After a highly successful time as Powerscreen’s product line manager, Oliver Donnelly has become Terex Washing Systems’ new global business line director. Here, he tells Aggregates Business Europe Editor Guy Woodford it was the growing worldwide market for advanced washing and recycling equipment solutions that attracted him to his new senior role.
Oliver Donnelly is the former lead engineer for
Having taken on a new role as business line director for Terex Washing Systems (TWS) in May 2016, you don’t have to spend long with Donnelly to realise he’s just as passionate about his new brand’s product range and, crucially, about its immense demand growth potential.
“I’d had a 12-year history with Powerscreen, with the last three years being a product management role, with a strong element of commercial responsibility, integrating sales with the technical side of the business,” explains Donnelly. “Having been in the role three years, some of the challenge had gone out of it. I was always passionate about the Powerscreen brand, and still am, but the Terex Washing Systems position was a massive opportunity for me to further my career and to create a new challenge for myself in building the business.
“The TWS product range side of things was attractive as well. It’s a different product range [from crushers and screens], and different from an application standpoint. I’m very interested in how the machines work, what they do, and how they bring value to customers.
“The Washing business has given me a new outlook – a new group of products to analyse and understand. I want to do what we did at Powerscreen, to an extent, in terms of maturing the business, and creating better sales tools to help customers understand the significant return on investment that our equipment can deliver.
“There’s massive potential to grow the business. In the quarrying industry, whilst washing has been around a long time, I think in terms of its overall development, it’s in its infancy. There are more and more things driving a requirement for washing, such as changes in legislation and regulations. For example, in Germany and Austria now, there’s a drive towards off-site recycling at dedicated recycling centres. Typically to get the recycled [aggregate] material to spec, you need to wash.”
With an increasing number of major and smaller traditional crushing and screening solution manufacturers now moving into the materials washing market, taking on established heavyweights such as Terex Washing Systems (TWS) and
“One asset we have is one of the best network of distributors globally. Long-established companies that understand the materials processing segment very well. Terex is also very forward-looking in terms of investing in their businesses. They understand that washing is a growing area, making them happy to invest in our products. To me, that was part of the attraction of going into this role.”
Donnelly believes parts of the Middle East, India and Africa offer excellent growth potential for TWS’s product portfolio. “We need to be active in these markets,” he stresses.
TWS staged two world premieres at the prestigious Hillhead 2016 (28-30 June) exhibition at
The AggreScalp is a versatile, high performance heavy duty electric screening machine that has the flexibility to operate as a 2-way or 3-way split screener. The FM UltraFines can process up to 450m3/hour of slurry and recover material as low as 40 microns. This reduces the volume of solids reporting to storage ponds or water treatment plants.
“We believe we are very in-tune with our customers and distributors, and their feedback to us essentially defines our product roadmap,” explains Donnelly. “These two machines are examples of that. The AggreScalp has been designed for material recycling industries. It allows customers to regulate the feed into an aggregate and sand washing plant that is delivering a cleaner, more easy-to-handle material into the washing plant. It’s increasing throughput at the same time.
“The UltraFines model is reducing the burden on water treatment systems. It can achieve a lower cut point than the typical hydrocyclone sandplant. Typically a hydrocyclone will cut at 75 microns but the UltraFines can achieve a cut point at almost half that. There’s potential to reduce your pond size and the power used in your water treatment facility. It’s a better approach environmentally and in terms of Capex cost.”
Donnelly stresses that both the AggreScalp and FM UltraFines models are also designed to achieve optimum reliability and performance. “We want to make sure that all our machines delivered onto the market meet the high performance expectations that customers have,” he adds.
TWS last year entered the quarry conveyors market with AggreStac models in three length options – 50ft, 65ft and 80ft.
“We want to eventually be able to offer a full solution to our customer base in terms of products from start to finish. We also want to grow our capabilities in terms of offering a turnkey solution to customers regarding their plant installations. This will be a key focus area over the next couple of years,” explains Donnelly.
As part of its development of the TWS business, Terex has recently invested heavily in a new wear parts facility near its materials processing business segment HQ in Dungannon, Northern Ireland. The company has also made a further sizeable investment in the Dungannon HQ’s TWS and Terex MPS manufacturing capability.
“We’re able to hold a greater inventory of parts. We have more sophisticated systems for picking and packing, and shorter response times from when a wear parts order comes in and when it’s dispatched out to the customer” says Donnelly. “There’s also been a big investment in the people side of things. We’re communicating more effectively with our distributors, so they know exactly what parts they need to be stocking to offer a very quick turnaround to the end user.”
On the manufacturing facility investment, Donnelly continues: “We have a completely new high bay facility designed specifically around our products which facilitates full-build and test prior to despatch. We also have a suite of new headquarter offices to accommodate TWS’s very strong team. The team is fully invigorated by these investments in the business.
“With the investment in our manufacturing facility, we can operate with shorter customer lead times. It varies from model to model, but a 20-25% shorter lead time would be reasonably indicative of how it should operate. We also have a better facility to fully build all our modular models, like the AggreSand 206, so that it can arrive at the customer site and everything fits together seamlessly.”
In addition to his new senior global TWS role, Donnelly, who holds a First Class Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Queen’s University, Belfast, has also become Terex Minerals Processing Systems (Terex MPS) business line director for Europe, Africa & Russia. “From the dry crushing and screening product side of things, I’m very familiar with what Terex MPS has from my Powerscreen days,” says Donnelly.
“The route to market for Terex MPS and Terex Washing Systems is very similar. It’s a project or application-based sell and quite a technical sell compared to tracked mobile [crushing and screening equipment]. Each intended customer application is looked at in its own right and we come up with an equipment solution for that. Because there’s such similarity in their route to market, there’s a lot of synergies between these two business segments. If we can leverage those synergies and go to market in a more efficient manner, it will grow both businesses.”
Terex MPS has a strong history in North America with, among others, its Cedarapids and Simplicity crushing and screening product ranges traditionally being manufactured and selling well in the United States.
“A lot of the Terex MPS products are developed in the US, so in my role I will be making sure I and colleagues in Europe, Russia and Africa feed into what’s happening going forward. There’s always differences to what an American customer will think is great for their application, and what a European, Russian or African customer wants,” explains Donnelly.
With constant TWS and Terex MPS product and distributor network development in store, the ambitious, likeable and highly knowledgeable Donnelly has come to the brands at just the right time.
