Duneland Sand Inc. in Valparaiso, IN, recently purchased two Komatsu WA500-3 wheel loaders from Roland Machinery’s Portage, IN, location to help increase production at its plant.

“[They] have dramatically cut our time on loading trucks, going from two and a half buckets with our old machine,” said Josh Lambert, manager of Duneland Sand Inc.

“We purchased the WA500s and they cut a minute-and-a-half off our time. Instead of two-and-a-half buckets it’s at two now,” he added.

The WA500-3s feature a Komatsu SA6D140-3 engine with 315 net HP (235 kW) and the automatic power speed (APS) hydraulic system, a dual-hydraulic speed system designed to increase operational efficiency by matching hydraulic demands to work conditions.

The machines are working at Duneland’s 400-acre site loading as much as 100 to 150 loads of sand per day. And with that volume of work, downtime becomes a concern.

“The wear and tear on the machine is everything out here,” said Lambert.

So Duneland relies heavily on its relationship with Roland.

“[Duneland] cannot afford to have the machines down during the day when the trucks are running,” said Dave Cruise, territory manager of Roland Machinery.

“Our service department will come in after hours to do the maintenance or any repairs that need to be done to the machines,” he said.

“[Roland] has even been here on Saturdays making sure our machines are back ready for Monday morning,” added Lambert.

He even recalled a time, before the company owned the Komatsus, when both of its machines were down and Roland had a rental machine ready to go at the company’s site the next day.

“We used that for about seven or eight weeks until our machines were ready to go,” said Lambert. “It’s been perfect. A good relationship and we look forward to more. That’s obviously why we purchased from Roland.”

Josh’s father, Jerry “Doc” Lambert, started Duneland 35 years ago. The product the company mines is used as fill for highways and as backfill for residential and commercial construction.

This story also appears on Crane Equipment Guide.

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