Heavy Civil Contractor Shifts Fueling, Service Operations

Tue August 20, 2024
Thunder Creek

AMS Company Inc. is more than a civil contracting construction firm. It is a business heavily invested in its employees. AMS has more than 65 field employees and 10 office personnel who bring hundreds of years of collective experience to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. A focus on training and innovation has contributed to its success and its ability to bid and win jobs on a regular basis.

Photo courtesy of Thunder Creek

"We probably have 30 open jobs and then another eight or 10 jobs waiting to get started," said Gary Gilliam, general manager at AMS. "And some of them are not big jobs, but some of them are huge. Most of the jobs are private, like subdivisions and warehousing, but we also pick up local work for school districts."

AMS started in 1982 with a focus on concrete and asphalt jobs, but have added field excavation, foundations, pre-construction and soil stabilization to its service offerings.

Executing large-scale projects requires a well-maintained fleet of equipment — from bulldozers and backhoes to track loaders, compactors and more. AMS found alternatives to its previous fuel and service methods with a trailer and truck upfits from Thunder Creek and has since gained efficiencies and cost savings. It's also been able to address labor challenges.

Filling Need for Fuel

Gilliam handles all the maintenance for AMS' trucks, tractors and other equipment, including managing a preventive maintenance schedule to minimize unexpected downtime. He, along with the president/owner of AMS, Chad Allen, selected the first piece of equipment from Thunder Creek after seeing it at ConExpo-Con/AGG in Las Vegas: the No-HAZMAT fuel and service trailer — in this case the MTT 690.

The MTT 690 allows operators to transport bulk diesel fuel without having a HAZMAT endorsement or commercial driver's license (CDL), in many cases. This benefit was appealing to Gilliam and Allen given the difficulty with finding qualified labor. The company's previous fueling solution was a full-sized tandem axle truck that carried 1,000 gal. of diesel fuel and limited the employees who could drive it.

"At the time we were at the expo, we had a couple of drivers with HAZMAT and CDL endorsements," he said. "We thought the trailer was pretty cool. And then when we got in the pinch with certified drivers, we thought this trailer is going to be the way it needs to go. And that was a good choice."

The MTT 690 features a multi-tank solution that mitigates the need for the HAZMAT and CDL. It consists of six separate, 115-gal. diesel fuel tanks connected to a commercial grade pumping system via a common manifold.

Photo courtesy of Thunder Creek

"The trailer really broadens your pick of employees that we can have operate this machine and that helps," Gilliam said. "If we've got a guy that understands the mechanics and stuff of doing PMs or fueling, we can put him in there and he can go to work today."

Adding to the convenience of staffing, the MTT 690 has brought other benefits to AMS — namely cost savings and efficiency.

"The overall cost of the trailer is much less than our previous fueling solution. When you go to buy a full-size truck, put a full fuel and lube bed, that's an expensive piece," Gilliam explained. "But when you go back to this trailer, we cut our costs significantly right there."

According to Gilliam, AMS fuels 80 to 90 pieces of earthmoving equipment daily, along with 25 to 30 trucks.

"Our whole company is dependent on diesel fuel. I can't explain it enough to our fuel supplier how critical they are to us operating day-to-day," he said. "We burn around 2,300 gallons per day and being able to get fuel to the equipment in a timely manner is critical."

With a capacity of 690 gal. of diesel fuel and the ability to travel to the equipment for fueling, Gilliam and the AMS crews were able to gain efficiency. They can easily refill the tanks either at their facility or at their fuel supplier. They added a diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) tank that also has simplified fueling.

"The trailer works really well. We hook it up behind a one-ton truck and tow it to where it needs to go," Gilliam said. "As of now, we've dedicated the trailer to our tree chipping and tree grinding crew and they pull it with them to fuel their equipment."

Benefits of Truck Upfits

AMS has augmented its daily fueling with another piece of Thunder Creek equipment. With the purchase of a No HAZMAT Fuel & Service Truck Upfit (MTU), AMS gained the same benefits as the MTT 690 in terms of the driver pool. This truck has the same multi-tank diesel fuel system, so it doesn't require operators to have a HAZMAT endorsement or CDL. It has two more 115-gal. tanks for a total of eight tanks and a 920-gal. capacity and is fitted on a medium-duty truck chassis, so it's easy to maneuver on job sites.

"We like the ease of operation and being able to get around the Metroplex with all the traffic," Gilliam explained. "For the day-to-day operations where we're going to visit six to eight job sites with that truck, it's easy to get around town."

The MTU also provides Gilliam and the crews with flexibility, which is much appreciated when working in what can be unpredictable circumstances.

Photo courtesy of Thunder Creek

"We've got to be able to shift and change fueling schedules as the day goes on. A plan we had at six o'clock in the morning won't stick until noon probably," said Gilliam. "Having our own fuel truck, I just make a phone call or send a text, change up how we're running and away we go. If we need to visit a particular job first because it is running low on fuel, we can do that."

To support its equipment service needs, AMS invested in a Thunder Creek Service and Lube Truck Upfit (SLU) that it bought from Trademark Truck & Equipment in New Boston, Texas.

"We worked with Brian Craig, our rep there and he is a really responsive, good guy," Gilliam said. "We worked through it and got everything ordered and he got us the truck we wanted."

The SLU provides AMS with a full-scale mobile service solution on a medium-duty truck chassis, and allows them to initiate preventive maintenance daily across multiple job sites. It can carry service fluids like coolant and oil, and can also include tanks for reclaim for in-field oil changes. It can also hold daily fluids such as top-off diesel, grease and DEF; AMS is strictly using the SLU for service, not fueling.

"We tried a lube skid for a while to service our equipment, but it only had three different compartments on it. With the SLU, we've got seven different fluids on here that cover pretty much every brand of equipment we own," explained Gilliam. "We can schedule our maintenance, but we can be fluid when it's needed. We may have a machine that suddenly turns south and doesn't want to run. If it needs a fuel filter, we can get back up and going.

There's no money to be made by waiting."

As with the MTT and MTU, the SLU does not require the driver to hold HAZMAT and/or CDL endorsements, maximizing the number of available drivers.

With both the MTU and the SLU, Gilliam and the crew like the comfort of the trucks and their ability to maneuver easily on job sites.

"There's nothing complicated about them. If someone drove a pickup truck to work, they can get in this and drive it out there, make money for the day and then come back to get his pickup and go home. It's all about the same," he said.

Looking Forward

AMS has been so impressed with the Thunder Creek equipment that it has another MTU on order to further supplement equipment fueling. According to Gilliam, the benefits he and the crews have gained from their current MTU, the MTT 690 and the SLU have made the investment worthwhile.

"That's a good thing that Thunder Creek has come up with and they've exceeded expectations. So, we're going to keep running them," he said. "I don't see us ever going back to a full-size fuel or lube truck anymore. Thunder Creek is where we're going."