On the Cover: With its highly-skilled support teams on the frontline to support essential service customers during the South African lockdown period, Liebherr-Africa is adopting an array of preventative measures to protect the health, safety and well-being of employees.
Life as we know it has come to a standstill – but for essential service workers, it is business as usual during the unusual circumstances. With Liebherr-Africa supplying a wide range of equipment and services to various industries classified as essential service providers during the lockdown period, the company is making the necessary provisions to ensure that all its customers requiring routine and emergency support are be able to operate optimally.
Dieter Schmid, MD of Liebherr-Africa, tells Capital Equipment News that some of the industries the company is supporting during the lockdown include wind and coal power, mining, port operations and the medical / laboratory industries. The company has, therefore, been granted essential service permits by several of its key customers in the mining, earthmoving and maritime divisions and is supplying products and services within these areas.
Tom Münch, Director Mining, says several mining activities are identified as essential to the South African economy during the unprecedented lockdown period. “Coal mines providing thermal coal to the national power utility, Eskom, are of utmost importance,” he says. “If the coal mines are not operating, the lights will go off in South Africa. Therefore, the services provided by Liebherr to this essential sector are crucial and we will do everything to support our clients during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Apart from coal mines, mainly located in the Mpumalanga area, several other mining activities deemed to be of greater significance to the economy are regarded as essential service providers. Münch advises that Liebherr-Africa, has therefore, applied for a number of permits, mainly related to field service, parts, remanufacturing of components workshop activities and the required administrative staff.
“The impact of Covid-19 on the global supply chain has resulted in some interesting challenges for the company to meet all our customers’ requirements. However, due to our well-managed stockholding in South Africa, we are able to overcome the majority of these logistical challenges,” says Schmid.
Driving high availability with Scania R&M contracts
Due to the uptime-driven nature of its business, Premier Logistics Solutions does not leave anything to chance when it comes to the health of its truck fleet. Taking a Scania R&M contract with every truck purchase for the past eight years has ensured an average 99% truck availability.
The company runs a fleet of about 240 trucks across its four business divisions. Some eight years ago, it bought its first two Scania trucks and never looked back. Since then, the family-owned logistics company has purchased some 167 Scania trucks, of which 129 are currently active.
“We started off with Scania some eight years ago with the purchase of two trucks. We scaled up in 2015 when we started replacing our Freightliner and International units we had in our fleet. Our first major Scania fleet was in 2015 when we bought 15 vehicles at one go. The following year we bought 10 more trucks and never looked back,” says Jimmy Auby, MD of Premier Logistics Solutions.
All of Premier Logistics Solutions’ 129 Scania trucks have an existing repair and maintenance (R&M) contract, which runs until the replacement cycle of 3 years/600 000 km. Auby is of the view that R&M contracts are enjoying huge market penetration these days, mainly because transport operators are realising that in-house workshops are an overhead that they can do without, especially given that many are ill-equipped to handle the complexity of modern trucks, particularly their electronic systems.
Tips for buying second-hand equipment
The current economic downturn is affecting crucial growth and the capital equipment market is feeling the pinch. We turned to two players in the used yellow metal space for their views on this and other factors, including practical tips for when buying used equipment and potential deal killers to look out for.
Ben Buys, Babcock operations director – equipment, says that, although the downturn in the local construction industry is affecting the used plant market negatively, certain sections within it are affected worse than others.
“Activity in the used equipment market in general remains subdued,” he says. “Civils projects are becoming scarce now and that impacts the smaller used machine sector in particular.”
By contrast, the international used plant market is growing, says Jonnie Keys, global operations manager of UK-based online plant auctioneer Euro Auctions. He says capital equipment is seen as a commodity and that the “global stock” of these machines is traded around the world.
However, these times of plunging oil prices and global health threats are an ill omen to mining, construction and industry everywhere yet, to Keys, there is a silver lining:
“Buyers have been looking to the pre-owned market when replenishing stock of heavy plant and construction machinery ever since the global economic downturn of 2008, when many OEMs stopped manufacturing new machines.”
He says when times improved, OEMs were unable to meet demand, prompting contactors, civils companies and hire specialists to turn to the used equipment market.
“The same holds true today. With Covid-19 affecting the global economy, the used plant market could well boom in the next 12 months. In the UK, JCB has already stopped production at all its manufacturing plants as a result of the unprecedented reduction in global demand caused by the pandemic.” The OEM’s facility near Shanghai China, also ceased production in February this year.
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