Concrete batcher eCon Drive for construction company

The construction company and concrete plant Martin Schwarzenbeck & Co. Bauunternehmung und Betonwerk GmbH & Co. KG, based in Gars am Inn in Upper Bavaria, Germany, operates a carousel system from Ebawe Anlagentechnik from the year 2000. Recently, the concrete batcher from a third-party supplier, that by now had gotten on in years, was replaced by the brand-new eCon Drive from Ebawe. The new concrete batcher, which operates automatically, enabled increase in production capacity within a very short time, and facilitated work in the concrete plant.

A strong partner for more than 120 years

The Martin Schwarzenbeck company started originally in 1898 as a small craftsman’s establishment and evolved in the course of more than four generations into a competent corporation with extended business areas in the construction and concrete sector. The existing carousel plant manufactures precast double walls with and without insulation, slab elements as well as solid-concrete walls. As a construction company, Schwarzenbeck has been a strong partner for more than 120 years, with numerous reference projects in the entire district of Mühldorf am Inn and beyond.

The family enterprise currently employs a workforce of around 95, actively practices its commitment to providing a work-life in Bavaria and is a member of the Bavarian industrial association Family Pact Bavaria. The company is headed by Otto Schwarzenbeck and his two sons Martin and Sebastian Schwarzenbeck. The third son, Otto Schwarzenbeck jun., is plant manager of the precast plant.

The existing carousel system from the engineering company Ebawe Anlagentechnik was delivered and set up in 2000. For manufacturing reinforcement, the company Schwarzenbeck uses a GTA for processing lattice girders and an MSR straightening and cutting machine newly installed in 2019. This replaced the existing machine from Progress Maschinen & Automation, one of Ebawe’s affiliated companies. Both companies are part of the Progress Group. The circulation system from Ebawe is now, as before, in operation, and only the concrete batcher had to make way for the new development in 2020.

Features of the eCon Drive

The new eCon Drive stands for top performance in terms of automation and for making efficient use of resources in modern precast concrete plants. It ensures fast and uniform batching of the fresh concrete onto the form surfaces of the pallets and systematically processes all scheduled tasks, according to the requirements of the production process. The eCon Drive receives the data for this from a control system.

The newly developed concrete batcher functions in automatic operation and is fitted with a 150-mm partition in the discharge opening. The machine delivered to Schwarzenbeck was fitted with additional butterfly valves to ensure more precise discharge when processing finer contours. This solution prevents concreting of formwork parts and achieves very high batching precision. The machine, with its modular configuration, is characterized by a higher ease of maintenance. Exchanging wear parts, for example, is possible within a very short time, reducing downtimes to a minimum.

Another highlight is the new worm and spine bearing, through which clogging material can no longer be pressed into the concrete. For maintenance of the machine, predictive maintenance in accordance with the 4.0 standard was implemented. The eCon Drive concrete batcher is also outfitted with the newly developed DuraScrew worms to ensure targeted and fast discharge from the bucket. The new material composition of the worms reduces wear and results in a much longer service life.

The company Schwarzenbeck is very satisfied with the new eCon Drive concrete batcher. The good cooperation from the beginning of the project to handover to the client found praise.

New concrete batcher leads to follow-up contract

The new machine increased the production capacity by approx. 10 %, so that more job orders can now be processed within a shorter period of time.

Martin Schwarzenbeck, one of the three Managing Directors, sums up the modernization with a smile: “The new top product eCon Drive makes us simply too fast!“ Previously the elements were cast manually with the concrete batcher that had gotten on in years, by a worker with 30 years of professional experience. With quick-setting cement and admixtures, some pallets could be charged twice a day. But the faster casting with automatic operation with the new machine created a gap. To close the gap, the company Schwarzenbeck ordered five new pallets from Ebawe, which will soon be delivered. In this way, more pallets can be charged twice daily, which also has a positive effect on production capacity.

The concrete batcher can now also be properly operated by other workers after brief training, which greatly simplifies work in the concrete plant and which prepares Schwarzenbeck very well for the future.