InfraStructures - November 2011 - Perfectly Equipped for Every Task with the New VÖGELE Fleet

Perfectly Equipped for Every Task with the New VÖGELE Fleet

Competition on the road construction market is fierce. The pressure on time and costs is rising while customers’ budgets are shrinking. For this reason, contractors not only need a fleet of high calibre machines, but also the services to match. That is why Gröschler GmbH, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, now rely exclusively on pavers made by VÖGELE. Gröschler GmbH is a group of four construction companies in northern Germany.

The jobs Gröschler undertake for their customers range from narrow cycle paths to wide motorways. To assure their ability to offer this wide range of roadworks reliably and achieve consistently perfect results, Gröschler have replaced their entire fleet of pavers with VÖGELE machines. No fewer than six VÖGELE pavers now work for Gröschler. And the very first job was plain sailing all the way.

The job took the Gröschler team, headed up by Harald Ott, to Versmold, a little over 30 km west of Bielefeld. A major location for the food processing industry, Versmold is currently suffering the effects of heavy truck and car traffic. Abypass is under construction now and as part of this project Gröschler was to build a roundabout with the newSUPER 1603-2 before surfacing the associated cycle path with a SUPER 1300-2.

For the roundabout, the SUPER 1603-2 was equipped with an AB 500-2 Extending Screed in TV version. The paver placed base course, binder course and wearing course in widths varying from 4 to 10 m.

The machine’s small turning radius of just 6.5 m (outside) made it easy to maneuvre and allowed the team to build the roundabout effortlessly and with absolute accuracy.

The compact tracked SUPER 1300-2 also worked with absolute precision, surfacing the cycle path with an AB 340 Extending Screed in TV version in widths of 2 to 3 m. Both pavers were fitted with multi-cell sonic sensors for grade and slope control. The requirements in terms of surfaceaccuracy were strict, but the results left nothing to be desired: a deviation of no more than 4 mm was permitted in both longitudinal and transverse directions over a distance of 4 m – a demand which was easily met by both pavers.

For Gröschler’s paving teams, the first days of working with the new machines were pretty exciting. But their nervousness was unfounded, for they had received two days of theoretical and practical training on operation of the new pavers in the “Centre for Training and Technology” (CTT) at the VÖGELE headquarters. The fact that all pavers of the “dash 2” generation are equipped with ErgoPlus®, the intuitive system for paver operation, once again proved to be a major advantage. Anyone who has learned to use the system once, can easily work with any machine of this generation.

“Paving, driving and operation are all much easier with VÖGELE machines than with any other make,” says screed operator Udo Tegenkamp. And even after the machines had been delivered, a VÖGELE service technician remained on hand to advise and assist the teams. This not only included instruction on the Gröschler premises in Gütersloh, but also close supervision during the first jobs on site. The team was able to concentrate entirely on the paving job. “We have now been working with the machines for three weeks,” said Harald Ott in Versmold, “and we are getting on wonderfully well with ErgoPlus®.”

Source: Joseph Vögele AG