Inside the Asphalt Plant: Breakdowns, Safety, and the Foreman’s Reality

On this week’s On the Surface, host Seth Stevens and co-host Brad Marotti welcome two of Delta’s most experienced plant leaders, Andy West and Don Brumley, for an inside look at what it really takes to run an asphalt plant and keep production moving safely and efficiently.

Andy and Don walk through the reality of the asphalt plant foreman role, including what their days look like, how they respond when equipment breaks, and the problem solving it takes to keep operations running. They share real examples from the field, such as repairing trunnion shaft failures, working around 600 degree drums, tackling drag slat issues 80 feet in the air, and figuring out complex mechanical problems on the fly. Listeners will also hear how foremen develop the intuition to notice when a plant sounds or feels “off,” and why the first several years in the role are all about absorbing experience.

Safety and technology are a major focus of the conversation. Andy and Don discuss how the industry has transformed from minimal guarding and limited protocols to today’s strict lockout and tagout procedures, kill cords, guarding standards, and extensive documentation. They also explain how modern tools like FleetWatcher have changed communication with paving crews and made it easier to control production pacing. The episode highlights the challenges that come with new plant technology too, including advanced sensors, metric to imperial conversions, and the learning curve associated with modern batch and drum plants.

The discussion paints a clear picture of what success looks like at an asphalt plant. Sending everyone home safe, minimizing waste, adapting to changing production demands, and keeping equipment running strong are all core parts of the job. Through stories, lessons learned, and practical insights, this episode gives listeners a deeper understanding of the responsibility and complexity behind the asphalt plant foreman role.

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

*Automatically generated by AI*

Seth Stevens (00:05)
Welcome back to On the Surface, the go-to podcast for heavy construction and general business. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week, Brad and I welcome Andy West and Don Brumley to talk about the Asphalt Plant Foreman Roll, what that looks like on a daily basis. Let's go.

Seth Stevens (00:26)
We got Andy West, Don Brumley, a couple of Asphalt Plant guys. Get some representation on the podcast

we basically want to cover like what a

foreman position is, what that looks like on a day-to-day basis, all that kind of stuff. you're probably the most qualified person to talk about it

Tell us about a time where you're running and the plant broke.

Don Brumley (00:53)
We've had a, we've had a trunnion shaft break one night when we was doing the interstate job somewhere around that first one we did in Blable. we had a trunnion shaft break one night. I mean, it's just everybody on deck. ⁓ the good thing is we were a batch plant at that time, so there was no oil in the drum. Now I hadn't experienced anything like it with a.

Seth Stevens (01:10)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Don Brumley (01:22)
drum

mix plant, but that could get exciting. I mean, we was down like three days with that one, with oil sitting in the tank, it would have been very exciting.

Seth Stevens (01:33)
Yeah, so break it down. Like what does that mean? I know like the, lot of folks that are listening don't fully understand how difficult it could be to make a repair like that. You got heat, you've got all kinds of material that you're dealing with.

Don Brumley (01:49)
Yeah,

it's especially if you've been running the drums gonna be five, six hundred degrees. Just a shell. mean, so really you're not gonna jump in there and do it right then it's gonna have a cooling time down. But I mean, eventually you're gonna have to get in and go.

Seth Stevens (02:07)
Yeah, you have to physically get in the drum.

Don Brumley (02:10)
No, no, for that one repair there, the trunnion shaft. ⁓ You had to shore up everything and get enough jacks to pick it up because now you've got an added seven to eight tons, maybe 10 tons of material inside the drum.

Seth Stevens (02:28)
Yeah, yeah. What about you, Andy?

Andy West (02:34)
Well, you know, I've seen a lot of ⁓ breakdowns over my career. Of course, everyone seems to have its own little niche for a fix. ⁓ I'm going to say probably one of the toughest repairs that we've done was probably at our paragold facility. We had some problems with the bearings. At the top of the drag slat, ⁓

For those that don't know, a drag slat what we're using to pull our material up to our silos so that we're able to load out of the silos.

Seth Stevens (03:13)
How high does that go typically?

Andy West (03:16)
Generally anywhere from about 60 to 80 feet normally. And of course, anytime you add that type of height to working on something, there's a lot of safety precautions that have to go in place. And then ⁓ just the sheer amount of weight that you're fighting trying to take stuff apart is a problem. That particular job, when it done, it was towards the end of the year. It was cold, wind was blowing.

Seth Stevens (03:35)
Mm-hmm.

Andy West (03:43)
A lot of the elements affect us, you know, regardless if it's hot or cold. There's no good or bad there. As far as hot or cold, it's just generally bad for repair work. It took us about three days to do this repair and we ended up having to break the chain and the chain that's inside this drag slat weighs quite a bit.

Seth Stevens (03:56)
Mm-hmm.

Andy West (04:07)
And so you're fighting, you're fighting weight that's hanging down at a 50 degree angle. So nothing is nothing really generally goes well. So it's pretty much trial and error for the most part until you, get the result that you're needing. ⁓ Of course, when it's ⁓ that cool, you're taking breaks with people. You got people that's coming in and out trying to, trying to help. And it's pretty hard on fella. It's pretty.

that really our industry is hard on people just for the simple fact that it's strenuous work and a lot of climbing. ⁓ People that don't do well with heights don't do very good on an asphalt plan most of the time.

