely.
Like everyone else, we have a love/hate relationship with Zoom. There’s certainly been more video conferencing during the last seven months. Other than that, our businesses are considered essential, so work continues with a few extra precautions to protect our customers.
Despite the chaos caused by COVID-19, and recent ups and downs in capital equipment sales, we continue to see steady activity in various markets. For example, cost-efficient, flexible modular plant systems are seeing considerable popularity in the market; while producers are placing larger plant projects on hold in some cases.
In my opinion, I believe a very contentious election season has affected our business more than COVID-19. We’re looking forward to when the election is behind us and its grip on our markets loosens.
Regardless, the construction aggregates industry is so resilient. In spite of obstacles created by instability and inactivity in our government, we find a way to succeed. We predict uncertainty to continue affecting our business in 2021, but anticipate the start of a major recovery, too.
John Garrison is vice president of sales at Superior Industries.
Doing more with less
The pandemic spurred new ways of doing business, says Screen Machine’s Dave Stewart
We have maintained steady business throughout 2020, but we believe a decent year could have been a great year if it were not for the pandemic. I believe that is the general consensus throughout the industry among manufacturers, dealers and end users.
On the positive side, we have developed some new skills and procedures that will help us be more nimble and efficient going forward.
The pandemic prompted us to get more creative to maintain “business as usual.” Obviously, our sales team was greatly impacted due to travel restrictions, but they quickly adapted with Zoom meetings, more frequent phone calls and emails and sharing online videos. Now, they are traveling more frequently but still using those resources, as well.
The same goes for our product support team. They have done a number of virtual training sessions and virtual machine “walk-arounds” with dealers and end users. We also recorded and posted more than 200 quick tip videos for operating and maintaining our machines.
I would say the best word to describe the crushing and screening market is … improving. We do some fairly sophisticated market analytics with EDA and AEM data, and it was apparent the entire industry was significantly down during the first half of the year due to COVID-19. There was a definite shift in late summer, however, and we are seeing renewed interest and activity. We anticipate a strong finish to 2020 and a significant uptick in 2021.
We expect 2021 to be very strong. Hopefully with both the pandemic and an election year behind us, so much that was put off during 2020 will be back on the table. There has been so much uncertainty this year that prompted businesses to go to “wait and see” mode. We anticipate seeing a great amount of pent-up demand as that subsides.
Dave Stewart is director of marketing at Screen Machine.
On-the-fly adjustments kept industry businesses moving forward
Expect the industry to emerge stronger in 2021, says Haver & Boecker Niagara’s Peter Kilmurray
Demand for equipment has been strong for Haver & Boecker Niagara throughout 2020, even with the pandemic. We’ve taken steps to maintain reliability, including adding extra equipment component vendors to ensure we can continue production in the event of one vendor experiencing their own challenges.
Our North American facility is fortunate to have not had any known cases of COVID-19 and no lost time due to the pandemic. We put precautions into place early on to ensure the health of our employees and allow only essential visitors.
Additionally, deep connections to our customers remain important to us. Though the pandemic has interrupted our in-person approach, we’ve made our team available through video conferencing until we can be on site again.
It’s hard to predict how the construction industry will be in 2021, but the U.S. election is a key indicator that will affect where the economy and the industry may go. I believe that regardless of the outcome, there will be no option but to implement large infrastructure projects to give our North American economy a boost.
I’m confident that 2021 will see the industry bounce back strong with continued growth.
Peter Kilmurray is vice president of sales for North America and Australia at Haver & Boecker Niagara.
Opportunities to reset
VDG’s Alex Kanaris says his company looked internally during the pandemic
COVID-19 made 2020 an unusual year for many industries, including the aggregate industry to which we supply our product, the VDG drum motor. Since VDG (Van der Graaf) designs and manufactures all of the components for its drum motor in-house in the USA and Canada, we were not impacted with delays or shutdowns.
Because COVID-19 restrictions have limited face-to-face meetings with prospective clients, several projects either did not materialize or were postponed. However, despite these concerns, we had a busy year. The research and development team at VDG took the opportunity to develop new conveyor drives and we have also redesigned our smaller drum motors for portable plants.
Although COVID-19 had some impact on production for the aggregate industry, VDG focused on investing in R&D to develop drum motors to better suit portable plants and overland belt conveyors.
Alex Kanaris is president and CEO at VDG (Van der Graaf).
Pushing through a challenging year
IRock’s Nate Russell is optimistic about the road ahead
IRock is on track for a record year despite the current pandemic. We have made it a priority to work closely with all of our vendors to combat delays and maintain availability for needed supplies.
The IRock team has implemented Microsoft Teams to communicate and hold virtual meetings. Clear and regular communication has been key in responding to availability. We have also supported our dealer network with strong, wholesale finance plans and implemented retail finance programs to assist in the sale of both new and used equipment.
I believe the Central U.S. is very strong. There has been a recent slowdown on the West Coast, but the East Coast has shown an increased demand in equipment.
IRock is predicting strong growth for the aggregate industry in 2021. I have great confidence in a government stimulus package along with the demand for infrastructure within the U.S.
Nate Russell is director of sales and business development at IRock Crushers.
Markets on the rebound
Philippi-Hagenbuch’s Josh Swank anticipates a federal funding boost in 2021
Across the board, our markets saw a significant slowdown in the second quarter of 2020. Thankfully, as the world adjusts to a new normal, the mining and aggregate industries are beginning to come back to life, especially internationally. Here in the U.S., mining markets are still soft, but we anticipate things will rebound moving toward spring 2021.
Fortunately, Philippi-Hagenbuch went into 2020 with a solid backlog of orders, which kept us from feeling some of the immediate effects of the pandemic. It also gave us time to adjust our operation to meet COVID-19-related challenges.
Industrywide, the pandemic has demanded a lot more understanding on all fronts as product and component availabilities change from day to day. And, as a custom equipment manufacturer, travel restrictions and social distancing made our hands-on approach a little more difficult. However, we have a great team and have been able to adjust our working processes to meet the changing conditions and maintain our commitment to customer service.
That said, like many in our industry, we are looking forward to 2021. Once things settle down after the presidential election, we anticipate a substantial transportation bill will arrive to help jumpstart the economy. From there, we are optimistic that things will get back on pace to meet or even exceed 2019’s tracks.
Josh Swank is vice president of sales and marketing at Philippi-Hagenbuch.
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