Paschal Associates
Engineering before Equipment

Customers often approach Paschal Associates to discuss crushers, screens or wear parts. The team, however, takes the conversation in another direction. Before talking about equipment, it wants to understand how the plant operates, where production can improve and what prevents better performance.

"We're a group of engineers that are bound together collectively to solve problems in the industry. Our emphasis is first on solving problems in the plant," says Bob Bartok, managing partner.
That perspective has remained central for more than five decades. Instead of evaluating equipment in isolation, its engineers focus first on the plant and its process. Process analysis, plant optimization and proprietary programs help identify opportunities across crushing, screening, washing and fine material recovery before recommending a product or change. The approach reflects a simple philosophy, engineering comes before equipment. The team first learns the operation, identifies the constraint or opportunity and determines where it can create measurable value. Equipment becomes part of the solution only after the problem is understood.

The engineering experience is grounded in firsthand customer experience. Members of the field sales team have worked as end-use customers, with some bringing three to five years and others 10 to 15 years of experience. Those experiences give the team a practical understanding of customer challenges.

Engineers physically visit plants, walk the operation and learn the customer's goals and problems before drawing conclusions. The objective is to identify opportunities to create value rather than start with a product sale. When a challenge cannot be resolved internally, the team works with manufacturers to develop a solution. This customer-first process allows Paschal Associates to serve as an engineering resource within the operation before becoming a source for equipment or components.
From Analysis to Action

No two aggregate operations perform alike. Material characteristics, production requirements, geology and site conditions influence how a processing operation behaves. A solution that succeeds in one facility may not work the same way elsewhere.

Paschal Associates works with equipment and screen manufacturers to develop solutions for individual applications. Its work includes customizing manganese castings and crushing chambers, improving screen and screen media performance and developing material processing strategies based on each operation's geology.

Employee Ownership and Customer Alignment

As a 100 percent employee-owned company, every employee is an owner and has a personal stake in the company's success. That ownership creates an entrepreneurial environment in which employees are encouraged to think and act like owners, take responsibility for customer outcomes and consider the long-term impact of their decisions. The ownership influences how employees serve customers and make decisions, with an emphasis on long-term relationships. In a small team, employees also wear multiple hats and rely on one another.

Customers benefit from the collective knowledge of a technically diverse team. Members share lessons from previous applications, geologies and geographies. As Jason Babcock, sales engineer, explains, "We're willing to take and apply a lesson learned in one geology and one geography, share that amongst our team and then carry that solution forward into other applications as well."

For new projects and current applications, the team uses proprietary programs to model potential solutions. It then verifies those models through on-site testing and process verification. Case studies help show whether the approach delivers the expected value.

Paschal Associates also provides on-site training and coaches customers through maintenance procedures. The objective goes beyond teaching customers how to operate or maintain equipment. Training is intended to share Paschal Associates' technical knowledge, help customers understand their equipment and processes and give them the knowledge needed to maintain assets and improve performance. Through a partnership with a full-fledged training facility, the company helps more than 100 industry members each year improve maintenance and process-efficiency skills. It views this training as an extension of its engineering mission and a way to transfer technical knowledge accumulated over decades to the next generation of aggregate producers.

Delivering Measurable Results

One recent example involved a client looking to extend the wear life of its jaw crusher and jaw dies. Paschal Associates introduced a new technology through a beta test. The approach increased productive tonnage from 1.2 million to 2.1 million tons from a single set of jaw dies. The result gave the customer reduced maintenance needs and extended runtime while increasing the productive output from a single set of jaw dies.

The example reflects the broader approach Paschal Associates brings to customer challenges. Rather than beginning with a predetermined product, its team studies the application, evaluates the available options and verifies the solution in the field to determine whether it delivers the intended result.

More than five decades after its founding by Fred Paschal, Paschal Associates continues to pursue the goal Bob Bartok described: to remain the engineering resource customers need to enhance their operations. By learning the plant first, the company aims to identify where it can create value and bring together engineering expertise, equipment knowledge, manufacturer relationships and field experience. This combination reinforces the company's position as more than an equipment representative or distributor. Its role is to understand the plant, solve the process challenge and help aggregate producers improve the performance of their operations.