TreeLawney Excavation Pty Ltd was started by Paul Mitchell in 1992, initially as a landscaping company, but over the years it has also moved into excavation works. A few years ago, Paul’s brother Tim joined him in the company, and is now part owner and director of operations.
Before he started TreeLawney, Paul was a groundsman at the world-famous Melbourne Cricket Ground – and uses one of his Komatsu excavators there every year for a very important project, one of national significance in fact.
"Each year, at the beginning of the cricket season, the wicket tables need to be installed following the AFL Grand Final," said Paul.
"The wicket tables are pre-prepared and simply drop into carefully excavated slots.
"We need to be very careful with this process, as the MCG now has a concrete base over which there’s a drainage layer and then a fabric geotextile layer – which we have to excavate down to without tearing the fabric.
"We need to excavate to an accuracy of about 5 mm – which we do without any machine guidance systems – so the ground staff can just sweep off the last layer of soil.
"The ground is very flat and smooth now, so this is not too difficult a process for us," he said.
"We use our Komatsu PC78UU for this job; we find not only is it very good on fuel consumption, but it’s not too big to damage anything, and it gives us the right feel for the job. It’s ideally suited to it.
"We’ve also got Roadliner tracks on the machine, so we don’t have to lay boards across the ground; we don’t even put a mark on the surface," Paul said.
The TreeLawney team also carries out other works at the MCG, including trenching for irrigation repairs or excavating areas of turf that have suffered high wear for the groundstaff to re-lay.
"Having a background in turf management from working there ensures we are on the same page as the groundstaff when performing these critical tasks, as it is not uncommon for the surface to be in use the day after this has happened.
"It’s a credit to the extremely talented groundstaff who perform these repairs, and whom we get the opportunity to work alongside," said Paul.
"Overall, we’re very pleased with our Komatsu equipment; we find they give a very comfortable environment to operate in.
"Our PC78UU and PC138US machines were chosen because of the number of pool digs we carry out. Pools are an area we specialise in and we chose to fit articulated booms to improve our accuracy with the detail work.
"Subsequently our investment is paying off, we get a better result and in better time frames.
"And we can’t fault their service and support," he said.
"We’ve dealt with others in the past, and we’re still with one supplier – though not for much longer. We’ll be getting rid of our last non-Komatsu excavator in the second half of this year.
"Matt McCarthy, the local Komatsu rep we deal with, has been great.
"We’ve only been with Komatsu for two years, and now as we change machines we’ll only buy Komatsu," Paul said.
"We’re also looking to expand to a 20 tonne machine at about the same time, which will mean we no longer have to hire one in when we need it.
"I really can’t fault the Komatsu excavators," he said.