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Leading Western Australian contractor Wolfe Civil has recently become the first contractor in the state to purchase Komatsu's latest "Vantage" range of graders and since being delivered has made the operator a convert to Komatsu.
Founded over 33 years ago by Alex Wolfe, Wolfe Civil offers a wide range of construction services for subdivision developments and public infrastructure, including stormwater drainage, water main reticulation, deep sewerage and underground utilities.
In 2010, the company moved to a new management structure under managing director Lindsay Honey, with Alex taking on the role of chairman.
Wolfe Civil prides itself on its focus on quality assurance, and has attained certification for safety, environmental management, and quality management through the international certification body NCS International Pty Ltd.
Today it offers clients a quality assured company which has achieved the highest standards in professionalism, making it a preferred contractor with such organisations as Telstra, Western Power and Alinta, as well as holding accreditation for traffic management to Main Roads WA standards.
Wolfe Civil is a long-term purchaser of Komatsu equipment, with a fleet of many Komatsu machines including PC200 excavators, and WA250 and WA320 wheel loaders.
Its latest purchase is the GD555A-5 Vantage grader, which was bought in July.
The grader is also fitted with Topcon's GPS-based 3D machine control system, which was transferred across from the machine it replaced.
According to Lindsay Honey, the new grader is being used for roadworks and earthworks including final trim on many projects throughout Western Australia.
Lindsay said the main reason the company looked at the Komatsugrader was that it wanted to remain with the conventional steering-wheel type grader operation.
"I've just been down to Lake Clifton, where the new grader is carrying out a very large cut in a V-drain situation on a rural type subdivision and I spoke to our operator about it.
"He absolutely loves it," said Lindsay.
"He loves the power he gets out of the transmission; the power that it gives out for that size machine is phenomenal.
"It will idle off with a full blade, it will cut a full blade in front of it all day long, and the traction on very steep batters, which is what we are cutting at the moment in an open V-drain situation, is excellent."
Lindsay said his operator is also impressed with the visibility.
"It's a chamfered-type cab at the front and so the glass area is far greater than on other makes, so the vision is so much better."
Coupled with the Topcon machine control system, Lindsay said the grader was easily delivering accuracies to 5 mm to meet the local shires' specifications.
"The Topcon system works really well on the Komatsu; we basically transferred the system from our old grader to this one.
"Obviously, we had to put some new fittings on, but the actual system itself is identical to the one we had on the previous machine, and we're definitely getting the accuracies and reliability we need," he said.