On the cover: Maximum Equipment started operations in 2005 with selling and marketing quality used equipment. Since then, the company has built an 18-year legacy that has seen it grow into a revered market specialist. This year Maximum Equipment is celebrating 18 years of operation and, with it, some momentous occasions in expanding capital equipment options in South Africa and southern Africa. Maximum Equipment’s mission statement is to grow the brand into a regional company with a reputation for supplying high-quality, well-engineered construction, high-performance mining and earthmoving equipment, coupled with specialised solution-driven attachments.
It’s something that it has been able to provide time and time again.
Through an impressive cycle of organic growth, and with more than 80 years of collective experience in the industry, the team at Maximum
Equipment has become synonymous with its range of quality products supported by reliable after-sales and service backup.
Maximum Equipment holds appointments as a featured supplier of quality plant and machinery to many blue-chip South African organisations in the earthmoving, mining, forestry, and construction industry.
In 2005 Maximum Equipment expanded into the plant hire market specialising in excavators and attachments, most notably hydraulic hammers. A year later in 2006, Maximum Equipment secured the sole dealership for Southern Africa for the Komac brand of hydraulic attachments and hammers.
Komac, based in Korea, is a leading manufacturer of hydraulic breakers and attachments. Maximum Equipment also sourced detachable Rock drill and Vibro Ripper supplier from Fine Technologies in South Korea. These kinds of relationships are also on display when it comes to Turkish OEM Hidromek, which has a long and trusted relationship with Maximum Equipment.
“Some of the successes Maximum Equipment has achieved in the last 18 years have been related to successful representation of the Hidromek brand for the past 8 years,” says Vaughan Ellis, MD at Maximum Equipment.
Keep tippers in tip-top condition: FAW Trucks believes that the correct commercial vehicle solution can be matched to a specific need and that each specific need is key to getting the best value for money as well as ensuring road safety and efficiency. During its 29-year history in South Africa FAW Trucks has continually expanded its model range to the point where it now offers a variety of models in various configurations.
“FAW is committed to offering customers high-quality products that are well suited to local conditions while offering high levels of safety, convenience and comfort,” says Yongjun Li, CEO of FAW Trucks South Africa.
The comprehensive and continually refreshed offering of locally assembled FAW Trucks means that they are a one-stop shop that can offer turnkey solutions for a wide variety of commercial vehicle needs. Configurations include freight carriers, truck tractors, tippers and mixers.
Tippers are considered one of the true workhorses of the commercial vehicle industry.
These trucks are tasked to carry heavy loads in a variety of conditions.
“While FAW’s range of Tippers are designed especially for the conditions in which they are required to operate, the way vehicles are used and looked after can make a big difference. If you treat your vehicles well, they will reward you with many trouble-free kilometres, a lower cost of ownership and less downtime,” says Li.
FAW Trucks offers some advice to ensure tippers stay in tip-top condition. These include keeping trucks clean, sticking to maintenance schedules and the use of telematics.
The longevity of Caterpillar graders: Caterpillar executives and motor grader production team members at a ceremony in September last year gathered in Decatur in America to celebrate the production and sale of the 1,000th Cat 24 Motor Grader.
The historic machine, now in Perth, Australia, conveyed the value the Cat 24 brings to the mining operations.
Sam Vedhakumar Manoharan, vice president of product management, earthmoving, said: “The Cat 24 Motor Grader was and continues to be a game-changer for maintenance efficiency of the wide haul roads necessary for ultra-class trucks. We thank the many global mining operations and dedicated Cat dealers around the world for their loyalty to the Cat 24 grader.”
New Cat 24 Motor Graders feature 30% higher power, 13% more weight and a longer rebuild life than previous generations of the graders.
It also offers an 8.5m mouldboard option and will soon feature a high-performance circle design for further improved reliability.
Complementing the Cat motor grader offering, the new Cat 120 GC Motor Grader offers the right balance of high-performance features with reduced fuel consumption, low maintenance costs and easy-to-operate controls.
