Modern Mining November 2017

PRODUCT News

Pilot Crushtec launches new products at Open Day has to be said that local business remains affected by the current political climate, yet the global market for crushing and screen- ing equipment is well on the road to recovery and in some instances is doing exceptionally well. “Current Metso experience is

tion arm, Pilot MacFab, is being scaled upward to match demand. Despite the market being awash with pirate parts, a great deal of hard work has ensured that ex-works prices remain within 10 % of lookalike offerings.” The spares market is all about availabil- ity and Scherf estimates the value of Pilot Crushtec’s  spares and wear parts current stockholding at around R140 million, man- aged by an advanced control system. He concluded by describing the added value the company has gained since its alignment with Metso. “It’s a very good company, very technically minded, incred- ibly supportive and our goals are aligned. For example, the distributor manager spends two weeks of every month based at our offices and we have a full time Metso product support specialist based permanently at our offices; something which I think is phenomenal. Another aspect of their technical assistance is the Bruno software simulation package which enables us to accurately predict the results of a machine or train of machines across a given range of applications.” Proof of the rapport that exists between customer and supplier was shown in September when Pilot Crushtec International received the award for ‘best new service distributor’ at Metso’s inaugu- ral global distributor conference. Pilot Crushtec, tel (+27 11) 842-5600, website: www. pilotcrushtec.com

that their factories are working at high capacity in the US, Australia and Asia and while European demand is on a gradual upswing, the South African market is lag- ging behind these trends in terms

The Metso Lokotrack LTG1000 cone crusher, one of the prod- ucts on display at the Open Day.

of sales of new equipment; however, we are enjoying increasing business and enqui- ries from neighbouring states, including Zambia, the DRC, Namibia and Zimbabwe.” On exports, he said the Australasian market now accounted for 80 % of cat- egory sales which included first sales to operators in New Zealand of Pilot Modular equipment. Scherf also took the opportunity to reveal the background behind two major shifts in the company’s marketing activities. The first – a dramatic increase in the sale of spare parts and components accompanied by a rise in requests for the refurbishment of used machines. Spares sales and marketing now fall within the remit of a dedicated division assisted in no small measure by the securing of the Metso franchise. “Pilot Crushtec International’s fabrica-

Pilot Crushtec International recently held an Open Day at its Jet Park prem- ises in Johannesburg aimed at bringing customers and friends together for the opportunity to meet Pilot Crushtec’s key suppliers, as well as its own people whom they engage with on a regular basis. Two new products were at the Open Day – the Pilot Modular MAXIscalp 600, designed and built in house to meet high volume scalping needs, and the Metso Nordplant C80 primary crushing station, which is intended for use in modular configurations. Sandro Scherf, CEO of Pilot Crushtec, took the opportunity to speak informally, giving a frank appraisal of where the indus- try finds itself in 2017. “There’s no getting away from the fact that the last few years have been tough, and in South Africa this is still the case. It

48  MODERN MINING  November 2017