Specially equipped Komatsu excavators purchased from Road Machinery and Supplies through Sales Representative Doug Miller play a vital role in Shine Bros.' processing efforts. Shine Bros. owns two 73,210-pound PC300LC-7 excavators, one equipped with shears and one with a magnet. Shine Bros. also has three PC300 machines equipped with magnets and one with a grapple, as well as a PC220 equipped with a shear.
"I've been buying Komatsu equipment for several years," Shine said. "They're good, dependable, trouble-free machines. We expect to get about 20,000 hours out of them before we do any major service work. Our maintenance people like them because they're easy to work on and our production people like them because they can be sure the machines will be ready to go when they are."
Wycoff said RMS adapts the excavators to meet Shine Bros.' needs. "For instance, we may order a machine with the purpose of running a magnet, so we talk with Doug and the people at RMS to have it equipped with everything but the magnet. RMS will install all the necessary equipment needed and then we install the magnet. They'll put on the proper
Dan Wycoff, General Manager
Mike Wycoff, Plant Manager
Steve, Foreman
Operator Randy uses a Komatsu WA500-3 wheel loader with a nine-yard bucket to load a truck at the Shine Bros. facility in Spencer, Iowa. "I like the visibility and the power of the WA500," he said. "It wil
piping to make sure it's got the right volume of oil or fluid to run whatever attachment we want. This is a specialty business, and they do a very good job of making sure we have the right equipment set up for our particular needs."
In addition to Komatsu excavators, Shine Bros. uses a Komatsu WA500-3 wheel loader to load trucks and rail cars. The machine is equipped with a nine-yard bucket to handle massive volumes of material in short order. "It has great power and load capacity," Dan Wycoff said. " It can load a rail car in 15 minutes, which is tremendous. We have a quick coupler on it so we can easily switch over to forks for loading flat beds. It will pick up a whole stack of car bodies. That's a sizeable load."
Shine Bros. handles maintenance and repairs on the machines, but uses RMS for service as needed. "We haven't had to use RMS for service too much because the machines are so reliable," Wycoff said. "When we do need something, RMS has been very attentive to our needs and gets someone out to our facility as quickly as possible. We have a very good relationship with Doug and RMS."
New opportunities
Shine Bros. installed an auto shredder in 2004 in an effort to stay on top of the scrap industry. The machine works much like the wire choppers, only on a larger scale, according to Wycoff. "In the past, much of the car would go to waste because the materials were mingled together," he explained. "This allows us to separate out different types of metal as well as waste products. It's an opportunity to get the most out of the auto."
Opportunities are something Shine Bros. is always looking for, according to Toby Shine, who is also an owner of TJN Enterprises, Inc., a company that operates scrap yards in Sioux Falls, Yankton, and Watertown, S.D., Worthington, Minn., and Estherville, Iowa. "We're always looking ahead to see what we can do to better serve our customers and how we can process materials more quickly and more efficiently. Shine Bros. has evolved into what it is today because we're willing to explore new areas and we'll continue to do that."