It is the most recently introduced grader in the Cat line-up and is available in South Africa.
Introduced in 2021, the CAT 120 GC Motor Grader is excelling in low- to medium-duty applications, thanks to the 120 GC’s reliable, low-cost operation in a range of applications that include government and municipal work, road maintenance, and finish grading.
Its powershift transmission and balanced machine design ensure appropriate drawbar power to the ground with the fuel-efficient Cat C4.4 engine.
Adapting engine power and torque to application demands, the 120 GC features electronic throttle control to improve grading and productivity. With precisely matched engine power ranges for the standard rear-wheel drive and optional all-wheel drive, standard Eco-mode operation increases fuel economy up to 5%, lowering owning costs. The hydraulic cooling fan, with an optional reversing fan for high debris applications, only runs when necessary to further reduce fuel consumption.
Reducing downtime with full maintenance lease equipment: Flexibility is the main attraction of what Shumani Industrial Equipment offers. From a variety of equipment with full-maintenance lease agreements to leasing the equipment for a short time or in the long term, the flexibility provides the industry with choice during uncertain times.
“We’re witnessing a resurgence in growth as the economy is starting to grow, albeit at a slow pace,” says Victor Nemukula, MD at Shumani Industrial Equipment.
Despite Covid-19 and the latest bouts of loadshedding, South Africa is continuing to grow.
Since the pandemic, there has been a marked improvement in business activity locally, and Nemukula believes the leasing of equipment is more favourable in the current climate after companies froze their equipment spending in 2020 and now have to replace or upgrade.
Shumani is the largest black-owned and managed industrial equipment supplier in South Africa, and Shumani allows lease buyers to have contact with their service department, to ensure machines are always up and running.
The key to providing safe working environments at height: Safety is achieved through the different equipment Eazi Access has on offer. Within the equipment range, it has aerial lifts, boom lifts, scissor lifts, telehandlers, and low-level access lifts ensuring workers are lifted safely and efficiently.
Within the industry, this lifting equipment is commonly referred to as Mobile Elevated Work Platforms (MEWPs) which have multiple benefits and are available to customers on a rental or sale basis.
MEWPs are safe, manoeuvrable, and time-saving machines used to lift workers into spaces they otherwise would not be able to reach. MEWPs are used on both indoor and outdoor worksites to eliminate the risk of accidents associated with climbing, lifting, and even falling on the job.
The need to keep workers safe while accessing high areas is common between many different sectors, making MEWPs versatile and universally needed. They are also flexible between different tasks on the same project. They can be easily adjusted for different heights, and some are even designed for use on smooth and rough terrains.
This makes a worksite more accessible by increasing the workers’ reach, whether they’re in a warehouse, at a mine, on a construction project or at an event.
According to Eazi Access when a customer is looking for a MEWP, they invest time in performing a thorough diagnosis before recommending a suitable solution.
They even go on-site where they take measurements and look at the size of the area and fully understand the objectives of the customer for the job at hand.
After the assessment Eazi Access will recommend the best-fit solution for the job on-site. We can provide a complete solution for the different industries from the highest machine which is up to 58.56 metres to the smallest scissor lift that can be used in the warehouse.
“The versatility of the RD7 is one of the benefits that impressed us most and, given the high suitability of the rollers to our market, we are confident that the machine is going to be very popular with our customers,” says Hire All Marketing Manager, Deborah Rogers. Wacker Neuson delivered the first fifteen rollers to Hire All’s headquarters just two days after receiving the order, with the remainder arriving just 1.5 months later.
“We sent some of the rollers directly to our customers and distributed the rest of the machines to our eight Gauteng branches located in Blue Hills, Florida, Honeydew, Jet Park, Krugersdorp, Lanseria, Montana and Wynberg as well as to our Emalahleni facility in Mpumalanga,” says Rogers.
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