Seth Stevens (04:47)
That's nice hot place.

Don Brumley (04:51)
You'd be surprised how much the wind blows on top of that silo. It's a calm day on the ground, and 60 feet up, it'll blow your hard hat off.

Seth Stevens (05:01)
Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. How did you guys get to where you knew what to do? How long does it take?

Andy West (05:09)
You know?

Don Brumley (05:11)
Like you said, everything's different. mean, something might happen tomorrow and you really don't know what to do. So, especially with a new plant.

Seth Stevens (05:18)
just get it problem solved. You know enough to figure it

Don Brumley (05:22)
seen enough

of it you know kind of the direction you need to go but like I said especially with that new plant I mean

Seth Stevens (05:31)
Yeah, that kind of takes like a little bit of a mechanical type problem-solving brain.

Andy West (05:39)
A lot of it's trial and error at the beginning. Really the first five years are an asphalt plant. mean, you're trying to soak up as much as you can most of the time. And being able to work on this stuff generally don't come after that five years. Maybe three years if you're pretty savvy on repairs and stuff like that. But you spend a lot of time just grasping. ⁓

You know, how things work. I mean, it's simple enough to look at an asphalt plant for anybody that's somewhat mechanically inclined and just kind of see the mechanics of what goes down. It's totally different deal when it's broke down.

Don Brumley (06:20)
What I was going to say is, he's talking about five years. You can train somebody the basics to run an asphalt plant in a month. it takes you telling them what to do or them knowing what to do when something happens is what's the scary part.

Seth Stevens (06:37)
yeah. Yep. ⁓

Andy West (06:41)
We run into the ability to maintain that knowledge is pretty hard for most people. Like I was saying earlier, the plant that I got out here that we have now, like I said, I didn't know it at the time in my career that it was gonna make me a better plant person for the amount of problems that you face with dealing with something like that.

Looking back, I'm like, it helped me substantially just face a lot of stuff that we see today, even with the newer plants that are coming out with newer technology. ⁓ But it helps just to be able to, ⁓ for one, you can't be afraid of it. You have to be willing to try this, and if that don't work, then you back up and you get another game plan, and you just keep at it till you get it. So once you get it,

Seth Stevens (07:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Andy West (07:37)
You know, a lot of times, you know, the most of the components on plants ⁓ are pretty much the standard components. There's a few that they add in every now and again that might not be normal ⁓ for the basic plant operation. But once you get that down, you know, you've pretty much got that portion of it figured out and you can kind of get that more efficient. It's what I've always done is try to figure out a better way.

to get it done. know, there certain aspects and certain repairs that we do that, you know, kind like Don was saying, you pretty much have to follow the directions of that cake mix to make sure that it's right a lot of times. And then there's others out there that you can get by with by kind of doing them three or four different ways and get the same.

Seth Stevens (08:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

⁓

Andy West (08:30)
getting our people as they're coming up to learn that aspect of it and not for it to be just be, hey, you know, this is exactly the way you do it because that doesn't always, the circumstance doesn't always let that.

Seth Stevens (08:44)
Yeah So Don you mentioned being able to teach somebody to run a plant in a month, but that's like if everything's going well, right? yeah, like how long there's a definitely a portion of operating a plant that is ⁓ Realizing when something isn't going right and like operating those controls and shutting things down or whatever in a

proper amount of time to save a lot of fixes and maintenance? How long does that take to figure out?

Don Brumley (09:15)
I that's what we sound, it could be five years. If you're there every day, I mean, you can tell by the way the plant's running, you can feel it. You can hear it, a lot of sound.

Seth Stevens (09:18)
It all kind of falls in the same.

Yeah.

It's like driving your car. You really get in tune and used to how it feels and sounds and all that kind of stuff.

Andy West (09:33)
You'd be

amazed on how much just sound, the sound of the plants.

Seth Stevens (09:38)
Yeah, that's something you take for granted. You've been working there a long time. I remember the first time that I was really around plants. I was an intern and I mean, it's a, it's a little intimidating. It's walk, walk through the folks that don't know anything about an asphalt plant. Some of the things that they would see, how many things can kill you in that asphalt plant as while it's running.

Andy West (09:58)
Sure.

You know, really, you know, our rules are treat everything as it's hot and it's rolling because really that's what's, that's what's going on. You know, ⁓ most people don't think about, you know, they think about the asphalt being hot. They don't think about the rest of the components on a plant, that have to be hot to make, to make sure that the mix is hot. ⁓ but you know, the majority of this stuff out here is generally rolling in some sort of fashion. And, ⁓ you know, it's pretty.

Seth Stevens (10:30)
rolling like ⁓ belts that are rolling underneath bins that you're loading rock into and everything's everything's moving down the line. That's right. And it's heavy. Pretty powerful belts and rollers because you're moving tons of material. That's right. You're heavy stuff. Yeah.

Andy West (10:41)
Rollers are moving, drums are turning.

You know, on this course as the plants get bigger in size, it's just that much more weight.

Seth Stevens (10:58)
Have you seen, Don, here's a good one for you, have you seen like safety requirements around asphalt plants change over the years? Tremendously. And how is that?

