AL KIFAH Construction Equipment (KiCE), the marketing arm of Al Kifah Batching Plant Factory, has launched a new patented technology to upgrade batching plant.

The innovative technology, introduced at a seminar held last month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is claimed to boost production capacity by reducing the time taken to discharge concrete to the transit mixer.

“The concept is based on ‘open truck production’ which focuses on discharging concrete quickly,” explains Saleh Katheer, general manager of Al Kifah Batching Plant Factory. “Hitherto, the supply hopper was opened partially when discharging concrete to the transit mixer. We have made adjustments to the bottom gate with a controlled opening of the hopper to enable it to discharge concrete more quickly and efficiently. These adjustments have meant that the discharge time is reduced by 50 per cent.

“In addition, adjustments were also necessary on the loading point from the storage bins to the mixer of the plant in order to cope with the larger volume of concrete discharged by the hopper,” he says. “This ensures that there is no waiting time in conveying the concrete to the transit mixers nor of raw material to the mixer.”

Katheer points out that adjustments were required to all the three flow areas in the batching cycle – the cement, the aggregate and sand and the water.

“All these flow areas have to be in sequence to reach the mixer at the same time,” he adds. “While the entire process for a standard 4-cu-m mixer generally takes two minutes, we have reduced this to around one-and-a-half minutes, reducing the time taken by 25 per cent.”

While the concrete industry has generally tried to speed up the three-stage process of mixing and placing concrete by addressing issues such as increasing the size and the speed of the conveyors, Al Kifah has taken a different approach by “thinking out of the box” – an initiative that was highly commended by attendees at the seminar, according to Katheer.

While these upgrades can be carried out on all batching plant produced by Al Kifah, the company can also enhance units produced by other manufacturers, although this is subject to limitations such as the height and other specifications of the plant.

“We would study how cost-effective these upgrades would be for the customer, as the bottom line would be to carry out any enhancements at a low cost to ensure maximum returns,” he points out.

The seminar was attended by 40 to 45 of KiCE’s existing customers, who were “very positive” about the innovative technology and have requested site inspections so that they can evaluate the benefits of upgrades.

Al Kifah tested the market for the technology at a “knowledge sharing” exhibition and seminar held in Kuwait last year. Buoyed by the response, the company decided to take the technology forward and patented it recently.

KiCE is now looking at conducting similar ‘knowledge-sharing’ seminars in Jeddah during the third week of April and in the UAE by mid-2011.

At the Riyadh seminar, the company also launched its new logo. “While customers have been familiar with Al Kifah Construction Equipment for a number of years, we used the platform provided by the seminar to officially launch our new logo concept – KiCE – which has been approved by the government,” Katheer says.

This apart, the company also announced the opening of a new showroom on Khurais Road in Riyadh. The 1,600-sq-m showroom facility, which forms part of Al Kifah’s readymix factory, features a huge after-sales area, a warehouse and a yard showcasing batching plant and washing units and dealer equipment marketed by KiCE such as air cleaning and water chiller units, concrete pumps and tower cranes.

Commenting on the company’s performance in the batching plant sector, Katheer says: “Business has been very good; in fact, we are now closing our half-year records (starting October) during which we have registered huge sales in this year.”

Most of the plants have been absorbed by the Saudi market, he says.

Katheer points out that the type of plant on order indicates the trends in the market. “While previously, the standard big batching plants were in demand, generally used for readymix concrete production, today many of the units are being ordered for concrete block production. There is also a greater demand for mobile batching plant, which shows that contractors are now looking at relying on their own plant, which they can move from site to site,” he says.

KiCE was launched six years ago to market construction equipment in Saudi Arabia. The company has a partnership agreement with Fujian Snowman Company to market, sell and support its Snowkey concrete cooling systems in Saudi Arabia. It also has the exclusive dealership to market and distribute all kinds of Junjin pumps – mobile or static in lengths from 25 to 63 m – in the Gulf.

In addition, it represents the Truemax Company of China, which provides tower cranes, placing booms and static pumps.