In a promotional video at this year’s AGG1/World of Asphalt exhibition (25-27 March) in St Louis, Missouri, Jaco van der Merwe, Astec’s CEO and president, said Astec’s booth demonstrated a “great combination of products and technology”.
“Astec aims to bring industry-changing solutions to the market,” said van der Merwe. “We do that by taking the dumb iron and making it smart with the use of technology, and you will see that [technology] integrated into every piece of equipment that we have on display.”
In his five-and-a-half-minute AGG1/World of Asphalt video, van der Merwe also highlighted the importance of the on-show Astec DIGITAL platform. “With it, we can show our customers exactly where their equipment is, how it’s running, what their fuel consumption is, and when they started working. Our customers have a lot of assets running, and in one place, they can see the performance of their whole fleet.”
Michael Norris, Astec’s Group President, Materials Solutions, was another senior Astec executive attending AGG1/World of Asphalt. Speaking to Aggregates Business, Norris said Astec is introducing up to 20 new mobile tracked crushing and screening plants over the next 18 months, the results of a significant research and development programme involving machine design and engineering teams based in the U.S., Northern Ireland and South Africa.
Norris said the Chattanooga, Tennessee-headquartered quarrying and road construction equipment major says its all-new plant lineup is part of its comprehensive international growth strategy, as well as being influenced by detailed feedback from customer advocacy groups and decades of high-quality in-field engineering knowledge.
“They will be first in class when it comes to productivity, reliability, cost of ownership and maintenance. Our customer advocacy groups comprise customers from various parts of the world, as well as users of other equipment. We talk about what they like, what they don’t like, what’s great about our machines, what’s not great about them, and pain points.
“Our sales are currently around 70% in North America and 30% internationally. We are looking to make that 50% each as we see international business as the biggest growth driver for us.”
Norris also highlighted the significance of the $6.5 million 44,000ft² expansion of its Astec Doogary facility, bringing the total Astec Omagh, Northern Ireland, footprint to 100,000ft². The 2023 completed extension took Astec’s total investment since its acquisition of Telestack, a leading mobile dry bulk material handling solutions company, to over $10 million, with the off-highway equipment manufacturer now employing more than 230 people in Northern Ireland.
“Part of the Doogary facility is warehousing dedicated to parts support for the European region, not just for Astec [crushing and screening] models and Telestack, but the wider Astec offer – our asphalt batching plants, our Peterson wood chippers and grinders, and our Roadtec asphalt paving equipment.”
Among the new and latest machines showcased by Astec at AGG-1/World of Asphalt under its ‘From Rock to Road’ branding was the new A50 jaw crusher, which van der Merwe said in the company’s at-events’ video “combines all the best features from products across the Telsmith, JCI and KPI brands”.
The A50 features several unique safety and maintenance benefits. A patented cheek-plate design joins both the upper and lower cheek plates together, allowing them to be easily released as a single piece from the crushing chamber and replaced. The jaw chamber is offered with a fully hydraulic toggle setup, ideal for recycling applications, or a new patented mechanical toggle, well-suited to crushing rock. Both are directly interchangeable. The A50’s new frame features a bolted and keyed design, incorporating an anti-vibration mount and a new bolt-on jaw feed, making it a highly flexible unit that can be easily integrated into an existing materials processing site footprint.
At the co-located exhibition, attendees had the opportunity to use Astec’s VR (virtual reality) headset to walk around the A50 jaw crusher and see all its key features. Astec notes that the A50’s ease of maintenance increases uptime, resulting in more dollars in the customer’s pocket.
Stressing Astec’s global reach and ability to withstand prolonged challenging market conditions, Norris said: “We can make everything that we make in North America in one of our international facilities, so we’re pretty well positioned.”
Norris said that the aftermarket side of Astec is also being significantly enhanced to help deliver the company’s big global growth plan. This includes hiring many more talented machine designers and engineering technicians in a very competitive market.
“We have a pretty good culture and story to tell that enables us to recruit fairly easily,“ he explained. “I was with Sandvik for 13 years before joining Astec, and we have quite a lot of people with a lot of experience at the likes of Metso and Terex. We have fun here and are part of something that is growing. Despite tough market times, we have continued to invest, knowing that new models were part of a clear global growth plan. It’s exciting times to be at Astec.”
Commenting on Astec’s quarry wash plant offer, Norris continued: “Since I’ve been in my current Astec role for the past 12 months, one of the things I’ve been doing is restructuring internally to allow us to put more focus on washing and our packaging around it. Over the next 12 to 18 months, you can expect to see us producing more things in this area. Recycling is also a very attractive space for us and fits into the narrative of what we want to invest in, both organically and inorganically.“
Focusing on North American growth opportunities for Astec in what is an over 2.4 billion tonnes a year crushed stone, construction sand and gravel market, Norris said: “We talked at the NSSGA [National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association 2025 Annual Convention] legislative session about the need to make the next Infrastructure Bill more roads and bridges focused. The last Infrastructure Bill, promoted as the biggest ever, contained a lot of spending around non-traditional infrastructure, like telecommunications and EV [electric vehicle] charging, which is nice but doesn’t do much for aggregate demand. We will be conveying the same message at the next NAPA [National Asphalt Pavement Association] event.
“I think there’s more opportunity for us here in the recycled materials space. I think virgin aggregate demand will remain steady, but the consumption of recycled concrete, asphalt, or manufactured sand will grow. The economics will drive this. When it’s profitable, the market will grow, and it’s getting to be profitable.”