Don Brumley (11:11)
I mean, when we first started this, I believe you could get by wearing shorts and a T-shirt to work. Now it's, you know, all the PPE is required and all the gardening, you know, which the planet looks for wasn't really, never really that bad. There was some, some that was, I guess the worst ones was the dryer belts, but they were.

Seth Stevens (11:25)
Yep.

Don Brumley (11:37)
six foot in there, you they don't meet the requirements now. They'd have to be guarded now, yeah, this has changed a lot.

Seth Stevens (11:45)
guarded band just metal guards that are in between you and a rolling conveyor belt. Hmm. And like, yeah, back then were, was the only way to shut off the plant basically in the control room. Yeah. So like even manufacturers or us after the fact have added like,

Don Brumley (11:49)
You can't stick your hand in it or...

Like a major.

Yes.

Seth Stevens (12:14)
Basically kill cables and all kinds of stuff to it so at any point wherever you are you could turn it off, right?

Andy West (12:21)
Yeah, pretty much everything that we're buying now has kill cords on them. All the new plants that we have are coming with kill cords. Of course, I believe that started in Europe years ago and they've been doing this for a long time. It's a good thing. We have seen some instances where you can't get to a kill cord if there is a problem. ⁓

Don Brumley (12:22)
belts.

Seth Stevens (12:44)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Andy West (12:47)
But you're always going to have, you're trying to put in as much stuff ⁓ to do something as dangerous as it is. I mean, we're trying to work on stuff that's pretty dangerous as safely as possible.

Seth Stevens (12:56)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yep, for sure ⁓

Andy West (13:04)
It definitely

has changed a lot. mean, just from the guarding aspect of it, I mean, you know, when I come along, you know, yeah, we had some guards, but it wasn't that big a deal. You know, even though we know that, you know, if you're looking at that piece of equipment, you know, the chances of it grabbing a hold of your shirt or whatever. you know, of course, none of us, we think about it, but none of us has really been put in that situation.

Seth Stevens (13:26)
Fortunately. That's right.

Andy West (13:28)
And

then as things have progressed and things have changed like they have, I mean, we've seen a lot of change. mean, Don's seen a little more than I have, but for the most part, we've seen it go from a little bit of ⁓ safety to more safety than most people are, I guess, ready to sign up for most of the time.

Seth Stevens (13:46)
Bruh.

Yeah, makes sense. Just being that it adds an extra layer of things to think about and plan for.

Andy West (13:58)
Yeah, not only that, I mean, you start looking at the paperwork side of things that we're trying to accomplish here and as far as documenting it and getting it place so that you can go back and look at stuff on things of how you've done it. If we would have documented the amount of safety stuff, if you'd have had it in a pile of what we used to do compared to what we do now in a pile, it would be pretty eye-opening, which is pretty crazy.

Seth Stevens (14:24)
I could believe that. Yeah.

Andy West (14:27)
Like I said, the safety side of things is generally all good. Every now and again, we do some stuff that I might think that might be a little bit overboard, you're still trying to look at two sides of the fences. A lot of it is about perspective. Perspective from Don and I is a lot of times different because we're around the plant and we know what it's capable of and we know what we've done in the past. Is it sometimes...

I think we get to the point to where, you what we think that it's not necessarily complacency, but we're able to, we know how to do it in a safe way. And it's not perceived that way by somebody that doesn't know the procedure.

Seth Stevens (15:13)
You know, lot of these standards are set for like worst case people that haven't been around a plant and that are new. So ⁓ that's a good thing.

Andy West (15:23)
That's right.

That's right.

mean, really and truthfully, needs to be, know, if anybody walks in that has no idea, there's no chance or no real chance for them to be able to be caught up in something or introduced to something that they don't need to be around, that's not either safely guarded or perimetered off or whatever the case may be.

Seth Stevens (15:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, makes sense.

Don Brumley (15:50)
Even to the lockout, tag out, the confined space, know, all that's... We never did that before.

Seth Stevens (15:57)
Yeah. You mean documenting it?

Well, lockout tagging is probably not even.

Don Brumley (16:05)
Working

on electrical, I mean, we would turn the breaker off, but as far as locking it out and tagging it out.

Seth Stevens (16:10)
Yeah, which that just meant for anybody that may not know what lockout tag out is. It's basically when you. Yep. Each person on the plant has their own lock and you will and you're the only one that has a key to that lock. Yeah. So you put your lock on and you you can't you can't open it up and turn anything on until that person puts the key in that lock. Yeah. Basically to prevent.

Don Brumley (16:17)
broker in whole position.

Yeah.

Seth Stevens (16:38)
Okay, so if somebody went to go work on the drum or something they had to get inside of it, there's locks on it and they have a key in their pocket and they physically go get in the drum so that somebody can't accidentally go turn that switch on because they have to have the key from the person in the drum. Because if they would turn that drum on, pretty high chance that that person will die.

Andy West (16:59)
Yeah, it'd be pretty catastrophic to be honest with you. Pug mills used to scare me to death. ⁓ yeah. They still scared me to death. those that don't know what a pug mill is, a pug mill is, we have a batch plant, a drum plant basically. ⁓ The pug mill mixes the, mixes the really the rock and oil together instead of tumbling it. But it's basically like a giant meat grinder really. ⁓

Don Brumley (17:02)
Yeah.

