Recent wheel loader purchases have included a WA480-6 to its large gravel quarry in Christchurch, a WA320-5 (in a joint venture with Southern Aggregates in Southland) and a WA380-6 to a smaller gravel quarry south of Christchurch and a WA65-5 into its general hire pool for use among various divisions of the company.
Fulton Hogan has also purchased a total of 11 mini excavators for carparks and small earthworks projects, including five PC18MR-2s, one PC20MR-2 and two PC50MR-2s.
Fulton Hogan is a major civil contracting company active throughout New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific, with interests in a broad range of products and services in the roading, quarrying, civil construction, infrastructure maintenance and land development sectors.
It employs more than 5000 people across New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands, and is continuing to grow and diversify into new markets – making Fulton Hogan one of the fastest-growing civil contractors in the region.
Steve Grave, Fulton Hogan’s South Island General Manager, said the company had returned to buying Komatsu machines due to keener pricing, improved support and customer service, and the quality of the product.
"With better pricing, we thought this year was a good opportunity to get Komatsu equipment back into our fleet and give it a good try out," he said.
"They are certainly good robust machines and very well built.
"With our WA480-6, we did have some initial service issues, but the local branch here in Christchurch sorted them out very quickly, and arranged for a backup machine while it was out of service," said Steve.
"Given that it was our primary production machine, we were very pleased to see how quickly they responded.
"We recognise that all machines break down from time to time; it’s the attitude and responsiveness of the company supplying and supporting them that is critical – and since then, we’ve had no issues with any of our other Komatsu machines," he said.
"We’re finding that Komatsu is very easy to deal with, and we’ve developed personal relationships with people we can trust.
"There’s a very positive culture in the company, and that’s reflected in the fact that we’ll be looking to buy Komatsu again in the future," Steve said.