North / South America
Narrow streets no longer a problem for Holcim MiniMix concrete trucks
Jul, 22 2009
Densely populated metropolises of south-east Asia, of Latin America and other parts of the world often have small access roads leading to residential areas that, until now, prevented average concrete trucks from entering: Concrete’s components had to be delivered separately and mixed on site. “Minimix” trucks, one third smaller than the average truck, are Holcim Indonesia’s elegant solution to deliver the ready-to-use concrete directly to the construction site.
(Holcim, Indonesia) -- Jakarta, Indonesia’s biggest city with a population of 8.5 million, shares a problem with many highly populated cities, especially in developing and emerging markets: Many residential areas can only be accessed through small roads which makes it impossible for regular concrete trucks to deliver directly to the construction site. Instead, concrete’s components, cement and aggregates mainly, have to be brought to the residential construction site separately where they are hand-mixed with water. The result is a 30 percent higher concrete price for the customer.
Small trucks for small roads
The architecture of densely populated Jakarta with its small access roads to many residential areas emerged from the historical growth of this Asian metropolis. To ensure access for concrete trucks to the building sites, other ways than razing the city to the ground and re-building it with bigger roads had to be found. “Minimix” is Holcim Indonesia’s solution, naming a project to build small concrete trucks of 3m3 capacity that are able to perfectly access Jakarta’s narrow streets and deliver the ready-to-use concrete directly to the site.
The advantages of delivering the ready-to-use concrete rather than each component separately and mixing them on site are manifold: highest quality of concrete is guaranteed; labor costs can be reduced as no one has to coordinate the concrete production and the mixing; waste can be avoided as well as dust that previously could have been set free when the cement bags were emptied; equipment to mix the concrete on site is no longer necessary; no excess raw materials are left over.
Holcim Indonesia’s concrete terminals were built to load regular concrete trucks. To load the Minimix trucks, one third smaller than the average mixer truck, made a modification to the loading points of the concrete terminals necessary. At the price of USD 600 per loading point, the loading of concrete trucks of any size is possible.
Minimix is the perfect solution for concrete delivery in metropolises with areas of quite similar urban architecture like Jakarta such as Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh and others. Multiplication of the successful project already took part and will carry on: Holcim’s Group company in Thailand started their Minimix-project at the end of 2008 and has currently a fleet of 15 trucks.
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