The blender.

Andy West (17:28)
When we had this batch plan up at a pair of gold there, I cut my teeth in on that plant. It was a 53 model Barbara green asphalt plant. Bula green was her name. Yeah. Miss Bula green. And she was stubborn a lot of, a lot of times, but, ⁓ you know, we, when we would work in the, in the pug meal, a lot of times lockout tag out wasn't good enough for me. ⁓

Seth Stevens (17:37)
What was the plant's name? Did you name her? ⁓

Andy West (17:56)
You know, I took the belts off the drive motor because it just scared. It's just scary.

Seth Stevens (18:01)
took

the belt off, like it literally could.

Andy West (18:04)
Yeah. The only

way that is going to turn if I, if somebody turns it and I'm pretty sure I can get out of way at that point.

Seth Stevens (18:09)
Yeah,

no doubt.

Don Brumley (18:12)
Maybe. Which the one we had at Luxora was, it had twice the arms and pedals it was supposed to have in it. So yeah, if you got in there working on it, I mean, if it turned a quarter of a turn, you was wedged in that one. Yeah.

Seth Stevens (18:31)
So, does... wait, you were kind of talking about batch plants and continuous mix. Can you like kind of give the difference between the

Andy West (18:45)
Yeah,

you know, we'll start with batch plants, ⁓ depending on how they run batch plants, whether kind of like Arkansas, Missouri. ⁓ So a batch plant is able to break down different types of materials with screen decks and put them in bins. And then you're able to get an amount of a different size rock from each bin to make the mix that you're wanting to do.

Seth Stevens (19:10)
can make smaller batches.

Andy West (19:12)
Yeah, you can make smaller batches. I mean, you can, ⁓ and then you're off also able to make different mixes, you know, as long as, as long as you've got the right type of rock in the bins. And when I say bins, these are hot bins that, that store the material in top of the batch plant and not the actual bins that we're loading material in to, to feed the plant. ⁓ Really, they make great mix. They always have and always will. ⁓

Seth Stevens (19:23)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Andy West (19:42)
I feel like there are a little more maintenance on a lot of stuff there and I'm sure they don't make just a whole lot of new batch plants these days. So I'm sure that they've probably got around a bunch of that type of stuff. But they're known for making really good mix and they're known for no waste. You keep the rock and oil separate in a batch plant. So you're weighing rock.

and then you weigh the asphalt, you put it in together and then you mix it and then you put it in a truck. So that helps as far as our waste goes. So you're actually able just to have rock waste. On a drum plant or a dual drum plant, we do have one dual drum, which works in pretty much in the same fashion as a drum plant. Most of everything now we're buying is drum plants and you know, is, they call it continuous mix.

Seth Stevens (20:12)
Yeah.

Andy West (20:37)
And that's how it works. You're putting all that rock in at the same time and then blending it with oil and it's its own unit. So it dries it in one end and mixes it in the other. And that's how she works pretty much.

Seth Stevens (20:51)
What's the benefit of a batch plant?

Andy West (20:55)
Most of it is due to waste and you're able to do some smaller sizes if you need to.

Seth Stevens (21:02)
Yeah, so you can mix up stuff in smaller batches. You could change mix designs pretty easily. So if you are serving like the way that we've utilized that are bought a new one is serving an external market where we have a lot of people wanting to buy mix on the same day and it's potentially different mix designs so we can continuously swap back and forth and make whatever they need. And not waste a lot of material. So what's the...

⁓ benefits of a continuous mix.

Andy West (21:33)
Continuous mix is pretty much made for projects that you can start up in the morning and shut it off at the end of the day. And it's faster for the most part. mean, you can adjust a lot of stuff on a batch plant to try to get you down there and get your productions up. And they make some really large batch plants that are rated for 300 ton an hour.

Seth Stevens (21:43)
Mm-hmm.

Andy West (21:57)
300 ton an hour out of a batch plan and 300 ton out of a mixed plan is the same 300 ton an hour. But we generally, rule of thumb, we have more waste at our drum plants for start up and shut down. Designs, well, design SOPs if we could got any kind of equipment malfunctions or anything like that. If the plant's been down a long time,

Seth Stevens (22:03)
Right, yeah.

design swap.

Andy West (22:25)
⁓ We'll generate waste there too because it just cools off in the drum and it doesn't cope like it needs to. It causes an issue.

Seth Stevens (22:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

But the main benefit, go ahead, if you're...

Don Brumley (22:36)
I think the biggest thing, the difference between the two is the maintenance cost of a batch plant and a drum plant. Because you're losing several moving pieces from the batch plant to the drum plant.

Seth Stevens (22:41)
Okay.

So drum plant has less maintenance. There's a lot more steel in screens. ⁓

Andy West (22:51)
⁓

Don Brumley (22:59)
You're

losing the screen deck, the hot bins, the mixing, the pug mill, the way hoppers.

Seth Stevens (23:04)
Yeah, yeah.

Andy West (23:06)
You know, we run in Arkansas, we run batch plants different than they do most places. ⁓ We run them as just basically open bin or one open bin and we put all the rock in there ⁓ instead of having an individual chambers.

Seth Stevens (23:24)
Hmm.

