Moser & Co. from South Tyrol has been using the RotoTop in Earthworks and Civil Engineering for two years now

Less manual labour and massive time savings

Founded in 1937, Moser & Co. from Bruneck in South Tyrol, Italy, operates a gravel works and carries out a wide range of earthworks, civil engineering, demolition, transport as well as road and path construction work with its 45 employees. Managing Director Gebhard Mahlknecht explains: „A modern and well-equipped machine park enables our employees to carry out work on a high level considering quality while still keeping time lines. That’s why we are always open to technical improvements that optimise our processes and make work better for our team.”

Stefan Hugo has been working as an excavator operator at Moser for over 8 years. He operates a 15-tonne mobile excavator Volvo EWR150 built in 2022, which was equipped with the RotoTop RT.201 in spring 2023. He says: „We do all kinds of earthworks and civil engineering work for our customers, whether it’s road construction, slope stabilisation or building homes and outdoor facilities. Since I’ve had the RotoTop on the excavator I manage tasks much faster.”

Save manual labour – work intuitively

About three years ago, Stefan Hugo had gathered information about the RotoTop from various sources. He watched YouTube films, read about all information and experiences published on Facebook, then took a look at how it works at a company in Merano. Then, Managing Director Gebhard Mahlknecht and himself went directly to the test arena at Holp in Germany for a visit. After an initial explanation and demonstration by Günter Holp on site in Murrhardt, it was no problem for Stefan Hugo to work straight away with the excavator and RotoTop. ‘The basic principle was immediately clear, the operation worked intuitively and automatically to me,’ explains Stefan Hugo.

Of course, it took some time after delivery before he was able to utilise the wide range of possibilities offered by the RotoTop. „You find out a lot in the process of working. You realise how flexibly you can work in all directions. In many situations on site, you used to have to do a lot of manual labour or use some kind of trick. Now I get there with the excavator and do the work almost exclusively with the help of the excavator. Apart from me, there’s only one lorry driver on the construction site, who might do a little something by hand, but that’s become very rare now.”

Massive time saving

Everything is much easier than before, when only the tilt function and a quick coupler were used and the bucket had to be removed and turned round to work in other directions. You now have to move the machine less often and also don’t have to figure out complicated situations when working, as the endless rotation creates flexibility in all directions. This allows you to reach all corners of the working area and move every attachment in all directions. This saves a huge amount of manual labour and therefore time, and although Stefan cannot quantify this saving, it is very considerable.

Stefan was currently busy backfilling a structure, which included installing a drainage pipe in the ballast bed and backfilling with two different materials. He was able to fill the material comfortably and evenly and finally reapply the topsoil in very short time. Thanks to the endless manoeuvrability, work close to walls or under canopies can also be carried out easily without any risk of damage.

Stefan also benefits from the precise working method that the RotoTop enables when laying pipes, so that trenches can be excavated and backfilled along existing pipes without any problems. „The whole system is really compact and robust, the RotoTop can do everything, slow and fast turns or even long, challenging work with different buckets and hammers, the provided flexibility and the oil flow to the attachment are unbeatable.” Stefan Hugo even uses his excavator for winter service and skilfully moves mountains of snow with his RotoTop on the excavator arm.

Managing Director Gebhard Mahlknecht has also realised that tasks can be completed much faster thanks to RotoTop. He therefore wants all new excavators purchased by Moser from now on to be equipped with a RotoTop

Holp GmbH

Tel.:         +49 (0)7192/9336-0

Mail:        info@holp.eu

Internet:  www.holp.eu

About Holp

Holp GmbH is a medium-sized family business from the Swabian town of Murrhardt, which was founded in 1979 by Franz Holp as a traditional earthworks company. Günter Holp joins the company in 1990, tests tiltrotators for the first time in 1992 and develops a trenching bucket for his own use. From 1997, Holp focussed on the construction of attachments and launched the VarioBucket in 1998. This is followed by further patents and developments, and from 2007 rotary actuators are marketed under the name RotoTop.

In line with the motto ‘We don’t want to be the biggest, we want to be the best’, further patents are registered in the following years and the product range is expanded. The principle is that a new attachment is only designed if an increase in performance of at least 25 % can be expected at the time of development.