Ammann adds more paving courses at Czech campus

These four-day-long expert knowledge sessions are run at the 6791 Ammann International Training Centre (AITC) in Nové Msto nad Metují and, according to after-sales projects manager and training centre boss Martin Sedláek, the idea is, “…to ensure that Ammann has a globally consistent (approach) to presenting, selling and servicing” the company’s fast-developing range of road pavers.

The first Ammann paving campus was held in 2014 with a further two taking place this year. “More are already planned for 2016,” added Sedláek, because “we want to be confident that everyone in the Ammann road paving sales and service operation has the highest possible level of product expertise and that we are all using the same methodology.”

The campus, which is jointly led by the group’s two leading commercial managers for pavers, Marcus Utterodt and Ferdinando Dell’Orto, looks at every aspect of selling, servicing and operating paving machines with sessions on topics such as aggregate, bitumen and asphalt mixes; asphalt plants; tracked pavers versus wheeled pavers; jobsite management; the principle of floating screed; different screed types; process parameters; how to set up the paver and the screed and how to inspect the machines. Utterodt and Dell’Orto are based at the company’s Langenthal HQ in Switzerland.

They do not go it alone either. Ammann also brings in outside experts from partner companies 2122 Trimble Sitech and 1228 MOBA towards the end of the week to do a series of highly detailed and hands-on sessions on how levelling systems work. Trimble and MOBA allow the course participants to take part in outside demonstration runs and to operate the units first-hand. Delegates at the most recent campus came from all around the world representing countries such as China, South Africa, Singapore, India, Brazil, Russia, Italy, Malaysia, Germany, Colombia and Switzerland.

The paving campus is one of a range of progressive and modular training courses run at AITC. Sedláek is determined to help Ammann “develop a strategy designed to educate the sales and service staff of our distributors around the world” as well as run a comprehensive training operation for the Swiss-based group’s own in-house engineers and sales staff.