Andy West (23:25)
So we kind of run it as not really a drum mix plant, we're just putting the aggregate we're putting out of the bins goes into a hot bin in the pug mill and we're loading right out of that instead of using all the screen decks to break the material down to put it each individually bins so that you can, if you need, if the mix design calls for this or that, you you can make a couple of mixes there with just a...

Seth Stevens (23:51)
Yeah.

Don Brumley (23:52)
Does

anybody still require the screening?

Andy West (23:57)
I honestly don't know. I don't know if Missouri still does it. know we're, yeah, I know we're trying to, we're trying to make that happen with this new Amman plant. We're trying to use those screens if we can.

Don Brumley (23:58)
I don't know. Another ranch greenless for Missouri.

Seth Stevens (24:11)
You said new Amman plant. Explain. ⁓

Andy West (24:15)
Yes, we,

Don Brumley (24:17)
How

much time do we have?

Andy West (24:19)
I like to say I'm really just getting into the latter part of dealing with Amon. So Amon is a plant manufacturer. They're based out of Italy, I believe. And we purchased one of their modular batch plants. When I say modular, a lot of it comes in containers. It kind of sits on containers. I think it's design that they've been doing for a little while.

and a really, really good looking plant. The bad thing right now that I'm seeing with it as far as just ⁓ it's all metric. we, I don't know if we, I mean, we kind of understood that going in brunt right into the front of it.

Seth Stevens (25:06)
Mm-hmm.

Andy West (25:06)
But it's different when you start needing replacement parts and you really didn't need to really don't think about you know What you have to do to try to get that to fit something, you know standard in the USA

Seth Stevens (25:18)
Yeah, so it's just conversion. Yeah, it's the biggest issues. from metric to imperial.

Don Brumley (25:23)
.

Andy West (25:24)
Yeah,

it's pretty crazy that, you know, a lot of the stuff that they're trying to do there, which is, which I do like, mean, we're, we're looking at stuff that they normally don't do in the States as far as the type of sensors and some of the machinery stuff that they're, that they're using to do it. Cause there's a lot of stuff on that. Every time I show up at that plant, ⁓ I find out something new about it now, you know, I'm like, well, I've never thought about that or, or a lot.

To be honest with a lot of it's been, I've never seen any of that before. Yeah. You know, and I've been doing this a little while, but you know, everybody, every manufacturer has their own own little tweaks that they like to put into it. This plan is, it puts a crazy amount of information back to the operator. It's probably the most sophisticated that I've seen, just me personally, the amount of sensors and the amount of stuff that they're monitoring is.

Seth Stevens (25:56)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Andy West (26:22)
is pretty astonishing to be honest with you. downside to that is, if the way that it's plugged into their system, that ⁓ if you have problems with it, it doesn't allow you to run.

Seth Stevens (26:26)
Tons of feedback.

Yeah, they're basically all fail-safe, too.

Andy West (26:40)
And we're trying to get through that learning curve on what all this means. Of course, we've had some other issues with it too. Actually, they've been on the ground for the last month or so trying to get a lot of this stuff addressed. The mix that they have ran out of, it's been a really good mix. You know, it tests out pretty good.

Seth Stevens (27:00)
Daniel Dave's, he's the plant forming there. He's done a really good job of trying to get the plant set up and soaking all this information in. It's a tall task. He's drinking from a fire hose for sure.

Andy West (27:12)
Yeah, most definitely. know, Daniel and I had a discussion there ⁓ back early in the year last year, you know, and I told him, I said, look, it's not going to feel like it right now, but this will make you a better plant guy. You know, and I don't think he quite understood what I was talking about when we had that conversation. But here a couple of, a couple of months ago, we had this same conversation. He said, I think I, I could kind of get what you was talking about. you know, it's been tough on him, you know.

Seth Stevens (27:38)
Yeah, yeah

Andy West (27:42)
⁓ you know, that's of course, you know, don't, I don't like for any, any, ⁓ anyone to really suffer as far as when it comes to trying to figure stuff out, especially when, you know, Daniel's had to go through a bunch of language barriers, you know, ⁓ you know, trying to deal with people out of Italy, you know, their time zones are different. he's Brazil. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We've had, Brazilians, ⁓ I guess we've had people out of Italy.

Seth Stevens (27:57)
yeah.

The folks that set the plan up are from...

Andy West (28:12)
And maybe one, I think maybe out of Germany. know a lot of the parts have been coming out of Germany, which of course were kind of hard to get just for simple fact, we're across the pond there. But hopefully going forward, ⁓ things get better, relationships get better, parts availability will get better. And then hopefully, I'm hoping that it takes a lot of stress off Daniel. He starts to wear on you.

Seth Stevens (28:21)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Andy West (28:39)
Especially when you're dealing with something, you know, know a little bit about it. But there again too, it's pretty crazy the amount of weight that you have to carry to try to make sure that you're trying to get something done when you don't exactly understand it. So, but he's done a good, I think he's done a good job trying to push through it, you know.

Seth Stevens (28:54)
Yep.

Nice, good.

sure. Has technology changes helped you manage your day?

Don Brumley (29:06)
tremendously. I've told you before, I've seen them waste tons of money on different programs and all that and the best thing we've ever, as far as operating the plant, is the Fleet Watcher system. Just for the simple fact that I can see where the trucks are at.

