You will see clean and efficient production operations inside World War II-era buildings if you visit Custom Truck One Source in Kansas City. The Ross family has made a considerable investment to return the former Armco Steel property to its former glory as productive assets for a thriving business. Each of the buildings retains its riveted walls and the original overhead cranes. We took great care to waste nothing and reuse what we could.
That kind of thinking is at the root of the success of Custom Truck One Source. Take the best from what you have and then build something fantastic from that base.
When Custom Truck bought Terex boom truck and truck crane product line (promoting as Load King) in 2019, we knew that introducing new products would be necessary to be successful. We also knew that time was of the essence. We inherited a product line with a proud heritage, but also one that needed to be updated.
One of our new product developments is a new 5-section boom for the 35-ton class riding seat machine. Previously, the most complex boom we made only had four sections. We designed a new extend and retract system to make use of high-strength steel cables. We wanted to simulate years of use to ensure the reliability of the complete system. This involves thousands of extend and retract cycles at various boom angles and loads.
In the past, a crane operator would have to perform these cycles. This work is quite tedious, and having an operator on a crane full time for weeks is expensive. We worked with a supplier to build an interface to allow the crane to cycle automatically. It is still necessary for a person to set up the parameters of a test, but then the computer can take over and repeat the cycle the required number of times without further interaction. The crane has limit switches that will shut down the operation if certain conditions are met, making the whole process highly automated.
To move as quickly as possible, we repurposed a 1980’s Mack truck that had been taken in on trade. The crane on the Mack was an RS60100, the predecessor to the RS7100 in production when we bought the product line. The sub-base and outriggers were still good, and we mounted our brand-new boom and turret on top. We even reused the RS60100 open seat controls. We took advantage of idle assets that could have gone to scrap, and we are leveraging them to launch our new 35-ton rider seat crane. Following the Ross family’s lead, we wasted nothing that could be repurposed.
“The truck starts up every day.”
“It’s a workhorse.”
“It will probably last longer than me.”
The above are direct quotes that we hear every day on the durability of the truck.
At Custom Truck One Source, we take our heritage of repurposing, reusing, and constant innovation seriously.
