Frank Cargould explains how this manufacturing company is helping clients break new ground.

Breaker Technology, Inc. got its start nearly 45 years ago as a small, independent manufacturer of spare parts for the Canadian mining industry. Over the years, it developed full product lines for the construction, aggregate, demolition, and mining industries, starting with a pedestal mounted breaker system, which remains a top seller. The company has since expanded its facilities, added service and warehouse locations, and marketed its products worldwide.

Today, as a manufacturer and distributor of hydraulic hammers, demolition attachments, mobile rock breakers, stationary and portable rock-breaker systems, and underground utility vehicles, BTI’s technology is truly earth shattering.

Frank Cargould, president of Thornbury, Ontario-based BTI, explained that the company was bought by Teledyne, Inc. in 1965. For more than 30 years, the company grew steadily, but in 1999, it was sold once again to Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Astec Industries, a family of companies that design, engineer, manufacture, and market products to improve the world’s infrastructure.

Frank Cargould

“It was the greatest thing that ever happened to BTI. When we were with Teledyne—a $4.5 billion corporation—we were just a very small spec on the radar. Astec is an $800 million corporation, so we have become an influential player. But the most benefit has come from Astec knowing our industry, our products, and our customers because it owns several similar companies,” said Cargould.

Claim to fame
BTI is introducing several innovative products to the market, including a vibratory pick scaler designed to remove loose material from mine ceilings. “It’s the most significant scaling development in the past 50 years—it’s revolutionizing the industry,” said Cargould, adding that BTI just received the patents for the product, which incorporates a hydraulic hammer and a vibratory pick to perform tasks more quickly than traditional pick scalers. The new line shows great promise: BTI has recently received an order for two vibratory pick scalers from Morton Salt.

For the aggregate (limestone) industry, BTI manufactures a pedestal-mounted hydraulic system, which consists of a power pack and a hydraulic breaker on the end of a long boom. The system breaks down raw material into a manageable size before it goes through a primary crusher, allowing for continuous flow through a plant without personnel needing to manually dislodge materials, a sometimes dangerous task. “Without this type of system, limestone producers would risk losing valuable time removing build up of raw materials in front of the primary crusher, which can get clogged if large pieces are allowed through,” said Cargould, adding that BTI is the world leader in this product line. “It’s more or less our claim to fame.”

Typically, the pedestal-mounted hydraulic breaking system is effective in hard rock mining (primarily gold, copper, and iron ore), as well as in the aggregate industry, but BTI is looking to introduce its product to new markets. So far, it has successfully presented it to oil production companies extracting from the tar sands in Western Canada, with one company having purchased a unit and in need of several more.

Cargould also noted that BTI is known in the industry for its ability to manufacture customized equipment, particularly for the mining industry. Some clients, he explained, work in a cold climate and need equipment controls mounted inside a heated operating station, while others need unusually long boom systems. “We look at their needs and design an effective solution,” he said.

Safety first
Like many manufacturing companies, safety is paramount at BTI, which has recently received the bronze hat award from Astec for having the best safety record corporation-wide three years running. It starts small with safety hats, goggles, gloves, and protective foot wear; daily safety talks; and monthly safety meetings. The company’s monthly newsletter contains various health and safety tips and a reminder for employees to keep safety top of mind, and all management and production meetings open with a few words on safety.

All new hires watch a video highlighting safety and performance and wear a red hat on the manufacturing floor so more experienced personnel can identify them more easily and offer assistance if needed. In addition, safety performance is directly connected to BTI’s profit sharing program.

The company uses OSHA standards to calculate its performance. In the past, it had set a goal for fewer than four recordable injuries per year, but it recently voted to reduce that number to three for 2008. According to Cargould, the company is poised to meet that goal a year early.

To keep safety at the fore, BTI created an employee safety recognition award. Employees who do not experience a recordable injury for a full year receive a $100 gift certificate, while office personnel receive a $25 gift certificate.

Creating efficiencies on the manufacturing floor is another focus for BTI as the price of steel continues to rise. The company has created focus groups, consisting of engineers, sales people, office personnel, service technicians, and employees from the manufacturing plant, to evaluate each product line. The teams discovered that the fewer components in a piece of equipment, the fewer opportunities exist for it to break or malfunction, so the company is currently exploring manufacturing certain parts by bending pieces of metal into the appropriate shapes rather than welding several pieces of metal together. “We have not only made a safer, more reliable product, but we have saved ourselves valuable time we previously spent welding,” said Cargould.