Mine Equipment and Design LLC (MED) of Hamilton, Ohio, is relatively new, having it beginning in 2004. In the few years since then, MED has put itself on the quarry map, successfully. MED's business is focused mainly on plant design, new equipment sales and aftermarket parts and service to their customers. 
Haul trucks dump rock into the primary crushers at the Jouf, Saudia Arabia plant.
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“We started out as representatives for the Cedarapids Crushing & Screening Equipment lines,” says Bob Falk, president of MED. “Since then we have added several more key product lines such as McClanahan and Masaba with their full lines of conveyors, stackers and rail unloader systems. All-Mineral Jigs and Bucketwheels, Walding Dredge pumps, Frogswitch castings and a wide range of aftermarket parts are also available for most plant equipment needs. MED also provide its customers with planned maintenance activities or breakdown repairs on existing plants, as desired. MED and their Associate Contractor crews usually serve customers located within a 5 hour radius of Cincinnati Ohio, however they also have completed projects as far away as Florida, Honduras and Saudi Arabia. According to Falk, MED has developed a strong team of “Associate sub contractors that provide a “turnkey service” at a very competitive cost structure for the customers. The company has 11 full time employees of its own. “Our expertise is assisting the customer in optimizing plant flow designs and ensuring that targeted product mix yields, operating costs and capital investment returns provide the best results. We partner with our customers' plant management and operators with input from all sides. We want to enable the design, build, commission and final operation results to be satisfactory for all involved,” he said. Especially in today’s tough market conditions MED's customers are always looking for the best use of their existing capital assets. They are looking for ways to leverage MORE production tons, increased productivity and at the same time, lower costs. MED and its associates can provide the customer with analysis of their existing plant performance criteria and assist them in developing a game plan to improve key areas of the plant operation. Whether it requires capital expenditures, plant modifications or perhaps simply better use of existing assets, they can offer options to new equipment that may include refurbishing and re-using current equipment or disposing of idle assets. MED has and can provide this service. 
Invasive sand and fugitive dust can become a problem in the desert environment (it had not rained in that area in 3 years). Good plant design and an innovative, custom, water based dust suppression system were included in this plant design. This ensured worker safety while plant maintenance was NOT compromised.
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A loader fills railcars with ballast to be used on railroad projects. “They expect to crush all through 2010 with the final section of the track through the desert being completed in early 2011,” Harris says.
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“We have the capability to build a couple plants at a time depending on the extent of the individual project,” says Falk. “Being able to utilize our associate relationships that we have established in various regions of the country, we can have several projects going at one time. We can manage all of them with the resources available to us. We access good people to tackle projects as distant as the one in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Geoff Harris, vice president of International Sales recently spent the better part of 18 months on an MED project in the Northern Desert region of Saudi Arabia. MED and its associates put together a plant that is able to produce 2.3 million metric tons of rail ballast over a 20 month period. The ballast specification was one of the most stringent of any product standards in the world. David Jahn, one of MED's highly experienced technical and materials quality expert associates, made meeting the specification criteria possible and thus, brought about the success of the entire project. After an extensive selection process, Harris said that he was able to locate a very competent Saudi Arabian based aggregate processing engineering and fabricating company that provided the resources to fabricate the plant. They were able to do the electrical work and subsequently commission the plant as a turnkey facility. In 2008, MED supplied Primary Jaw Crushers, Impactors, 1200KW GenSets and one Telestacker, all from the USA. The Saudi based engineering company was able to successfully commission and hand over this 1,000 tph crushing plant to the client in July 2009. Harris said that it often can take up to from nine months to a year to design, permit, build and commission a significant sized crushing and screening plant. “Initially, we set up planning sessions that include the customer’s representatives and the MED Teams,” he said. “Following the agreement of all parties, the sourcing of materials, construction and commissioning begins. MED also offers follow up with plant audits and/or a ‘hands on’ maintenance program.” “On all plants that we build, after they are up and running, we perform a post — commissioning review,” Falk adds, describing the fine tuning process. “You're always going to find some opportunities to improve,” he says. “It's like when you have built a new home. You can look at 100 homes ahead of time but when you move into the one you want, it’s not long before you're going to find something you would have done differently. Significant changes — No…. Perhaps minor changes or “tweaks”…. Add another conveyor here, open up a chute, speed up a feeder improve a transfer point,” he said. “We’re not a company just installing iron and steel and electric cables,” concludes Harris, touching on their mission statement. “Creating value for our customers before, during and after the project is what we’re all about.”
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