What are the effective ways to increase concrete mixers productivity?  Concrete mixing technology has gone through a sea change in the past few years. To keep pace with increased demand of larger volume of concrete within a short delivery time, concrete mixing plant manufacturers across the globe have evolved their products immensely. Though different types of concrete mixing plant come with certain degree of productivity, there are certain factors that help in achieving the optimum product efficiency. Here, we present you the factors that influence the productivity of concrete mixing plant.Planning is a key ingredientV.G. Sakthikumar, Managing Director, Schwing Stetter Sales and Services Pvt Ltd opines, “Planning is a key ingredient in ensuring the productivity of concrete mixer. Planning, for example, the number and capacity of fleet, considering the overall placing speed, reduces idle time and improves effective utilisation. Full utilisation of the drum volume is to be maintained by following correct maintenance procedure of the spirals. Matching of per batch output of the batching plant’s mixer with truck mixer capacity is important. This will ensure that the mixer receives the full volume of concrete, it can carry in complete batches and not in any fractions.” Sakthikumar is also the Chairman of Mechanisation committee, Builders Association of India. Managing time wellHaving a thorough understanding of the truck turnaround time, rate of pour of concrete will help to deploy the optimum number of mixers without wasting the productivity of the fleet, observes Sakthikumar.He said, “Cleaning of mixers after every trip to ensure complete discharge and no setting of concrete inside the drum will help to retain the original capacity of the drum volume. The recycling plant at batching plant site to get washed it completely should be considered. Concrete mixers effective movement planning at batching plant and concrete pump site improves overall placing productivity.”Understand the layoutingPerformance of concrete is dependent on mixing method, mixing conditions and curing. Mixing procedure plays a key-role to ensure homogeneity and workability is imparted in the fresh produced concrete. However mixing method varies from one application to the other. For example, location and access to the site, requirement of concrete and cost. The efficiency of mixer relays on the way in which various constituents are introduced in the mixer, the type of mixer and mixing energy used.  To increase the productivity of concrete output in the self-loading concrete mixer, it is necessary to understand the layouting for stocking of the aggregates, sand, cement and the water loading arrangement at the site, observes Debasis Bhattacharya, Head-Sales, Marketing & Product Support, Ajax Fiori Engineering (I) Pvt Ltd. The positioning of these constituents varies from one application to the other. An optimised arrangement can be achieved by studying the complete cycle of the concreting pertaining to that application. Things which determine the productivity includes the distance between the loading area and discharge area, the heap size of the stock, discharge area preparation etc. This increases the productivity on one hand and on the other the consumption of fuel reduces due to the optimised cycle time making it economical for the contractor. “Organised site and optimum machine usage increases its performance and allows the project to adhere to its stipulated time of completion,” said Bhattacharya.Cement and water could be fed simultaneouslyOn the other hand, Batching Plants which are used for mass concreting are stationary machines and hence the production of concrete is constant per hour. According to Bhattacharya, to enhance the productivity of mixer, the cement and water could be fed simultaneously to reduce the overall cycle time. Continuous development in this field has delivered new ways to reduce the overall cycle time. For instance, batching of sand and aggregates can be carried out with a belt conveyor and still loading of another set of constituents to pan mixer through skip for mixing can be a parallel process. “Advancement in mixer technology has also increased the mixing of concrete homogeneously with less consumption of energy,” Bhattacharya adds.     Designed to blendTo increase the effectiveness of the concrete mixers productivity it has to be designed to blend the concrete uniformly irrespective of type of mixers, said Bhattacharya. He further asserts, “At AJAX FIORI in all the range of products we ensure that these above mentioned parameters are achieved, The self-loading concrete mixer is  a type of drum mixer that has ingredients loaded and discharged from one end of the mixer, the blades are designed in a helical way to ensure there is uniformity in the mixing of the concrete.”