JoB's faith in the Asphalt Manager technology is evident from a glance at the roller's itinerary. Before heading to the Highway 270 project, the roller was out on a parking lot at a local college. That job was preceded by work on a four-lane interstate byway stretch of U.S. Highway 69 near McAlester, Okla. Two airport jobs are next on the docket.

"You'd think that a complex system would provide some operational challenges, but really the most impressive thing about the roller is its simplicity," said Hoffman. "Whatever the machine is doing, we don't need to think about it. It just goes out and gets the job done. Everything that was advertised and promised to me that the roller can do, it has proven to me it can. I literally got the bang for my buck."