Conveyor delivery truck dumps 'on target': a high-tech truck allows for quick turn-around time, savings of man-hours.

• Author: Cutler, Debbie

Jerome Stewart, owner of Conveyor Delivery Systems, has the philosophy of delivering materials "on target" without waste, the need for clean up or extra equipment or man hours.

Those are the words etched on his business cards and words he lives by.

Stewart started his business a year ago May after purchasing a conveyor delivery truck from a manufacturer in Eugene, Ore. The T-800 Kenworth, which can be operated with a radio-control unit, is worth more than $250,000.

"It can handle about 16 tons of material at one time at four inches or smaller," said Stewart. Materials that can be loaded and unloaded from his truck include topsoil, sand, drain rock, bedding material, D1, pea gravel and wood chips.

What's unique about his truck, over other heavy construction equipment, is that it can drop materials exactly where you want them. There's no need to pile materials in one location, use front-end loaders to move them into place, or worry about clean up. There's no waste and no need for extra staffing.

"You don't have any material dumped on the ground (awaiting further distribution), therefore you don't have to pick it back up again," Stewart said. "When you do it (the other) way, about 10 percent to 15 percent can't be picked back up from the site where you drop it. (My way) there are no spoils. No contamination."

A FAST FLOW

Stewart can unload 16 tons of materials from his truck in an average of 15 minutes at distances of up to 60 feet. "It can be done as quick as seven to eight minutes if the application allows it to," he said. While materials are dropped from the conveyor system, the operator stands outside the vehicle and moves the truck forward and reverse, left and light, with a remote control box. The operator can move the vehicle via remote to speeds of up to 2 miles per hour. "There's an infinite number of speeds between zero and 2 miles per hour," said Stewart. "The more you push the stick forward, the faster the vehicle goes."

Materials fall onto a feeder belt, which is underneath the box that holds all the materials, and are then trans ported to the spreader belt, which shoots them from the truck to the desired drop location at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. The spreader belt has a 210 degree radius. Both belts are also operated using the remote-control box.

Stewart does work for various home owners and at construction sites.

"I'd like to let contractors know I'm here, and know the type of work I can do," he said. "I've got the only...