Wirtgen: full-service package

Costello Industries, Inc., a milling service provider based in Newington, CT/USA, relies exclusively on cold milling from Wirtgen. The company has been rehabilitating highways, streets and bridges

Costello Industries, Inc., a milling service provider based in Newington, CT/USA, relies exclusively on cold milling from Wirtgen. The company has been rehabilitating highways, streets and bridges since 1945. “The focus of our work is on safety, quality and productivity,” says Todd Nedzweckas, Operations Manager at Costello. “We specialize in milling work and offer additional services, such as road, highway and bridge repair and maintenance.”

Costello Industries has exclusively Wirtgen milling machines in its fleet. In addition to high-output large milling machines (three W 220s with 8”/2.5-m milling drums and four W 210s with 7’ 3”/2.2-m milling drums), the milling specialist has a variety of small milling machines from different machine generations, including two W 500s, four W 50s and one W 50 DC. Jim Cook, Head of the Machine Fleet at Costello, is proud of his cold milling machines: “The Wirtgen Group manufactures great products; you can be sure that each and every component has been tested before the machine is delivered. When milling machines arrive, all the bolts have been tightened and marked as such. All parts are painted prior to assembly. Everything is professionally designed and manufactured”. Cook is even impressed with the interior fittings, because “the electrical and hydraulic systems are clearly marked. That’s very helpful when we need to locate the source of a problem. For example, we can test every single, labeled cable directly via the cabling system. In other machines, the hoses and cables are painted, making fault diagnosis more difficult.” Todd Nedzweckas, who has worked with milling machines from various manufacturers, adds: “I took the Wirtgen training course and find the machines to be extremely user-friendly. What is more, we get great support at any time from the Wirtgen America applications experts and service engineers. Whenever we have a problem, we just give them a call and they come out right away to help us with the diagnosis.”

The two W 500 small milling machines have each clocked over 5,000 hours in operation. “It’s all a matter of the right maintenance,” says Cook. “These machines are extremely reliable as long as you regularly change the operating materials, keep an eye on wearing parts and reliably conduct scheduled maintenance”. It’s just as important to teach machine operators on site about the right techniques and daily maintenance requirements. For instance, the daily maintenance program at Costello includes inspecting a machine at the end of a milling job. “If necessary, Jim and his team go to work and make sure the machine is in top condition again,” Nedzweckas says.

A maintenance program helps to extend a machine’s service life. “We know at all times exactly how many hours the machines have been running and which maintenance tasks need to be done. And we create standard orders for service after 250, 500, 750 and 1,000 hours of operation,” explains Cook. “We do that for all our machines and maintenance is carried out in our own workshop.”Regularly attending training courses at Wirtgen America further helps the Costello team to continuously deepen their know-how about the machines. “We took both the electronics and hydraulics courses,” says Cook. “We send both the supervisors and the machine operators to the courses, and then we train each other.”