Processing plants have been built for more than 50 years at the former OM now Keestrack-OM facility in Ponzano Veneto, some 30km north of Venice in Northeast Italy. Founded in 1964, the company Officine Meccaniche di Ponzano Veneto – in short OM – produced static technology before turning to mobile processing and the booming recycling sector with its first tracked jaw crusher in 1989. Based on important technical innovations like the hydraulic gap adjustment patented in 1995, OM fully focussed on its tracked OMTRACK solutions with several 20-50tonne jaw crusher models.
With the acquisition of OM and its OMTRACK crushers in 2010, Keestrack took over OM’s expertise and expanded sustainably its specific offering in the crushing segment. After Sternberk (Czech Republic) and Anhui in China, Ponzano Veneto became the third production facility within the worldwide Keestrack group. Today Peter Hoogendoorn – son of Keestrack founder Kees Hoogendoorn – leads the Keestack-OM Italy subsidiary with around 60 employees. Besides production and R&D in a dedicated Keestrack-OM competence centre, the Keestrack-OM subsidiary is also responsible for product specific aftersales services worldwide and distributor support for the whole Keestrack programme in Italy, Switzerland and Slovenia.
After its integration into the Keestrack organisation, the former OM product portfolio, focussed on jaw crushers, has been fundamentally reviewed. This specifically concerned the use of highly efficient drive technologies and modern control systems. Whilst improving the accessibility of the fully equipped plants, transport weights and dimension were optimised. Within its B-Series Keestrack-OM offers today four models – from the 30tonne all-rounder B3 to the 60tonne top model B6 producing around 350tonnes/hour.
All Keestrack-OM jaw crushers are characterised through the intelligent crusher control system with hydraulic gap adjustment, overload protection and patented ‘Non-Stop-System (NSS). Combining feeding speed controls and several level and pressure sensors within the crusher hydraulics, the system continually monitors the crushing process and automatically opens/closes the gap in case of difficult or non-crushable material. The multi-level function effectuates the maximum gap opening only when necessary, thus avoiding quality and production losses. As further advantages the system offers gap setting during operation and the automatic monitoring and adjustment of preset CSS values along occurring wear every 50 working hours.
“This combination guarantees the high operational safety and availability of our mobile plants, whether in highly flexible recycling operations or in heavy-duty quarry production”, says Teseo di Nardo, ‘Product Champion’ responsible for the technical marketing of Keestrack-OM jaw crushers. “Additionally, our technology ensures a high consistency in production rates and product quality – the latter being also supported through specifically high crusher speeds between 280 and 320 rpm.”
The continuous development of plant modules and concepts is ensured by Keestrack-OM’s six engineer strong in-house design department. In close co-operation with production they work on specific improvements or customer solutions and create alternative components for existing series machines, or completely new machine concepts. Examples are the upcoming ‘electrification’ of the jaw crusher range and the new Keestrack cone crusher series, recently introduced with the model H4. As for the majority of its screeners and impactors, Keestrack will introduce from 2017 diesel-electric hybrid drives with ‘plug-in’ option for its mobile jaw crushers as an alternative to the existing diesel-hydraulic drives.
This technology is already a key characteristic of the new tracked cone crusher H4 which was fully developed at the Keestrack-OM facility in co-operation with a world renowned crusher manufacturer. A new frame design allows the optional equipment with active pre-screening and a triple-deck production screen module with oversize return conveyor, giving a total transport weight of only 46tonnes and a compact transport width of 3m. An intelligent plant control – to be combined optionally with the GPS-supported remote machine monitoring system ‘Keestrack-er’ – ensures the efficient production of several quality end products in just one pass with only one highly flexible mobile plant.
“Our highly qualified employees with years of experience and the direct communication between design and production enables us to optimize continuously the efficiency and flexibility of our processes during recent years,” says Keestrack-OM production manager Tiziano Zago.
“Today, the pre-assembly of specific modules (crushers, drives) and the parallel completion of the different models is organized in eleven assembly stations on a total space of nearly 5000 m². “Depending on the model and ordered options our average lead time in one-shift-operation is about three weeks per machine.”
For the provision of steelwork and components Keestrack-OM is relying on long-standing regional suppliers and the close co-operation with the Czech sister company in Sternberk, where the manufacturer invested massively in highly qualified steel construction and finishing processes during recent years. Depending on specific models, the proportion of ‘internally’ supplied parts and modules reaches today up to 40%.
“With the upcoming hybrid generations of our jaw crushers and the new cone crusher series we expect a further increase of our production capacities,” says Peter Hoogendoorn. Currently, annual production is set to reach around 60 machines.
