The agreement puts a selected CDE washing portfolio into the hands of a Wirtgen Group brand with an established German dealer footprint, and the two will share a stand at Steinexpo within a week
CDE has signed a distribution agreement with Kleemann GmbH covering the German market, an arrangement that hands the Northern Ireland wet processing specialist a route to customers through one of the country’s best-known names in mobile crushing and screening.
The logic runs in both directions, and it is the kind of gap-filling that has become common in materials processing. Kleemann sells crushers and screens. It does not sell washing plant. Its customers in quarrying, recycling and mineral processing increasingly need both, because the specifications for recycled aggregate and manufactured sand have tightened to the point where dry processing alone no longer gets the material to grade. CDE has the wet processing range and thirty years of it, but building a German dealer network from scratch takes years that the current recycling push does not allow.
The agreement covers a selected range rather than the full CDE catalogue. It includes the EvoWash sand washing system, the AggMax scrubbing and classification system, the M2500 modular wash plant, the AquaCycle high-rate thickener, the FreeFlow mobile washing and water recycling system, and ModaLine, the containerised fast-deploying sand washing solution CDE launched earlier this year.
That last one is worth noting. ModaLine is built around plug-and-play deployment, which suits a distribution model where the selling party is not the manufacturer. A containerised plant that arrives ready to run puts less commissioning burden on the distributor than a bespoke installation would.
The timing is immediate. CDE representatives will be on the Wirtgen Group stand alongside Kleemann at Steinexpo from 2 to 5 September, and at NordBau in Neumünster from 9 to 13 September. Two German trade shows inside a fortnight is an unusually fast start for an agreement announced on 27 August.
“The cooperation with CDE is an important step for Kleemann, as it complements our portfolio perfectly,”
said Alexander Knam, Managing Director of Kleemann. “Wet processing is a central component of modern recycling and mineral processing, and CDE brings not only a high level of expertise but also innovative technologies that perfectly match our standards of quality. This cooperation will strengthen our position as a solution provider.”
The phrase to note there is solution provider. Kleemann is describing a shift from selling machines to selling flowsheets, which is where the margin and the customer relationship have been moving across the sector.
“Together we are combining our respective strengths, CDE’s expertise in materials wet processing with Kleemann’s established market presence and deep understanding of the German market,” said Tony Convery, CDE’s Founder and Executive Chairman. “This collaboration allows us to bring our innovative technologies closer to customers and provide the expertise and aftercare support they need to achieve the best possible results from their plant.”
For a German quarry operator or C&D recycler, the practical effect is that washing plant becomes something you can specify through a supplier you already deal with, alongside the crusher and the screen, rather than a separate procurement exercise with a separate service relationship. Whether the aftercare holds up to that promise is the part that will take a couple of years to judge, and it is the part on which distribution agreements in this sector usually succeed or fail.
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