Jersey’s premier haulage, demolition and recycling contractor invests in the latest screening and crushing equipment

Providing a total solutions based service throughout Jersey, A.A. Langlois has developed its business over the last decade to become the islands premier demolition, haulage and excavation contractor. From humble beginnings over twenty years ago as a one man-one lorry-one digger company, A.A. Langlois has grown to now employ over forty staff. In order to further develop their service portfolio, whilst at the same time offering their customers an enhanced offering, they have recently acquired a new fleet of Sandvik mobile crushing and screening plant to keep them at the forefront of the industry.

As the largest demolition, recycling and haulage contractor on Jersey, A.A. Langlois have prided themselves on providing a service that is second to none. Additionally through strong commercial acumen, an eye for an opportunity, and a belief that a premier service can only be delivered by using premier equipment, has allowed A.A. Langlois to develop as a concern into other associated business areas. Thus, as the of the reputation of the company has grown, and more specialist equipment added to the fleet of plant equipment, the expansion of operations now sees A.A. Langlois providing such services as :

• Groundwork's and drainage
• Excavation and demolition
• Landscaping
• Water deliveries
• Waste tanker service
• Topsoil supply
• High quality aggregate classification and supply

Of the increasing elements of the service portfolio Alan Langlois, Managing Director of A.A. Langlois, explains – "In recent years we have been able to expand our operations to not only encompass what we would term our core business, but have also been involved in many of the Island's most prestigious development projects. Thus we have undertaken extensive excavations and groundwork's for the developers of Jersey's new Incinerator, as well as those facilitating the construction of the Island's new Dairy." The reasons for this are simply explained: "Our high level of personal service, a long-standing and extensive client base, as well as a reputation for excellence and professionalism, means that we have become the total solutions contractor for the island."

An additional differentiator between A.A. Langlois and their competition has been that they were amongst the first companies to appreciate the potential of using the most up to date plant available. A.A. Langlois thus realised that in order to maintain its premier league position there was a requirement to invest in the best on a regular basis. "We pride ourselves on having the highest quality plant and machinery at our disposal; our excavators are all traded in for replacements after three years of local use and our trucks are maintained consistently to ensure their on-going integrity." Says Alan Langlois.

Major investment in modern plant
Due to the success of the business, A.A.Langlois' services had become stretched to capacity. In order to deal with the increased work load, whilst providing an even higher quality service to their customers, A.A. Langlois recently invested in a new fleet of mobile screening and crushing equipment supplied by Sandvik Construction. The plant supplied consists of:

• QE340 - heavy duty scalper and screener
• QJ241 - compact jaw crusher
• QA140 x 2 – compact, yet hard wearing, three way split screener

These four machines have proved to be ideal for A.A.Langlois' business, especially the recycling of waste aggregate materials. The state of the art design of the plant has produced some startling increases in productivity that has allowed Langlois to improve profitability due to enhanced efficiency, as well as inherent reductions in transport and purchasing costs.

Of specific interest is the QJ241; the QJ241 is Sandvik's smallest mobile jaw crusher weighing just over 34 tons, it lends itself perfectly to work throughout Jersey wherever it is required. The single-toggle crusher has a feed opening of 1000x650mm facilitating production of up to 225 tons per hour depending on the material and the required final material size. In Langlois' construction materials recycling operation 120-150 tph may be achieved when producing a 0-70mm end product. The reversible-jaw crusher accepts a maximum feed size of 500mm, and a hydraulic wedge adjustment allows a CSS (closed side setting) range of 50-150 mm.

The QJ241 has not only proved to be an ideal tool for recycling construction materials, but has also found a real niche within construction sites, demolition jobs and small quarries. One of its main assets in these operations is the extensive steel pipe work used in the hydraulics, which provides superior heat dissipation and a maintenance free sealing solution. All the displays, controls and service points are close to ground level, or easily accessible via platforms. The machine also possesses several practical features including a standard fitted hydraulically driven cooling fan, with auto-reverse, to back-flush dust from the radiator or the central auto lube on the jaw. Additionally, and depending on operator requirements, the crusher may be operated remotely by wireless control or via umbilical cord.

A modern PLC system controls both the level sensor at the crusher in-feed, and the RPM of the main conveyor. The hydraulically driven feeder with grizzly allows automatic control of the feed rate from the large hopper. Additional use of hydraulics sees a hydraulic raise and lower facility on the 800mm wide main conveyor which provides clearance for the over-band magnet thereby guaranteeing smooth and continuous discharge.

A key feature of all Sandvik mobile crushers, and the QJ241 in particular, has been the minimisation of operating costs. This has been achieved via load-optimised control of the hydraulics and the use of a modern 168-kW CAT C7.1 Acert engine that is compliant with EU Stage IIIb emissions. These developments have led to a significant decrease in fuel consumption even in high capacity operations. The benefits have already proved evident for Alan Langlois as he states that - "Compared with the previous crushers we have used the QJ241 now achieves in all applications 25% more output and consumes 30% less fuel. Thus the machine has been consuming 18 litres per hour when producing a product of 0-70mm."

Specialist recycling facility
As part of a long term strategy that has been developed to reduce the amount of recyclable materials being treated as waste, Jersey has put great emphasis on the development of a specialist materials recycling facility. Due to their high levels of experience, and the possession of specialist equipment such as the Sandvik QJ241, it was no surprise that A.A.Langlois were chosen to become Jersey's licensed recycling partner. Trading under the name of A.A.L Recycling from their purpose built facility located at La Collette, A.A. Langlois is able to haul or accept various types and grades construction and inert waste. This is then turned into building aggregates that has found a willing customer in the island's construction industry.

As one the principal objectives of Jersey's waste strategy is to improve Jersey's aggregate recycling facilities, working with A.A. Langlois Ltd has enabled Jersey to have use of a "third" Jersey quarry. This has not only extended the life of the islands landfill sites but diverse building materials including bricks, blocks, granite and cement are now recycled and made into chippings, granite dust and various sizes of stone. Of this recycling, the vital role they now play in Jersey's recycling, Alan says - 'We view the recycling of demolition and building waste as an opportunity to not only extend the life of existing quarry reserves, but also to reduce waste and the environmental impact of mineral extraction."

A.A. Langlois' site is now able to process 230,000 tons of building waste on an annual basis, thereby doubling the amount of building and construction waste recycled in Jersey. When the recycling programme was initiated only 10% of building waste was recycled but this has now increased significantly, and much of the credit for this is due to the excellent work undertaken by Alan Langlois and his team. Possessing the know-how and expertise to get the best from their plant, they were able from the inception of the project to produce the required material grading's that allowed the recycled material to be used by construction industry.
Success through innovation

Through the many technological benefits, and user friendly innovative features, the Sandvik screens and crushers have been able to provide the perfect solution to the A.A. Langlois', and Jersey's recycling of construction materials. The high levels of quality seen in the Sandvik machinery initially attracted A.A. Langlois to purchase from Sandvik, while the excellent service offered when commissioning, servicing and repairing has since greatly impressed the company.

A major factor in their success that has enabled the A.A. Langlois to successfully diversify its service offering has been that they have been able to efficiently create marketable products from waste materials, whilst at the same time delivering a high quality service. This has become even more important in recent years as the landfill sites in Jersey have become full, and Jersey has adopted a pro-active recycling strategy based on recycling and reusing materials. Thus, Alan Langlois and his company have played a key role in not only recycling materials, and putting them to use as construction materials, but also lead the way in implementing innovative solutions focused at prolonging the lifespan of the world's finite resources.