Seth Stevens (29:19)
Yeah.

The fleet watcher system was designed to be, you when we first started a trucking tool to keep up with trucks and then it become a paving performance tool. So you, mean, how are you benefiting? How are you using it?

Don Brumley (29:41)
The only thing I really do with it is I can see where the trucks are at versus from the time they leave the plant to the time they get to the paper and I can see when they're coming back. I can use that to do I need to run 200 tons an hour today or did I need to run 350? I think it's to start it up and let it run. I mean, I can run 150 tons an hour with that plant. But as slow as you can go.

Seth Stevens (30:09)
Even before that, you had a plan of what you'd like to do, but you're reliant on so much communication that's impossible for people to do unless you're literally just, if that's all you're doing. Yeah. That's nuts to think about. What'd you do? Write letters to each other?

Don Brumley (30:22)
Years ago, didn't have that. So the cell phone's one of our stars.

We

had a roll of quarters in our pocket. Actually, it was roll of dimes. Payphone was a dime at the time. And we called the plant. We'd find a payphone, you'd call them collect. You know what a collect call is?

Seth Stevens (30:35)
Yeah.

Yeah. No,

he's. So you've got a map now. You've got a map on a dedicated screen and it shows where the job is. It shows where your plan is and it shows every truck it's mapped out.

Don Brumley (30:59)
If

they've got a tracker in their truck and if they've got it plugged up. For a minute it updates.

Seth Stevens (31:02)
And it's, and it's updating every minute.

you can see how many trucks are on the road at the paver in between you and the paver and adjust, make, make decisions on, on production and speed in real time. Yeah.

You could find to your plan. think what you were saying or a little bit ago is you're basically saying, well, in the past, you might have been running 250 tons an hour and then you don't know where trucks are. So you slow down to 200 and then you figure out you got to go back up to 250.

Don Brumley (31:34)
With the batch plant, mean, you didn't hold that much. You couldn't hold that much material up top. So you was steady stopping and starting.

Seth Stevens (31:43)
Yeah, but now being able to see all that you could say, well, we'll tweak a little bit fine tune and OK, well, we can run 218 tons an hour or whatever and we're going to stay consistent right there. And that helps make better quality mix and makes it easier on the components and all that kind of stuff.

Don Brumley (32:02)
At 200 tons an hour, the trucks will start piling up on you. You bump it up to 225 and you'll be waiting on trucks. But think about it, you only loaded one more truck that hour. One truck an hour and you go to waiting on trucks.

Seth Stevens (32:05)
Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah. It's crazy.

Andy West (32:20)
It's definitely a great pacing tool.

Don Brumley (32:22)
yeah, like I told them up. They've wasted tons of money elsewhere and that's the best money I've ever spent.

Seth Stevens (32:30)
What program do we have that we've wasted money on?

Don Brumley (32:33)
Where do I start at?

Do I want to, do I want to say something?

Andy West (32:39)
The first, the first, ⁓ well, I guess first and second rendition of mix.

Seth Stevens (32:45)
I knew you were gonna say that.

Andy West (32:47)
We jumped through a lot of hoops.

Don Brumley (32:49)
we had Mixed Link and then we had DAS. I won't tell you what them three letters stood for. The first one was dumb.

Seth Stevens (32:54)
Okay.

I got a pretty good idea.

Andy West (33:00)
There was, there was good, it was good intentions behind it. Yeah. It was, it was good intentions behind it for what they were wanting. Try to monitor, you know, it was definitely that just, ⁓ jump the gun too fast.

Seth Stevens (33:16)
Yeah. Energy

efficiency type stuff that you're monitoring and trying to dial in and save money where you can.

Andy West (33:22)
That's

right. I mean, it was monitoring a lot. you know, and it worked some for the most part, there was a lot of a lot of plants that had interference issues with it. And really, that's what kind of kind of squashed it in the end as far as

Don Brumley (33:37)
Especially those

points of looks.

Andy West (33:40)
So we had a lot of burner feedback issues out of the systems and had to make some preparations for that type of stuff. ⁓ I think everybody had pretty much issues with it, but really and truthfully, it had a good push behind it while we were trying to use it. Yeah.

Don Brumley (33:58)
You could see what they were trying to achieve. was just...

Seth Stevens (34:02)
Was it you think that was like it came too early like it was before its time or you're trying to retrofit it too much to old stuff or

Don Brumley (34:12)
All. All the above, yeah.

Andy West (34:13)
Both? Both.

Seth Stevens (34:15)
How close do you think we are to having a lot of connected things basically giving you all the feedback of how many tons you're running of each material and ⁓ liquid and all this kind of stuff and auto-populating it and feeding it into a system so that you guys don't have to manually report all of the usage?

Andy West (34:38)
Well, see, that's really kind of is kind of what Mixlink was they were trying to do with that also. Dawn is currently got some software that they've upgraded to his. We haven't quite heard back any kind of feedback yet on it. I think it's called ⁓ MyMix.

Don Brumley (34:39)
It's already there.

Seth Stevens (34:43)
Yeah. ⁓

Don Brumley (34:51)
⁓

My

mix.

