An Irish concrete producer grows business with a little good fortune and a lot of “customer wow.”
William Patrick Murphy says he’s often told that his ready mixed concrete is the best “mud” in the San Antonio area. “We put a little leprechaun dust in it. That’s the magic of it,” he says. The bottom line truth, he stresses, is that he doesn’t skimp on the mix. “We put up to 25 percent screened sand into the mix – versus the typical eight percent – and it results in a cake-like finish rather than a rough finish. Our material is incredibly easy to work with.”
Murphy’s Luck
Located near Randolph Air Force Base, Murphy’s Concrete is readily known for its shamrock-adorned ready mix trucks. “People are impressed with our units and with what we’ve been able to do, particularly during a time of recession. I’m the little guy in town, so I have to stay alive. We work hard. We have good equipment – and we run it hard,” says Murphy, who recently realized his dream when he installed a new computerized stationary batch plant. Since then he has expanded from eight trucks to 15 and counting. Future plans, he says, include doubling the size of the company in the next 18 months, and building new offices. The company entered the concrete business in 1998 and has grown from one employee to more than 30 currently.
While certainly much of his success is the result of hard work, Murphy admits that he benefits from the “luck of the Irish” as well – especially when he encountered fellow Irishman, Colin Keane from McCourt & Sons, a La Grange, Texas-based equipment dealer who represents Superior. “The only thing that really went smoothly from start to finish (during the installation of the new plant) is what McCourt & Sons and Superior Industries were willing to do for us so that we could get up and running on schedule,” he says.
Flexibility Required
To feed the new plant, McCourt & Sons recommended a Superior PowerStacker® conveyor, a radial stacker with electric drive and its own power travel. From a remote in the cab of the loader, the operator is able to able to unfold, fold, raise, lower and move the conveyor in its radial arc to feed concrete-spec sand or stone into the appropriate aggregate bin. “We don’t have time to get off the front-end loader and switch a conveyor from one bin to another. We need convenience and efficiency, so this conveyor is the ideal solution for us – not to mention that it was far more affordable than the one offered by the concrete plant manufacturer,” says Murphy, adding that the only problem was that availability on the unit was in May, some weeks after he needed to start production.
Customer Wow!
To solve the time crunch problem, McCourt & Sons offered the use of a Superior Self-Contained Portable Radial Stacking Conveyor, from its rental fleet. Ideal in remote applications where electrical power is unavailable, this compact unit runs on diesel and is available with hydraulic raise and power travel. “They delivered it to us, set it up and let us use it for more than six weeks – at no charge – until we could get our new radial stacker onsite. There are not too many companies out there that would do that,” says Murphy.
In late May, Murphy took delivery of his new PowerStacker Conveyor. “It’s a great unit that requires simple maintenance, and it’s done an excellent job for us,” he says. “McCourt & Sons also split the cost of the shipping bill with us since an extra conveyor was coming in for them in the same shipment as our unit. I was amazed at this level of customer service.”
Since Murphy’s Concrete delivers the “wow” service to its customers, it follows that they would be drawn to dealers and manufacturers who do the same. In any economic climate – and certainly during more challenging times – “customer wow” is what sets a business apart from its competitors. And for William Patrick Murphy, a little Irish luck doesn’t hurt either.
