Since late summer last year, a concrete mixing plant DYNAMIX® 2500 made by SBM Mineral Processing has been in operation at the Weingarten site of the company Frischbeton Eberle GmbH (FBE). For the very first time, this semi-mobile plant has been equipped with a SBM container hopper in modular design to optimise the logistics on site - just like the stationary plant SBM TOWERMIX® with its space-saving tower concept that has already since 2021 boosted the FBE site Meckenbeuren to become the powerful hub for the regional construction industry as to supply and disposal.

A total of four concrete plants and an in-house gravel plant are operated by the family-run company with its headquarters in Mochenwangen in the north of Ravensburg. With an average production of 100,000 m³ concrete per year FBE supplies customers in the Upper Swabian region from Ulm to Lindau. Managing Director Daniel Eberle consistently relies on state-of-the-art technology in concrete production and logistics: The central scheduling department in Mochenwangen receives all customer orders and distributes them to the individual plants according to delivery sites and workload. The company's own 30 truck mixers and dumpers, most of which are designed as swap bodies or semi-trailers, are interconnected to the head office by GPS and radio data transmission, which optimises order processing and just-in-time deliveries of raw materials from Illertissen respectively regional suppliers.

When it comes to concrete quality, Frischbeton Eberle leaves nothing to chance: The company also relies on the Alpha Beton concrete product management system of the control system supplier Simma and the additive expert BT3 which facilitates the perfect adaptation of the individual delivery charges to delivery routes and handling times by precisely recording all decisive production parameters (aggregate temperature, water content, etc.) as well as particularly balanced additives. In addition to customised concretes and special concretes, around 80 concrete mixes determine the day-to-day business at all Eberle sites. For a good four years now, these have also comprised recycled concretes – in the beginning of this year, the company also added CO₂ reduced concretes to its product range; and in the meantime, FBE was awarded the CSC silver certificate (Concrete Sustainability Council).

Highest standards regarding quality and sustainability as well as a constantly growing product range require efficient production plants: Already in the beginning of 2021, Frischbeton Eberle commissioned a stationary SBM concrete mixing plant TOWERMIX® at its plant in Meckenbeuren – last year, the plant Weingarten followed. Originally, only the outdoor aggregate stockpile with a linear dosing feeder was to be replaced by a large container hopper, but during the project phase it was decided to substitute the almost 30-year-old mixing plant with a modern plant as well.

In the end of 2022, the decision was made in favour of SBM Mineral Processing and its only recently presented plant DYNAMIX. Thanks to its modular design, the new system could be easily adapted to the existing site, and compared to stationary plants it offers completely comparable standards regarding product variety, availability, and modern working conditions – but with the long-term investment security of a temporary plant.

The aggregates are now stored in the 19 m high container-mobile hopper with automatic loading of the 7 chambers from the directly adjacent 20 m³ feed hopper to facilitate economical just-in-time delivery by semi-trailer. After being discharged onto the weighing belt, the aggregate batch is then conveyed to the DYNAMIX bucket elevator in a dust-proof housing. From the five cement silos (85 m³/105 tons each, 1 x double chamber) and the additive store in the sturdily constructed building with control room and social area, the remaining components are transferred to the spacious weighing platform above the mixer platform with the BHS DKXS 2.50 twin-shaft mixer. An aggregate heating system with temperature measurement and the excellent insulation of the DYNAMIX mixing plant in an attractive winter design ensure reliable year-round operation.

The fully video-monitored production process in one-man operation is controlled by the Simma Electronic control system used in all Eberle plants, which also ensures the connection to the central scheduling system. “In addition to the high-quality technical components such as the BHS mixing technology, it was particularly the flexible consideration of our wishes as to the technical equipment that ultimately tipped the scales in favour of SBM Mineral Processing," says Managing Director Daniel Eberle. "The plant manufacturers consistently adapted their modular technology to our demands: One example for this is the lateral positioning of the feed hopper and bucket elevator at the high aggregate store, which offers us significantly more manoeuvring space in contrast to other solutions," says Daniel Eberle, summarising the good cooperation over the approximately eight-month long planning and construction phase.

Already when the FBE site in Meckenbeuren was modernised Daniel Eberle was particularly convinced by the planning flexibility and expertise of the SBM plant engineers. The company has been operating the concrete mixing plant there since 2008 and supplies customers throughout the eastern Lake Constance region and into neighbouring Austria from there.

In the end of 2019, SBM was awarded the contract to build the stationary mixing plant TOWERMIX 3300 ST D9 750V. Important precondition: all works - including the on-site construction of the foundations and the massive three-storey operations building with additive storage, control room and social rooms - had to be carried out while the old mixing plant was in full operation. Accordingly, given ground conditions had to be observed and the intended later use of the existing infrastructure on the 6,500 m² site had to be considered. Due to some 500 tons storage capacity for various aggregate types, the former concrete-gravel silo’s use as a fully automated loading station, and additional space for the professional and efficient receipt of building material residues, Meckenbeuren is now also a major hub for the regional construction industry concerning supply and disposal.

SBM fulfilled all these demands with its highly flexible vertical tower series TOWERMIX - including the year-round availability that is a matter of course today, and the future-orientated adaptation to modern concrete technologies. On an area of just under 500 m², the about 30 m-high plant offers well-insulated and heatable storage volume for 600 tons of cement (6 types in 4 silos) respectively 750 m³ aggregates. In Meckenbeuren too, the aggregates are delivered by large semi-trailers. Then the different aggregates are fully automatically fed into the 8 fully enclosed silo chambers via the 20 m³ feed hopper and the bucket elevator/distributing conveyor combination with a maximum loading capacity of 160 m³/h. The centrepiece of the plant is a BHS twin-shaft positive mixer DKXS 3.33. Above all, this ensures fast and homogeneous production of larger customised batches, which are also in Meckenbeuren optimised by the Alpha Beton concrete system from Simma and BT3 in terms of supply capability and suitability.

Upon the client’s request, SBM integrated the Simma control system used in all FBE plants as well as other already existing components such as the handling of residual concrete also in Meckenbeuren. “This was just as important to us as various technical details of the TOWERMIX technology offering essential benefits in operation but also regarding maintenance and service. One example is the conical aggregate hopper which reliably prevents caking and ensures high accuracy of the mixes even at high utilisation rates,” explains Daniel Eberle while additionally praising the good accessibility of all components at the various working levels.

Once the necessary foundations had been completed, the experts of SBM Mineral Processing began installing the TOWERMIX plant in April 2020. Meticulous pre-planning, which also included just-in-time delivery of components largely pre-assembled in the SBM plant in Liezen, Austria, which is around 450 km away, allowed for parallel operation to continue at the site. Covid restrictions also hampered the works, which was nevertheless completed on schedule with the commissioning of the new plant in May 2021.