A well-attended Terex Materials Processing press conference at Hillhead 2024 (June 25-27) heard how the major quarrying and recycling equipment business plans to push for even greater global market share by pursuing sustainability-minded productivity gains via its evolving, innovation-led crushing, screening, washing, and recycling plant portfolio and high-quality customer and dealer support. Guy Woodford reports
In a competitive marketplace, a business has to stand out. To do that, it pays to listen to your customers. Terex Materials Processing (Terex MP) did this in 2016 with the launch of EvoQuip, a compact crushing and screening plant brand that has rapidly become one of Terex MP's fastest-growing. Eight years later, Terex MP was at Hillhead 2024, highlighting MAGNA, a new brand addressing the high crushing and screening output and volume demands of large-scale quarrying, mining, construction, and recycling operations.
Led by business line director Neil McIlwaine, formerly Finlay's global business development and marketing director, MAGNA will leverage Terex MP's global presence, which spans all continents, to provide high-quality solutions supported by a global network of skilled distributors. In some cases, customers are likely to deploy MAGNA plants in addition to medium-sized crushers and screeners from legacy brands, including Terex MP's Powerscreen and Finlay.
"MAGNA will benefit from our pedigree of taking a concept into the marketplace quickly and effectively," said Pat Brian, vice president of aggregates businesses within the Terex MP segment of Terex, who was joined at the Terex MP Hillhead 2024 press conference by Kieran Hegarty, president of Terex MP, and David Trimble, Terex group engineering director. "It's a specific play focused on customers wanting much larger equipment for their larger quarries and mines. EvoQuip quickly became a major global player in the compact crushing and screening space, and we want to replicate that with MAGNA.
"While MAGNA will offer some of the biggest products from our other well-known brands, it will also have an aggressive new product development programme to provide a comprehensive portfolio for the target markets. Most of the MAGNA plants will be made in our Northern Ireland crushing and screening centres of excellence, though we will supplement, where appropriate, from elsewhere in our global manufacturing footprint. We are now very vertically integrated in terms of our fabrication capability, which means that our ability to manufacture smaller volume plants cost-effectively is very much in our own hands."
Hegarty added: "We have a lot of the componentry already. Our Terex MPS brand has larger jaws and cones, but they tend to be static and modular and never on a tracked mobile platform. The MAGNA concept is marrying these larger components with our expertise in designing tracked plants. Over time, the mobile plant concept has continued to grow as people see the efficiencies they can generate."
When asked about the likely biggest markets for MAGNA, Brian said: "North America, Australia, Africa, and South America offer great opportunities in the mining space, and there will also be larger quarries closer to our doorstep that could be a good fit. We will promote the MAGNA brand at MINExpo in Las Vegas [24-26 September 2024]."
Turning his attention to Terex Aggregates' full Hillhead 2024 offer, Brian said: "We have 19 products on show [at Hillhead 2024], and eight are brand new. It demonstrates one of the key pillars of our growth strategy: new product development and innovation. Innovation is a word that can be somewhat overused, but at Terex, we put our money where our mouth is. We have a continual pipeline of new products, regardless of business cycles.
"We are joined here by dozens of our dealers from around the world who, along with our innovative product portfolio, are a big part of our secret sauce that differentiates us in the global marketplace. Many of our dealer relationships date back 30 to 40 years, including people who started working at Terex and became our dealer representatives worldwide.
We are very enthusiastic about what the long-term holds for the business. We have spent the last two years strengthening through acquisitions and investing in our people. The capital investment by Terex into Terex MP's factories, including money spent on digitising them and on robotics, is higher than ever."
Alongside the launch of MAGNA, another standout theme during the Terex MP press conference was increased customer demand for washing plants and linked technology, which is good news for the business's Terex Washing Systems brand and its 'Feeder to Filterpress' offer. At Hillhead 2024, Terex Washing Systems showcased STREAM, its new innovative data software system that leverages real-time insights to drive machine performance, empowering operators with actionable intelligence to boost productivity, minimise downtime, and maximise profitability.
Brian said the growth rate for Terex MP's wet processing solutions is "pretty much double" that of its dry crushing and screening plant brands.
Hegarty added that the global growth of aggregate recycling is also good news for wet processing plant brands such as Terex Washing Systems. "Some countries use a significant amount of recycled aggregates in their construction, but others don't. Over the long term, we see that the demand for recycling plants will grow and be a key driver of new business for EvoQuip and Terex Washing Systems.
"Historically, our wet processing business was primarily based around virgin aggregates. As more people want recycled aggregates, they also want them to be of a certain quality, which washing can deliver. Construction waste going into landfill is the single biggest waste stream on earth, and it should be the easiest to recycle."
Is Terex MP's excitement over rising wet processing plant demand dampened by the fact that it is an increasingly crowded space within the quarrying equipment market? "It is what it is. You can never get a free run for long!" continued Hegarty. "We will continue to invest in what we consider to be some excellent product development. Terex Washing Systems offers the whole lot, and, with ever more stringent demands for specific final product quality, many more applications are becoming well suited to wet processing."
Six Terex MP brands were showcased at Hillhead 2024: Powerscreen, Finlay, EvoQuip, Terex Washing Systems, Terex MPS, and MDS. Powerscreen put its state-of-the-art Maxtrak1300X cone crusher to work in the demonstration zone. EvoQuip's new Bison 220R jaw crusher, Finlay's new electric I-120RS impact crusher, and the electric 883+ scalping screen joined it. The new Finlay TG500 Genset powered both Finlay machines.
