Italy has long since been associated with the production of high-quality demolition attachments with many of the manufacturers spending decades honing their skills.
In 1989 Salvatori Carpuso started his company’s journey within the industry. Manufacturing spare parts and service kits, Salvatori’s company Promove found there was a niche in the market to move away from just service and maintenance of demolition attachments and machinery to the design and building of their own equipment. Hydraulic breakers were the first in the constantly expanding product line which now boasts a range of crackers, selector grabs and concrete processors suitable for machines up to 80 tonnes in weight. Situated on the outskirts of Bari in Southern Italy, Promove have recently increased their capabilities with a two million Euro expansion of their manufacturing business to provide state-of-the-art machining facilities. “We have recently added new precision milling and CNC technology to assist our manufacturing teams.” Giuseppe Palma, European Sales Manager commented “The addition of this new machinery will allow our machinists to complete work quicker and more accurately enabling us to produce more attachments.”
The company started life producing hydraulic breakers for home market focussing on build quality, reliability, and a first-class back-up service. “We strive to give our dealers and customers the best service available.” Managing Director Paula Carpuso explains “Good service and back-up keeps the customer happy. We have every part for every attachment we manufacture on the shelf ready for shipment within 12 hours should a customer require it.”
The range of attachments is constantly evolving. From their tried and trusted hydraulic breakers, the company now produce a range of demolition and recycling attachments for excavators from 2 tonnes to over 100 tonnes. “We try and cover the popular weight ranges and model sizes.” Giuseppe added “At Bauma we have introduced a number of smaller attachments designed for the smaller end of the market. These include a new primary cracker, a new selector grab for 13-20 tonne machines and a pair of breakers with weights of 150kg and 3800kg.” The recent expansion to the company’s manufacturing facilities has allowed them to bring even more of the component fabrication in-house with over 70% of every attachment made by Promove.
Designed in-house by the small but highly experienced team, Promove attachments are constructed to provide their owners and end users a lifetime of productivity and reliability. From the exceptionally sturdy frames and casings to the high-end motors and slew rings used in the rotating demolition attachments. Ease of maintenance is another area the company prides itself in. “We have looked at making the replacement of teeth and cutting edges as simple and easy as possible to avoid downtime.” Giuseppe comments “Our breakers have a simple, yet effective valve system to adjust the impact and blow energy when working on different materials. Whilst some manufacturers offer an automatic system, we feel the manual system is less complicated, works just as well and offers superior reliability to the complex automatic systems.”
Whilst at the factory we were invited to see a project where one of Promove’s repeat customers were using a pair of the company’s xP7000 heavy duty hammers.
Cementi Constantinopli started their operations around the same time as Promove and is owned by the Rabasco family. Operating three quarries across the Puglia region, Cementi Constantinopli employs over 400 people in both the extraction operations and production of cement and plaster products.
Their limestone quarrying operation at Minervino Murge relies on the Promove breakers to remove over 100,000 tonnes of material on an annual basis. Unlike many quarries where the material is blasted from the face, Cementi Constantinopli use the two xP7000 breaker mounted on 75 tonne class excavators to remove the material. Quarry Supervisor Romeo explained why; “We are unable to blast at the site because of planning permissions. This has meant that the only way to harvest the high-quality material at the site was to use breakers. We run a fleet of premium excavators and feel the quality of the Promove breakers match these.”
The quarry employs a new CAT 374 and a 3-year-old CAT 374F to carry the breakers to steadily remove the face of limestone in front of them. Whilst the limestone itself is relatively hard, it runs through a mixture of clay and sand which is in thin bands around the limestone. The two 75 tonne excavators work two areas at a time with each hammer adjusted for the material it is removing. The older machine works the material from the top of the bench which contains the softer material whilst the newer 374 removes the lower material at a lower level to create a bench for a new CAT 395 to load away. The breaker on the newer machine has been set to provide less blows per minute but hit harder thanks to a longer stroke. The faster, shorter blows from the other hammer are more than adequate to remove the lighter material higher up the face.
One noticeable thing about the two breakers is the lack of paint on them. As the operators remove the material from the face, the limestone steadily builds up in front of the advancing excavator. To allow them to track forwards each operator uses the breaker’s body to level the material. Not the best way to treat an expensive attachment, but an effective method to say the least. What this unconventional use of the breaker does go to show is the solid build quality of the xP range’s casing.
Promove offer their breaker ranges with cartridge greasing options to prolong the life of the tool but the pair of hammers at the quarry used a dedicated grease line from the host excavator to constantly supply them with grease.
The market for breakers and demolition attachments is a hard fought one across the world, sadly with many end users making choices solely on the cost of a specific unit. “We know we are not the cheapest.” Giuseppe comments “We design our tools to be able to give their owners a long life and also be extremely productive during that time.”
Whilst the company hold a massive stock of spares and wear parts, dealers around the word are also expected to carry a reasonable inventory of consumables. TDL Equipment, the dealer for the UK is one of those dealers. “We have only been selling the Promove range for a short period of time.” James Bickerton TDL’s Business Development Director commented “The UK is notorious for being a very cost sensitive market especially when it comes to certain attachments. We have found that the Promove range is proving to give users a combination of value for money associated with some of the lower cost brands whilst bringing the market leading performance and quality in the same package.”
Article by Paul Argent, Awesome Earthmovers Magazine – Issue 10.