Seth Stevens (34:59)
That's like an add-on or that's through Aztec?

Andy West (35:02)
It's an add-on, but it's through Aztec. They're kind of looking at the similar stuff. Like I said, they started this in November or October, November. ⁓

Seth Stevens (35:05)
Okay

Don Brumley (35:15)
What

the my mix? Yeah. Yeah. August, maybe September.

Andy West (35:20)
It

might have been in the break.

Don Brumley (35:22)
It was between, yeah, it was when they were replacing the floor and all that. So it was when we started back in July, we had a guy in place.

Andy West (35:26)
It was.

You know, hopefully, mean, hopefully, I mean, I can see somebody coming up with something that works. Yeah. You know, there's no doubt that, ⁓ manufacturers all have got something different going on behind the scenes where you get that information. And I think the, you know, the hurdle right there is trying to make sure that the system that, that we use or systems that they're able to, to track that. You know, I guess a more realistic, ⁓ timeframe and yeah.

Seth Stevens (35:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

We

didn't even really talk about that in your daily stuff, but by the end of the day, you're also doing a ton of reporting, whether it's your permits that we were talking about for safety stuff, filling that out, or employee time and notes on all that, and all the material and tonnage that you use so that we can update. we can update that on the back end and try to keep updated inventories and stuff so you know what you got.

So any of that stuff that we can automate through technology would be a huge time saver for you where you can just be ⁓ kind of just checking that at a high level. Like, yeah, this looks right. That's right. You're not spending a ton of manual time. ⁓ I've always thought it was kind of crazy that we are where we are with a lot of other technology and implementation into other things, but we don't really have it on the asphalt plant side. Like as far as that goes, reporting pieces.

Don Brumley (37:01)
I'm with you, it's crazy where we're not. You would think with technology we could bypass a lot of that reporting as you say at the end of the day. You we ran this much mix, you know the mix is... You've got the recipe.

Seth Stevens (37:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, so your playing computer already knows Yeah

Don Brumley (37:24)
yeah. Where did it from?

Andy West (37:25)
I

think it has a lot to do with, you know, the software that you're going to use to track it and whether or not the manufacturer wants you to have that information. Well, I agree with that, but you know, there's, there's always those strides, you know, of course, if you're using this to, regardless of which plants you're using and they're having to come up with a program or whatever it is to interact or upload information to whatever, you know,

Seth Stevens (37:35)
Yeah, we're going have to get over that.

Yeah.

Andy West (37:55)
between, we know how the firewalls work here for us. Everything's changing all the time. ⁓ sure. You we have to give a blood sample DNA. You know, we got to all that done to be able to be able to open my email, be able to open my email up corporate life. Yeah. But I think a lot, I think a lot of that is probably, you know, a lot of those hurdles that, people just

Seth Stevens (37:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

You prick your finger and end your computer.

So

Andy West (38:21)
get fed up with and they're trying to make something that works like that, but you can't get everybody on board to.

Seth Stevens (38:27)
Yeah,

just compatibility. I agree with that. ⁓ I will say that the plant world is still far better than the technology that we have in the quarries, but that's a whole different episode. That's true.

Andy West (38:40)
Yeah, that's possible.

Things have changed a lot. ⁓ It took us a long time to get rid of the older plants that we had. And a lot of us, ⁓ as far as operators and foremans go, we kind of got put back on the back burner of looking at how things are progressing and how technology is progressing. And then all of sudden, we're getting new stuff.

A lot of us are, you know, we're to catch up. Yeah, we're catching up, playing catch up game.

Seth Stevens (39:11)
Yeah. Well,

I mean, guess to your point real quick, clarification or some context is like, yeah, we're not, you don't replace old stuff that much because it's very expensive and it's a big piece of machinery, right? Like an asphalt paver or something to use on the roads, a couple hundred thousand dollars, and that's a pretty big investment. But compared to an asphalt plant, like if you were to go buy a new continuous mix portable asphalt plant, a ballpark price is.

Andy West (39:39)
right now I'm guessing they're probably between seven and eight million.

Seth Stevens (39:42)
Yeah, so that's a big chunk of change to put out there. So I mean, you're trying to use it for as long as possible. I mean, what's like the estimated life on a plant when you buy it?

Andy West (39:50)
Much.

I mean that, mean most of you.

Don Brumley (39:56)
Well

it was a 53 model.

Seth Stevens (39:57)
Yeah.

Andy West (39:59)
Yeah. And we run it for, I mean, that's the thing, you know, she was a 53 model and we run her to 2009 is the last time we make, of course that's a lot of, a lot of maintenance parts and stuff like that. know, generally, mean, we did, you know, they cut it up and put it in connexes and shipped it overseas.

Seth Stevens (40:07)
the space.

Crazy.

Don Brumley (40:23)
The same

with Tuckerman, didn't it? The Luxor was a 67 model. The mainframe. 67 model.

Seth Stevens (40:29)
Model year you

No wonder you had lugs over so tight.

Don Brumley (40:38)
We're born the same day.

Seth Stevens (40:39)
Hahaha!

Andy West (40:42)
But, ⁓ you know, the technology part of it's been tough. Yeah. know, I'm already tired of hearing AI. I don't know about anybody else. I'm not tired. I'm tired of hearing. Hey, yeah. It's coming. A lot of everything's coming, but you know, the new thing right now at any manufacturer's AI.

