Recycling company finds skid-steer loaders to withstand growing demands.

By Tara Deering

A year ago, Dave Gudakunst was on a quest.

As the material logistics manager for Midwest Elastomers Inc. (MEI) in Wapakoneta, OH, he needed to find a pair of skid-steer loaders that could lift more than 2,500 pounds and that could withstand the demands of an industrial facility that processes more than 40 million pounds of rubber and plastic materials each year.

Gudakunst, who has been with MEI for nearly 20 years, knew that the skid-steer loaders would be worked hard every day. The lone skid-steer loader the company was replacing was used during all three shifts, and after three years, it had logged more than 12,000 service hours. That’s why this time around MEI officials decided they would buy two loaders to share the workload.

But as business for MEI continues to grow each year, as it has over the last decade, Gudakunst knew that the two new skid-steer loaders he purchased wouldn’t have it easy either.

Racing Tires to Running Tracks
MEI was founded in 1979 by an investment group made up mostly of doctors in the Milan, OH, area. Originally, the main function of the company was to process old tires. But shortly before the mid-1980s, MEI discontinued that service and became focused on the industrial rubber, sports surfacing, and plastics sectors. The company offers cryogenic and ambient grinding services to produce fine mesh powders and granules from rubber and plastic materials. It also offers toll processing of material or general processing per customer needs.

In the last decade, according to Gudakunst, MEI has grown considerably. When he first arrived at the company in 1986, he was one of about 20 employees. That first year on the job, he says the company processed about 10 million pounds of rubber. Now the company employs about 90 people and processes more than 40 million pounds of rubber and plastic. MEI went from having only two divisions (industrial rubber and sports surfacing) to three divisions after it added plastics in the mid-1990s.

“We also went from working a single shift in a single building to having three production facilities with three separate shifts,” Gudakunst says. “So not only are we expanding in size, building facilities, and people, but also our production is expanding.”

The ability to solve problems and service customers is what sets MEI apart from other rubber and plastic recyclers, Gudakunst says. The company also touts its ISO 9001:2000 quality management system certification, which ensures its products are processed in a controlled manufacturing environment, providing customers with consistent, quality products. MEI supplies several major tire manufacturers with rubber to make automobile and off-road tires. Its processed rubber also has been used on dozens of collegiate tracks across the country.

“We do business with most of the big kids on the block,” says Gudakunst, referring to the industrial rubber MEI sells to tire companies.

As MEI has taken on more rubber and plastic to process, its success has depended on several variables, one of which has been in placing emphasis on equipment. Company officials knew they needed reliable and strong equipment that could grow with their business and handle additional workloads.

Quest for Heavy-Duty Loaders
For years, Gudakunst says MEI has relied on skid-steer loaders to work daily and around the clock. The machines haul thousands of pounds of scrap rubber out of the facility’s back lot and then load it into the granulators.

When Gudakunst arrived at the company in 1986, there were two medium-sized skid-steer loaders doing this job. But as MEI began to process more material, company officials realized they needed loaders that could lift and haul more. By that time, Gudakunst had been given the responsibility of selecting and purchasing the skid-steer loaders.

“We needed to find something that could lift over 2,500 pounds,” Gudakunst says.

So in 1998, Gudakunst headed to Power Show Ohio, an annual trade show exhibiting agricultural, construction, and outdoor power equipment models and products. With almost every manufacturer of skid-steer loaders being displayed, he knew he’d be able to find a machine strong enough to fit MEI’s needs and reliable enough to work in an industrial environment. Part of that working environment would include the loader being run by as many as eight operators. Gudakunst knew that rotating the loader among several operators with different skill levels would be hard on any machine he chose.

Before going to the trade show, Gudakunst says he was already leaning toward purchasing a Bobcat skid-steer loader because the company had recently introduced a model that had a 3,000-pound lift capacity, but he wanted to weigh all of his options.

“I sort of compared the Bobcat loaders’ construction to competitive models, and they’re just built better than other skid-steer loaders. They’re heavier,” he says. “If you’re a farmer only using it to haul manure and only using it 200 hours a year, then anybody’s skid-steer will probably work for you. But if you have to use it in an industrial capacity, I don’t know if everybody’s is good enough.”

Gudakunst came back from the Power Show and purchased MEI’s first Bobcat 963 skid-steer loader. Since then, the loader has been the first of four Bobcat skid-steer loaders Gudakunst has purchased for MEI. The first Bobcat 963 loader had 9,000 service hours on it when he traded it in after only three years. The company’s second 963 loader got used even more and had 12,000 service hours on it after three years.

“We used to keep only one skid-steer loader, and you can tell by the hours that we ran it to death,” he says. “So we decided to buy two this time around. We’re still running them hard, but it makes it a little easier.”

Exceeding Expectations
Gudakunst purchased two Bobcat S300 skid-steer loaders for the company a little more than a year ago. MEI workers have found several uses for the machines around the recycling facility. In addition to mainly using the loaders to haul and load rubber into granulators, they use pallet fork attachments to lift and dump rubber boxes on skids into their processing machines. “We use our pallet forks and grapple quite a bit,” he says. “Each of them has a bucket, which is primarily used for snow removal and yard grading. Every now and then we’ll get a pile of trash that has to get picked up and we’ll use the bucket.”

The loaders get high marks from operators at the recycling facility who say the machines’ Bob-Tach mounting system saves them time and effort when switching between attachments. They have also been impressed with the loaders’ maneuverability. Gudakunst says the skid-steer loaders oftentimes are being utilized in buildings without large working areas.

The S300 loaders are equipped with foam-filled tires because Gudakunst learned early on that air-filled rubber tires weren’t conducive to their industrial environment. “We have broken skids and things across the lot. We ended up changing too many flats, so we got the severe-duty with the foam fill,” he says. Foam-filled tires don’t deflate if punctured by a sharp object, which saves on replacement costs and prevents downtime.

Gudakunst also likes the fact that the tires hold up. He recently replaced the foam-filled tires on one of the S300 skid-steer loaders after using them for 2,800 service hours. “We run our skid-steer on pavement, so I can only imagine how long they would last a contractor … probably a lifetime,” he says.

All of these factors are one reason Gudakunst believes the pair of Bobcat loaders will last just as long or longer than the previous two. Already, after 13 months, operators have logged about 2,800 service hours on one and more than 1,800 service hours on the other. That is the equivalent to between 12 and 16 hours a day. In just one year, MEI workers have racked up the service hours that would typically be found on a loader six years old.

“They’ve exceeded my expectations,” he says. “I don’t have a problem with them. We come in every day to start them and they run.”

Tara Deering is a technical writer with Two Rivers Marketing in Des Moines, IA.

GEC - September/October 2005