Company incorporates safety, cost of ownership considerations in demo equipment offerings

Matthew Gruden, president of Willoughby, Ohio-based Toku America Inc., a subsidiary of Toku Pneumatic Co. Ltd. of Japan, shares his insights into key equipment issues facing demolition contractors and how his company is working to address them.

“The introduction of smart machinery equipped with advanced features like automation and enhanced safety measures continues to improve operational efficiency and reduce labor costs,” he says.

Toku offers telematics units by Trusted in the U.S., which he says provide GPS data on the location of attachments, helping prevent theft or loss, as well as geofencing that creates virtual boundaries around defined geographic areas. Customers can access their data through a portal for insights into asset use and predictive maintenance.

Gruden also mentions the increase in metropolitan areas mandating “silent demolition.”

“In the past, hydraulic breakers, which are very noisy, were used almost 100 percent of the time to break concrete and other aggregates. Due to these mandates, you are seeing more and more pulverizers being used to break concrete due to the minimal noise created.”

He adds, “Governments are also promoting safer demolition practices to minimize accidents, control dust and reduce environmental impact. This regulatory push is expected to increase the adoption of modern, high-performance equipment across both public and private projects.”

Reducing the cost of ownership is a priority for Toku, Grunden says, which is why the company offers a three-year warranty on its hydraulic breakers. “They also feature only two moving parts, which is significantly less than competitors. There is also a removable wear pad on our hydraulic pulverizers, eliminating the need for cutting out and welding on the new wear pad. Now, you just bolt it on, which is less labor-intensive.”

When it comes to addressing safety concerns, Gruden says Toku’s hydraulic breaker operates using gas and hydraulics with a low-pressure gas charge. “Many competitive products operate off a high-pressure gas charge, meaning that it is far more dangerous to disassemble and repair their hydraulic breakers.”

To assist in sorting rebar from crushed concrete, the company offers its hydraulically driven sorting magnet that eliminates much of the manual labor associated with the task.

To help ensure customer uptime, Toku maintains roughly four months of inventory in the U.S., including whole units and replacement parts. “We also push for domestic suppliers of components when possible.”