Liebherr loaders are a critical component of A1 Organics’ operation in Commerce City, Colo., where the company recycles green waste into colored mulch, according to Kent Pendley, A1’s chief operating officer.
(CEG photo)
It's never good to waste an opportunity … even when it comes to waste.
A1 Organics, a fourth-generation family firm, has built a highly successful business turning waste into revenue. The Colorado-based company started out decades ago as a lamb-feeding operation and the inevitable consequence of that was a lot of manure. Dealing with that waste was the company's first foray into compost, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Today, A1 is the largest producer of compost in the Rocky Mountain region, taking in more than 500,000 tons of organic waste annually, processing it and returning it to market in the form of high-quality composts, mulches and other recycled landscape materials.
That all translates to a lot of material handling as it is received, stockpiled and fed into the appropriate processing machines and, ultimately, loaded for delivery.
Kent Pendley, A1 vice-president of operations, said choosing the right equipment is crucial to the success of the business.
A1 Organics COO Kent Pendley (L) and Power Screening LLC's Dustin Sweeney with a Liebherr 550 wheel loader.
"We're pretty adept at finding the right equipment for the right job," Pendley said. "For moving the amount of material we move, the Liebherr L550 and L580 loaders have proven to be the right choice."
The company's four facilities — two producing compost and two producing colored mulch — utilize Liebherr wheel loaders exclusively on new purchases. It has nine Liebherr loaders in operation, with another 550 loader being delivered to them in 2023.
But that hasn't always been the case.
"In 2016, we made the decision to investigate other loader options as we were not entirely happy with the equipment that we were using at the time," Pendley said.
"We were customers of Power Screening LLC, using their Komptech Hurrikan plastic separator/screeners," he added. "So, we mentioned our need for loaders to Ryan Puckett, our rep at the time, and he suggested we look at Liebherr. Frankly, I had never heard of a Liebherr loader."
Pendley noted, though, that for composting and recycling equipment, A1 had started looking to Europe years earlier.
"They are light years ahead of the U.S.," he said.
"We sent out spec sheets to all the major equipment distributors and included Power Screening's Liebherr product," Pendley said. "Everyone came back in with their proposals and Liebherr was the clear winner.
"First, they were the clear winner on price," Pendley went on. "Not because Liebherr was less expensive, but because Ryan sized it properly. Others were clearly overselling us based on our needs."
Pendley said that based on the proper sizing in Power Screening LLC's proposal, they could buy their first two loaders for the price of a single loader with some other brands.
"Still, we didn't know much about the machines, so we did a lot of research," he said. "After doing our due diligence and having a Liebherr factory rep visit our site to help evaluate our needs, we made the decision to purchase two of their loaders. We have never regretted the decision."
Game Changing
First and foremost, "the reliability of their machines is unmatched in our opinion," Pendley said.
"A case in point is that on the first two machines we bought, we purchased the full 10,000-hour maintenance warranty," he said. "We laugh now that we probably way overspent on the maintenance plan based on how much service was required. The next loaders we bought, we respectively declined the maintenance plan," he chuckled.
A1 said it has had no unexpected problems with any of its Liebherr loaders, even the oldest unit, which has more than 10,000 hours of service.
In addition to the reliability of the Austrian-made machines, Pendley points out three other factors that will contribute to A1 buying more Liebherr loaders going forward.
1. Fuel consumption. Pendley maintains that they are achieving fuel use as low as 3.2 gal. per hour in its compost facilities operating the 580, compared to consumption as high as 7-to-8 gal. per hour with loaders from other manufacturers. "That's a huge difference over the course of the year," he said.
2. In the dirty environment of the A1 facilities, clean air filters are very important to the continued operation of the machine. Pendley said the location of the air intake system — directly behind the cab rather than at the rear of the machine — helps prolong the life of the filter.
"With the well-placed location of the intake, we're not having to replace the air filter nearly as often," he said. "We would previously replace the filter twice in a 250-hour service cycle. Now we see filters that really do not need to be replaced even after 250 hours."
3. The Liebherr loaders, unlike other manufacturers, do not have DPF filters on the units. They are able to bypass the use of the filter within their own Liebherr engines, which is a huge benefit and results in cost savings. This has been a major factor for the uptime we see in our operational use. This is the case for their excavators and crawler dozers as well.
Ergonomics, visibility and ease of operation are all exceptional, Pendley said of Liebherr.
"Our operators love the ergonomics of the Liebherr to the point that they protest if they have to operate another brand," he laughed. They want their machine back."
A1's work force is "tenured" in Pendley's words and that makes both visibility and ease of control important. "Most of our guys did not grow up playing with joysticks, but they have no problem with the Liebherr controls."
Valuable Partner
While Pendley and others at A1 said they have not experienced significant downtime with Liebherr, service is still critical.
"Response time with Power Screening is outstanding," Pendley said.
When A1 had a machine go down, Power Screening had a guy on my site the next morning, after a call to Dustin [current Power Screening LLC Rep Dustin Sweeney]. It wasn't even their piece of equipment."
The current challenge of getting parts on a timely basis is a sore point with Pendley.
"This whole supply chain thing is ridiculous," he said. "We as an industry cannot accept four-five week or more availability on parts.
"In today's business climate, we must find the most reliable equipment, the most available parts, and the best response time," he added. "When we do that, we come back to Liebherr as a manufacturer and back to Power Screening as a dealer."
Power Screening's Sweeney agreed.
"The customer just cannot be told to wait," he said. "As part of the solution, we've added warehouse space to accommodate for more parts, so that we can bring in parts we would not normally keep in stock."
"More than anything," Pendley said of A1's relationship with Power Screening, "these guys have done a great job of learning our industry. That understanding of what we do means they give me better information."
Sustainability
A1 Organics is proud to be a leading organics recycling solution for a sustainable Colorado. But sustainability has always been in the company's DNA.
Duane Wilson founded the lamb feeding operation back in the 1970s. His three children continued running the company when he and his wife retired. One of the siblings (Chuck) eventually bought out his brother and sister and owned A1 until his untimely passing in 2016. Chuck's wife, Dannette, is now sole owner.
(L-R) Chief Operating Officer Kent Pendley, Owner Dannette Wilson, Chief Financial Officer Travis Bahnsen and CEO Bob Yost.
The various generations of the Wilson family successfully navigated the transition from selling compost to the ag community to taking in the bile salts coming out of the waster water treatment facility of nearby Coors Brewing Company and turning residential yard waste and lumber into decorative landscape material.
Today, they are a major recycler of manure, bio solids, green waste and food waste and producer of colored mulch for the landscape industry. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of tons of compost handled annually, the company also sells 140,000 cu. yds. of mulch.
While ownership remains with the Wilson family, the company is currently run by the management team of Travis Bahnsen; president and CEO, Bob Yost, vice president, chief technology officer, and Pendley.
From its humble beginnings in lamb waste, the company now boasts diverting more than seven million tons of organic material from Colorado landfills.
A1 sees both opportunity and responsibility in the growing waste recycling industry. If its history is any indication, it'll seize both.
About Power Screening LLC
Headquartered in Henderson, Colo., outside of Denver, with additional locations in Albuquerque, N.M., and Salt Lake City, Utah, it serves the crushing, screening, composting, shredding, stockpiling, material handling, washing, earthmoving, construction and aggregate equipment industries. Each of its branches offer full-service sales, rental, parts and service support for customers.
Established in 1984, it now offers one of the largest stock of new and used crushing, dry screening and composting equipment in the Rocky Mountain region.
Additionally, it is the Rocky Mountain dealer of Liebherr's line of excavators, wheel loaders and crawler tractors. CEG
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