Seth Stevens (40:46)
Yeah, yeah.

We run your asphalt plant from your house one day.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's a buzzword.

Don Brumley (41:06)
I don't remember this. You probably might not even heard the story. We used to have an asphalt plant at New Madrid. Nick, I can't think of Nick's last name. He was the electrician and he just kind of had Mr. D.L. Harrison just give him open range to do whatever he wanted to that plant. And this was probably I started in this was mid 80s, early 80s.

He'd walk in and flip a light switch and the plant would start up and run on its own. Go through the preheat cycle. It'd run until it got to a certain temp. Then it would kick the bins on and start making mix. But.

Seth Stevens (41:49)
That's crazy. mean, there are asphalt plants today that have, I mean, I've seen that have been set up to be fully autonomous. sure. Yeah. I mean, the technology is definitely.

Andy West (41:58)
Yeah.

Don Brumley (41:59)
Definitely.

That take minutes out of while. They're doing it now with a whole lot less parts than they had.

Seth Stevens (42:04)
Yeah,

And they're smart. His wasn't... All the power turned on, but it wasn't intuitive.

Don Brumley (42:12)
No, you're right, but it was, you put what mix you wanted.

Andy West (42:16)
intuitive for the

Seth Stevens (42:16)
For

the time. the time. For the time. Yeah. That's a mechanical engineering brain. Yeah. Electrical engineering. Yeah. I guess.

Don Brumley (42:23)
Yeah, there was all kinds. I've seen pictures of it. was all kinds Somebody with partner. ⁓

Andy West (42:27)
you

Seth Stevens (42:30)
Or somebody with a real messed up head.

Don Brumley (42:32)
What?

Seth Stevens (42:35)
That's right. like it. All right. So like on a daily when you're running the asphalt plant and stuff, what kind of metrics do you look at? Like what what are your how do you set your goals for the day? What does success look like?

Don Brumley (42:55)
First off, everybody goes home safe. gets hurt.

Seth Stevens (42:58)
Amen. ⁓

Don Brumley (43:02)
I don't really know. I've never really thought about it like yet. Just, waste and.

Seth Stevens (43:08)
Well, even as

I, that's true. Less waste. I guess some of the stuff from like an energy perspective we were talking about, which all gets pretty granular. As I was asking the question, I thought, well, you don't really have free reign over like how many tons you produce or how many tons per hour you do. You're really just trying to satisfy the customer, which in a lot of situations is the road paving crew. So I guess to your point,

Send everybody home safe and then run your plant as efficiently as possible to come out. Yeah. And minimal amount of waste.

Don Brumley (43:43)
breakdowns.

Andy West (43:48)
not only that, you're adapting, you're adapting purposely, you know, with the changes in production or, you know, new customer might show up that you wasn't counting on. I you're adapting the whole time.

Don Brumley (43:55)
product.

Seth Stevens (44:01)
So your day changes throughout the day.

Andy West (44:04)
Not all days, but most days there that we're running around scurrying and trying to figure out what's going on.

Don Brumley (44:14)
Set up for three, I mean, it goes both directions. You set up for 3000 tons and something happens. Right out of the shoot and now we don't remember 500. Now, you know, it goes both directions.

Seth Stevens (44:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, That could have, yeah, for sure. And that's a whole other round of communication. ⁓

Don Brumley (44:34)
for 500, maybe a thousand tons and well the DOT has released this. We're going to try to shoot and get all of this done today covered up. You know there might be a snowstorm coming in tomorrow or something. So let's get this covered up and you know you're grasping at straws, you looking for liquid and making sure you got the material.

Seth Stevens (44:46)
Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Yep. What are some common misconceptions that people have about what you do?

Don Brumley (44:56)
It goes both directions.

All we do is ride around. All we do is ride around. I don't know. It might be with Andy too. You'd be surprised how many people that I've known for years and they know where I work at, but yet they think I work for the DOT.

Seth Stevens (45:10)
Is that what you hear?

Don Brumley (45:27)
Why don't you fix this pothole over on this road? Why are y'all paving highway 61 over when 140 is falling all to pieces? Why are y'all doing that? Why don't y'all come over here and pave this first? They don't understand the concept of how the, you know, we just ride around looking for a bad spot and we just, hey, we're going to fix this and send them a bill.

Seth Stevens (45:50)
Yep,

that'd be nice.

Andy West (45:52)
I would like it. I mean, I'm on board with that. We're going to start with it. Start Missed County. That's why we're going to start. ⁓

Seth Stevens (46:02)
good proof of concept. You'd have a lot of repetition to see if it works.

Andy West (46:06)
Yeah, maybe we need to see what we need to do about getting that started.

Seth Stevens (46:10)
Yeah.

Don Brumley (46:12)
I'll tell you what, let's just go do one and see what happens.

Seth Stevens (46:16)
Yeah, we probably shouldn't do that. It not work out real well for us. Yeah. it's her small. Potholes.

Andy West (46:21)
We'll start small.

Seth Stevens (46:28)
If you all enjoyed the episode, please rate our show and leave a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and check out Delta on all social media platforms at Delta Companies and our website at delta.cos. ⁓

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