Terex MP press conference attendees heard how the business continues to focus on developing its impressive diesel-electric and fully electric plant range. Around 80% of Terex MP Aggregates brands' machines are available to customers in partial or fully electric-drive form.
"We are continuing to build on our electric-drive product portfolio," said Trimble. "The key thing is the flexibility of our assets. Moving forward, a customer may not always have access to an electric source and still run their plant on diesel."
Trimble stressed Terex's partnership with CATAGEN and WRIGHTBUS, which is focused on alternative fuel-powered crushing and screening plant research and development.
In September 2023, the trio were awarded £6.27 million in funding by the UK Department for Energy Security & Net Zero through Phase 2 of the Red Diesel Replacement programme as part of the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP). The British Government's funding is part of an £8.1 million project to decarbonise off-road mobile machinery. The initiative will create 15 highly skilled jobs and highlight Northern Ireland's manufacturing and engineering expertise, now used to reduce emissions globally.
The Terex, CATAGEN and WRIGHTBUS link-up will result in a decarbonised end-to-end demonstration of a Powerscreen Premiertrak 450E crusher and Chieftain 1700XE screener powered by green hydrogen and e-diesel at a working quarry site in Northern Ireland before the end of this year. The Powerscreen equipment will be fuelled by CATAGEN's ClimaHtech E-FUEL GEN and COMPRESSOR technology, and WRIGHTBUS is supporting the development of a mobile hydrogen refueller.
Terex, CATAGEN, and WRIGHTBUS aim to take a complete solution to a pre-production readiness level and demonstrate the full-systems approach at two demonstration sites during 2024. This concept's benefits lie in integrating well-proven equipment with innovative technology to deliver a fully decarbonised, robust solution for the industry.
"It's about focusing on what's coming next, whether that's hydrogen, e-fuels, or something around our core technologies while keeping a close eye on what's happening in the market. We think we are already serving the market well with what we've got," summarised Trimble.
Terex MP Q1 2024 net sales of US$520 million (€482.82mn) were down 6.1% or $33.8 million (€31.38mn) year-over-year, primarily driven by lower end-market demand for material handling equipment and cranes in Europe, partially offset by growth for aggregates equipment in North America.
Income from operations decreased to $72.1 million (€66.94mn), or 13.9% of net sales, compared to $85.3 million (€79.2mn), or 15.4% of net sales, in Q1 2023. Terex said the decrease was largely due to lower sales volume and an unfavourable product mix.
Asked about which regional markets offer the best growth prospects for Terex MP brands in the short to mid-term, Hegarty replied: "We enjoyed a very strong growth in our crushing and screening business over two years, and now demand is normalising in our mature markets, in Europe and North America. We have invested significantly in our Indian manufacturing presence, machine servicing, and dealer network capabilities. We are very bullish about our long-term prospects there and in Southeast Asia. Pat [Brian] and I recently visited our Malaysia and China factories. Those markets were traditionally not mobile plant markets but are an increasing focus as we continue to globalise our business. We are also making traction in Brazil with a new distributor."
Brian said Powerscreen and Finlay crushers and screeners are manufactured at Terex MP's 18,000m² in the Jiading district of Shanghai. "We acquired the facility just as the coronavirus pandemic hit. The team there has done a remarkable job. This year, we will pretty much double production from last year. We use that facility to supply the local Chinese market and support our business in Southeast Asia and Australia. Due to the domestic economy, the China market has been quite difficult. However, we are seeing a few signs of improvement. To our benefit, some other international [crushing and screening] brands have now exited that market. From our [China] factory, we can leverage many of our brands and products in time."
Hegarty stressed that there had traditionally been a good demand for electric crushing and screening machines in some parts of Asia, but that was for "practical" reasons rather than sustainability considerations.
"In India, for example, many work sites have had electricity for a long time, and there haven't been enough engineers that understood hydraulics. This created a demand for wheeled electric plants.
"In Africa, through one of our distributors, we now offer a wheeled cone [crusher] plant. The wheeled crushing and screening plant market in Europe pretty much died over the last 30 years as the tracked plant guys took over, but there's now a bit of a renaissance in demand due to those types of plants being electrified. Another reality is that many people buy electric plants but power them on-site with diesel generators."
When asked what role artificial intelligence plays within the Terex MP business, Hegarty said: "A significant one. We invested two years ago in a Finnish company called ZenRobotics [a robotic waste sorting company], which uses artificial intelligence to identify and handle different types of construction and municipal waste. AI can also help with remote diagnostics and machine servicing. Additionally, it can support our continuous investment in advanced, predictive telemetry to generate useful data for our customers and distribution partners."
Asked about Simon Meester's impact on Terex MP since succeeding John Garrison Jr. as Terex CEO and president in January 2024, Hegarty said: "John joined Terex in 2016 and led a period of consolidation, through the selling off of non-performing assets, including Terex's Construction division, the bulk of our Mobile On-Road Crane division, as well as the Material Handling and Port Solutions business. That left Terex MP and AWP [Aerial Work Platforms] as the remaining business segments, but the corporation is in a very strong position financially. Last year, we [Terex] generated $5.2 billion in revenue and a good level of profitability. The key imperative is returning to growth, which Simon has stated publicly, and we will look to grow organically and inorganically. You will see more focus on acquisitions, which will be logical and strategic. Underpinning all of this is our goal to be market leaders in our chosen segments."
