Last year, when Steve Krol, of A.F. Damon Company Inc., looked over his work schedule and considered which upcoming projects he should bid on, he knew that milling jobs would require a lot more thought than other types of work. For milling, he’d need to get pricing from area competitors that do paving and milling work. But not anymore.

According to Krol, since purchasing a new Marini MP2000 milling machine, he has built a nice profit margin by doing the milling himself and now factors that into the bid process. Consequently, A.F. Damon has increased its scope of work.

“It’s now possible to do both the milling and the paving portions of even a high-traffic job in the same day,” Krol said. “We can get in, get it done and go on to the next site. Knowing you’re not hanging on someone else’s schedule opens the door to line up more paying jobs in a given period of time.”

Today, milling has become a prerequisite to most paving jobs and owning a machine to do this is both sensible and profitable.

“If you can match the machine to your particular needs, the benefits can become even more attractive. If you can get an affordable machine that can handle small and large jobs, it’s easy to justify the purchase. At the price that milling work commands, it’s not hard to pay for a machine and improve your company’s bottom line at the same time,” he explained.

“We did a job in Boothwyn, Delaware County, [Pennsylvania] where the streets were old and deteriorated. On the first day, we brought in our Marini mill and turned on the automatic grade sensor. With one pass, we had the appropriate cut done. The next day, we moved in the paver and finished the job without any costly overrun,” Krol said. “It doesn’t get any easier than that.”