Capital Equipment News June 2018

CONSTRUCTION VEHICLES

For Hillary Construction, customisation was key in its decision to purchase Scania tippers.

Built to spec When faced with a decision to procure a fleet of construction vehicles, Hillary Construction did its due diligence, and it looked beyond the machinery itself in order to uncover every opportunity to gain a competitive advantage. A detailed specification of requirement, coupled with Scania’s ability to build vehicles to the construction giant’s exact needs, not only sets the quality and performance standards for the vehicles, but also provides the greatest scope to maximise usage and value for money. By Munesu Shoko

A s a diversified construction group, Hillary Consequently, a one-size-fits-all approach to its construction vehicle needs is out of question, and the ability to tailor vehicles to the construction company’s specific and wide- ranging needs is what has made Scania South Africa its supplier of choice. Trevor Freestone, MD of Hillary Construction, explains that there are several companies within the group. These include Hillary Construction, which specialises in road and general civil construction; Polokwane Surfacing, a specialist in road surfacing; Tswelopele Roads and Earthworks, a 100% black-owned company under the ownership of some of Hillary Construction’s employees; recently-formed Amalgamated Plant, tasked with the maintenance of the group’s equipment, as well as offering plant hire services; and Ya Rena Civils, historically a civil construction company now turned crushing entity. Construction’s equipment needs are very diverse to suit the different requirements in varied applications.

Hillary Construction is a big owner of capital equipment. It owns a huge fleet of road building gear, from compaction rollers, graders, excavators, loaders, dozers, through to milling machines and recyclers, as well as tippers for the earthmoving requirements. Polokwane Surfacing has four asphalt plants, six paving trains and a fleet of mainly Scania trucks which were specifically designed and built to its spec. To date, Scania has become the preferred tipper truck supplier. After running a competitor tipper truck range for many years, in 2013, Freestone, together with Eddie Simpson, Plant Operations Manager at Amalgated Plant, started investigating the 8x4 option for the company’s tipper range in their quest to maximise payloads. The previous supplier could not offer this solution locally, but only offered to import the units as special vehicles, which meant that Hillary Construction would have to pay a premium for its 8x4 vehicle needs. Good research ensures the right choice of equipment for the right jobs. During the search for a fitting supplier,

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