Norris Plant Hire (Geelong) operates a fleet of around 90 items of earthmoving equipment including six Komatsu excavators, a Komatsu wheel loader and two Komatsu graders.
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This provides plant hire and civil contracting services to a wide customer base in the Geelong, Melbourne metropolitan and south west Victoria regions.
A key reason for its sticking with Komatsu is the fuel efficiency it achieves with these machines, compared with other makes.
Founded by Keith Norris in 1964 with just a wheelbarrow and a shovel, today it is run by Keith's son Tim, who joined the business in 1994 as general manager, and a few years later became its sole director.
Since then Tim has expanded the company from its primary focus on plant hire, setting up a civil construction division in 2003.
Over the years, the company has carried out a wide variety of civil construction projects, across the commercial, educational, medical, retail and tourism sectors, as well as a large number of local government projects.
According to Tim Norris, the company has been buying Komatsu equipment since 1998, when it purchased a PC120-6 excavator which is still in the fleet.
"We went for our first Komatsu because I'd always liked Komatsu equipment. "It's pretty much state-of-the art, particularly in excavators. It's extremely reliable and very fuel efficient," he said.
Main Pic:The Komatsu PC220-8 excavator is one of the six working for Norris Plant Hire. The GD655A3 (above), has been fuel efficient for the organisation.
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"For us, the key areas are operator comfort and fuel efficiency. Since we bought that first machine, we've been really pleased with our Komatsu excavators; we've since
bought a load of new machines, and they just keep getting better with every model".
Norris Plant Hire bought its first Komatsu grader, a GD555A-3 about four years ago, and recently added a second unit, a GD655A-3 about six months ago.
"We'd been very happy with our first Komatsu grader, which is why we went for the second one," Tim said. "The operator is extremely pleased with it and previously he was dedicated to another brand of grader".
"The fuel efficiency of this machine is one of the key areas; it's very fuel efficient compared with other graders we've hired in the past.
"We also find the service we get from Komatsu Australia is pretty good," said Tim. "While we do our own minor servicing, we get the field service technicians in for all major services; they just come out to us wherever the machines are and do what's necessary."