As North America’s premier foundations event, leading contractors and equipment manufacturers gathered to network and promote their offerings. Amongst them was International Drilling Equipment (IDE) and National Pile Croppers (NPC) which took advantage of Texan hospitality to spread awareness about the benefits of  hydraulic pile croppers alongside the IDE offering.

Held in Dallas, Texas, IFCEE 2024 was the premier foundations event for 2024. The organisers, the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, have long used their exhibition to enable the industry to promote itself, whilst at the same time providing time and facilities for education and development. A key participant at this year’s show was International Drilling Equipment, a respected and established North American company, which provides high quality foundation equipment and drill rigs along with aftermarket support. 

The North Carolina headquartered company prides itself on supplying the best equipment for the industry backed by unrivalled experience and expertise. To this end, the company brought over from the UK its cropping partner, National Pile Croppers, to present and help educate potential users about the company’s range of hydraulic croppers. As a key part of IDE’s offering, and an essential tool in foundations, a National Pile Cropper team led by sales director Scott Fitchett was at the show alongside its North American partner company. 

Scott and the National Pile Cropper team showed some of its latest developments at the show, whilst providing advice and expertise on how to get the very best out of the equipment. Amongst the pile croppers being exhibited was the ‘Quad’ cropper which has proved to be in great demand in the US. “The show was a success, with lots of interest from a busy crowd. We showcased the QL 750 on the IDE stand; there were significant numbers of visitors to inspect both the IDE and NPC offerings with the IDE stand attracting a large footfall throughout,” says Scott Fitchett. 

Scott continues: “The IDE team had an enormous number of requests for quotations, not only on the QL 750 but for the Quad 600, ‘CFA’ and PC 400 units. We also displayed a mock-up pile. This was to have a point of conversation and to help educate those in the business who are unfamiliar with the benefits of hydraulic pile croppers. The pile was situated within the unit, and we installed rebar and applied a debonding foam sleeve to each of the reinforced bars. This gave a real life scenario of a typical CFA pile you would find in the UK.”

National Pile Croppers’ equipment array and award winning customer support provide an advanced solution for dealing with concrete piles. Although not overly complicated, to get the desired consistent results requires training and experience. The pile croppers are effectively very precise hydraulic shears, with defined angles of deflection, and points of contact to deliver a clean cut of the excess pile that does not interfere with the efficacy of the remaining pile. 

 “Our challenge at the show was to introduce the hydraulic pile cropping process into the US market, through the relevant channels. This could be clients, piling contractors, steel fixers, rebar engineers/distributors, civil engineering companies and so forth. In fact, I had a number of really good conversations with representatives from rebar companies, amongst others, about the possibility of working together alongside IDE in the US. With IDE’s expertise and NPC’s exceptional engineering and knowledge of concrete piling, North American customers will be able to confidently tackle any construction project while maintaining the highest standards of safety and productivity.”

Scott Fitchett concludes, “We were delighted to once again visit North American to support our IDE colleagues. It was an amazing experience to attend IFCEE for the first time, meet and educate customers and help them get the very best from their investment.”