Capital Equipment News November 2017

COVER STORY

BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY Goscor Earth Moving, the official dealer of SANY’s earthmoving equipment in South Africa, has delivered four new machines to mining contractor, Exclusive Benefits Enterprises. The transaction is a landmark deal, not only due to its R7 million value, but most importantly because it’s Goscor’s first customised sale to the mining industry, which saw the supplier going beyond the call of duty to tailor the buckets of the machines to suit the customer’s taxing chrome handling application, writes Munesu Shoko .

I n a ground-breaking deal since becoming the official dealer of Chinese OEM SANY’s earthmoving equipment in South Africa, Goscor Earth Moving (GEM) has delivered four new machines, two hydraulic excava- tors and two front-end loaders, to Exclusive Benefits Enterprises, a junior, black-owned mining contractor based in the Witbank, Mpumalanga area. The two new SY335C ex- cavators and two SYL956H5 wheel loaders have been specifically acquired to work in a challenging chrome loading application at a mine in Palaborwa, Limpopo. Tebogo Makofane, owner of Exclusive Benefits, initially purchased a Bobcat S450 skid steer for one of his sweeping contracts at a mine from Lee Sampson, sales executive at GEM Witbank. When the fast-expanding mining contracting business clinched a big- ger contract for loading duties at a chrome mine, Makofane’s decision to opt for GEM’s SANY offering was largely influenced by the more than customer-supplier relationship he had forged with Sampson. For an uptime-conscious chrome handling application, Makofane was looking for more than excavators and wheel loaders. This is such a demanding contract, and its suc- cess hinges on both a dependable product that gets the job done with no unnecessary standing time, as well as reliable aftermar- ket support to keep the equipment running at all times. Landmark deal A positive customer-supplier relationship

begins with the supplier’s initiative to demonstrate their sensitivity to the customer’s needs. This is exactly what Sampson exhibited when he went the extra mile to understand Makofane’s operating conditions, his needs and came up with solutions. After extensive consultations, a R7 million deal was structured, and saw Exclusive Benefits ordering two 30-tonne SY335C excavators and two 5-tonne SYL956H5 wheel loaders. The transaction represents one of the major deals for GEM to date. “This is the first customised deal we have done for the mining industry. We have tailored the buckets of the machines for the customer to make them smaller than the standard ones to accommodate heavy chrome loads,” says Sampson. The buckets have been reduced from the standard 3,2 m³ size to 2,2 m³ on the wheel loaders. They have also been reinforced on the sides to be able to withstand the taxing nature of the chrome handling application. The decision to downsize the buckets was reached after considering the machines’ lifting and breakout capabilities versus the material density. “Machine capability estab- lishes how much lifting force the machine has for the bucket and payload at a given reach. Material density tells you how much a bucket load would weigh at ideal conditions of 100% fill,” explains Sampson. Due to the heavy nature of chrome, it was deemed proper to downscale the buckets, and GEM assumed the responsibility on

Key specs – Sany SYL956H5 Operating weight

17 100 kg 2,7-4 m³ 5 000 kg

Bucket capacity

Rated load

Rated power

164 kW/2 200 rpm

Maximum torque

1 000 Nm

behalf of the customer, a gesture that con- vinced Makofane that the equipment suppli- er was not only concerned about selling the machines, but was prepared to invest in the success of his business, too. Customisation matters Sampson reiterates that the conventional one-size-fits-all approach to selling

CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS NOVEMBER 2017 4