The Austrian crushing and screening plant manufacturer says it is now concentrating the formerly mostly project-specific crushing services offered by its SBM Technikum laboratory under the SBM Technikum (SBM Technical Centre) label.
These services are being made available to a wide range of interested parties via SBM's sales department and network of international sales partners.
The SBM Technikum rock laboratory has been based at the company's HQ in Oberweis near Gmunden in Upper Austria since 2017, conducting research in implementing and documenting in-house rock examinations.
SBM says that major investments in the laboratory's equipment mean that specially developed laboratory crushers can now simulate crushing processes with horizontal and vertical impact crushers, roll crushers, hammer mills, and jaw crushers; and material-specific crushing results in real-use can be predicted exactly.
All test results of the most diverse primary materials have been digitalised since 2006 by means of the SBM in-house software ILUAS (Intelligente Labor und Auswerte-Software - intelligent laboratory and evaluation software).
Based upon material provided by clients, SBM's engineers carry out crushing trials and further appropriate examinations at the Technikum laboratory. These include moisture/density measurements and crushability/abrasiveness tests.
The ILUAS-assisted analysis then provides information to improve the product quality (grain shape, grain size distribution, etc.) or to optimise the production process (energy input, wear, etc.). Further services offered by the SBM Technikum are on-site inspections with an especially equipped laboratory bus. Subsequently, individually prepared dossiers show possible weak points and provide substantiated proposals to optimise existing processes.
SBM managing director Erwin Schneller says the company can look back on a very successful 2021, despite all of the market difficulties.
He added that, with about €125m in annual sales, the company is expecting a more than 30% increase in sales and income for 2021 compared to the ‘Corona year’ of 2020 when sales totalled €90m - itself a 20% increase on 2019.
“Once again we profit from our broad positioning as a full-package supplier in the sectors mineral processing and concrete mixing technology," he added. "In both sectors that today each represent half of our business activities, the markets have proven very robust. Furthermore, we could successfully cushion the different developments in important key markets due to the international orientation that is highly advanced in the concrete sector and further expanded in the mineral processing sector."
