Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) chose a German wheel loader customer to demonstrate the new L250G wheel loader – which is transforming the way the company does business. The L250G has revolutionised efficiency for LBT. It provides a perfectly sized machine for loading semitrailer trucks in rehandling applications and rigid haulers at the rock face. The L250G effortlessly tackles a variety of tasks. And rather than making four cycle loads, the L250G can finish the job in only three because of its larger bucket. This is saving time and money – as well as fuel.
Löderburger Baustoff + Transport (LBT) operates a quarry in the small town of Stassfurt in Germany. Part of the larger Ferdinand Wesling Group, LBT owns a number of rock and sand quarries scattered across northern Germany, as well as other holdings like logistics companies, concrete plants – and even a museum called Dino Park, a showcase for a dinosaur footprint discovered in a quarry in Münchehagen. The Wesling Group is a major Volvo CE customer, running a fleet of 35 wheel loaders across Germany – 10 of which are at work in the Stassfurt quarry – and purchasing two or three new machines each year.
The business has been in Ferdinand Wesling’s family since his grandfather, also named Ferdinand, founded it in 1925. After the present Ferdinand took over the company, he saw an opportunity for expansion into then-newly opened East Germany, and in 1991, he acquired the Stassfurt quarry, which now yields more than 2 Mt/y of limestone. The stone is used for shaft furnace bricks for the local sodium carbonate producer, chippings for concrete and asphalt mixtures for road construction, building blocks and other road construction materials. The 50-ha mine, now 55 m deep, is so busy feeding the sodium carbonate factory that LBT employees work seven days a week, 365 days a year, with Volvo loaders putting in 10- to 16-hour days. Which is one major reason why Ferdinand uses Volvo machines: he counts on receiving specialised service as soon as he needs it. At the dealership in nearby Magdeburg, two service technicians have specific knowledge of each machine in LBT’s fleet. The dealer’s flexibility and Saturday service are important for a company that can’t afford any downtime.
In 2008, LBT switched its entire fleet of excavators over to Volvo wheel loaders. “They’re just flexible for our needs,” says Ferdinand. “They’re easier for us to work with and more versatile, and we’ve found that – for our purposes in this quarry, at least – we can achieve better fuel efficiency with wheel loaders doing the work.”
With the newest acquisition, LBT found that it can achieve even better fuel efficiency. Because of its history with Volvo CE, LBT was chosen to test out the new Volvo L250G wheel loader. It’s not unusual for the Wesling Group to be on the cutting edge of new machinery and technology: it was also one of the first customers in Germany to acquire the new L350F wheel loader after it came out in 2008.
The demo machine will soon leave the Wesling Group’s hands and move on to job sites in southern Germany and Austria; other L250G demonstration units will also go to work in Sweden and the Netherlands. But as its first user, Ferdinand is impressed. “Once we can specify an L250G to meet our exact needs, it will be the perfect machine for us.”
