More than 1,200 people last month descended on the Wirtgen Group’s North American headquarters in Antioch, Tennessee, for the company’s Technology Days North America 2024, where Wirtgen Group highlighted its latest efforts to make equipment smarter, safer and more sustainable.
Equipment from several Wirtgen Group brands – including Kleemann, Hamm, Vögele and Wirtgen – was showcased through displays and exhibits, presentations and live demos. The Wirtgen Group also opened its CTT (Center for Training & Technology) to those on hand, detailing its role in preparing the next generation of equipment operators for jobs in aggregates and road construction.
Technology Days 2024 was the third iteration of the event the Wirtgen Group has hosted in the U.S. The company’s Technology Days originated in Germany, where the Wirtgen Group’s global headquarters resides.
“Tech days are pretty traditional for German manufacturing companies,” says Jim McEvoy, president and CEO of Wirtgen America. “We would take a number of American contractors over for years, [but we] really can’t handle more than 100 people over there at a time. So, we came up with the idea of doing it here in North America.”
Kleemann focus
An assortment of mobile crushing and screening plants from Kleemann was among the equipment on display outside the CTT during Technology Days, with several models also involved in live demonstrations.
In one demo, four pieces of track-mounted Kleemann equipment prepped base material. The MC 110i EVO2 jaw crushing plant, the MCO 90i EVO2 cone crushing plant, the MSC 953i EVO classifying screen plant and the MBT 24i stacker operated in tandem to make natural stone products.
A second demo showcased two Kleemann mobile impact crushing plants: the MR 100i NEO and the MR 110i EVO 2. Kleemann illustrated how operators can process large pieces of used concrete through an MR 100i NEO. The brand also demonstrated how the MR 110i EVO2 produces RAP (reclaimed asphalt pavement).
Going a step further, the overall demonstration showed how the concrete product could be mixed with asphalt, RAP and foam bitumen using Wirtgen’s mobile KMA 240i cold recycling plant.