Intermat 24
Digger Man

Digger Man Blog

by Nick Drew  |  Wed 07 Nov 2018

A Family Affair

Taking a look back at one of my Earthmovers articles from earlier this year and bringing it to life on the internet.

A Family Affair
Cheltenham based family business O’Connor Plant Hire was first formed over 50 years ago by the current Plant Manager Ben O’Connor’s grandad Eamon O’Connor senior, who set up shop like so many in the plant industry as a one-man band with his own JCB 3C backhoe loader, the iconic machine which has been the catalyst for so many plant hire companies in the UK since the 1960’s. Today the business is run by Ben’s father, also called Eamon who these days is responsible for the day to day running of the company’s civil engineering side, Ben runs the plant hire side and both are ably assisted by Eamon’s wife and Ben’s mother Theresa who takes care of the office paperwork and no doubt like most women we meet behind these successful businesses, a whole lot more too! Machinery from British manufacturer JCB was very prominent in the formative years of this business and at one stage the company was running in excess of 20 JCB 3C variants. In fact, when Eamon and Theresa got married on 8th June 1985 they were driven to and from the church in the front bucket of a brand new 3CX, a journey which took them right through the centre of Cheltenham town, a scenario that is unlikely to be allowed to happen anymore due to health and safety concerns, but as Theresa recalled, certainly raised some eyebrows back in the day! The fleet today now totals around 96 machines with an estimated value of £2 million and includes excavators ranging from 0.8 tonnes up to 22 tonnes, site dumpers from 1 tonne up to 9 tonnes and a range of attachments to suit these machines. In addition, still on the fleet there is a solitary JCB 3CX which is in excellent condition but is generally only used on their own civils jobs and projects. In the same way the fleet has changed over the years, so has the company’s approach to plant hire, in the fact that they have phased away from running an operated fleet on the hire side, to now simply focusing on the self-drive hire aspect only. Talking about this change in direction Plant Manager Ben said, “Like so many in the industry in recent years, we were finding it increasingly hard to find operators, especially those with the skills and experience required. To be honest our industry is making it so difficult for these young potential operators to get their tickets its becoming a real issue and one that we can only see getting worse as the years go on. We did put some lads through the system to gain their tickets but not long after they left us, so we became reluctant to do that anymore”. Ben continued, “We know self-drive hire can be heart breaking at times, but we are fortunate in many ways that a lot of our customers have been with us for over 40 years and they employ experienced long term operators who really know how to do the job and look after and respect the kit too, which makes things a lot easier for us as a hirer, its that really good working relationship that makes all the difference at the end of the day”. Some of those long-standing customers include Forkers Ltd, John O’ Flynn, KW Bell Group, Cheltenham Borough Council and the world-famous Cheltenham Racecourse which is just a stone’s throw away from O’Connor’s depot in Prestbury. On the civils side of the business the company still employs 8-10 full time plant operators many of whom have been with the company for a long time, like Brian Roberts who has been working for O’Connor’s for over 35 years and who has recently been rewarded with a brand-new Hitachi ZX130LC-6. Ben said, “We keep these operators to work on our own projects, we will not put them out on our hire machines, they are great guys and a valuable asset to our company”. Pictured above: Operator Brian Roberts seated, Ben O'Connor stood. Talking about their choice of machines these days Ben said, “There is no doubt about it we do love our Hitachi’s and since we moved away from the yellow machines, we have run a lot of them, in fact our fleet is heavily dominated with orange paint. Having said that, long lead times for new orders is prompting us to cast our net a bit more, which in all fairness isn’t a bad thing. We recently took a look around to see what else was on offer, I like to keep my eye on the residual values of kit and I had noticed that just like Hitachi, the Takeuchi brand hold’s its value well when its time to change, so we talked to our local area sales manager Simon Richards of CBL Plant Sales, we liked what we saw and CBL put together an attractive deal, so we purchased 4 x TB210R micro excavators and 4 x TB260 6 tonne class excavators, the TB260 machines have all been supplied with our corporate black paintwork replacing the red which we feel gives the machines a very distinctive look”. The TB210R was the long-awaited replacement for the hugely popular TB108 and was first launched at the Intermat 2015 show in Paris. Weighing in at 1,150kg the machine features a larger 3-cylinder Kubota engine boasting 11.6hp (8.7kw), comfortably placed servo controls and a more streamlined and stylish counterweight. The TB210R is an ideal choice for potential hirers like jobbing builders and landscaping contractors, with its hydraulically retractable tracks giving it a compact width of just 750mm for going through gateways, once in the jobsite area this can be expanded out to 1,020mm for stability when working. Steel body panels are fitted for strength and durability which is essential in the tough hire sector. The TB260 has been around a bit longer, having been introduced as a completely brand-new model back in 2013 to fill the gap in the Takeuchi range between the 5 tonnes and the then 8 tonne class machines. Also, in the yard on the day of Earthmovers visit was a new Hitachi ZX19U-5 one of three machines recently purchased. Talking about these machines Ben said, “We absolutely loved the old ZX17U machines and we used to run a good number of them, but for some reason they stopped making them and have replaced it with the ZX19U, its early days with these new models but hopefully they will prove to be as successful as the old machines were for us”. The ZX19U-5 also made its first appearance at Intermat in 2015 and competes in the competitive 1.5 tonne sector, however powered by a Yanmar 3-cylinder diesel engine offering an impressive power output rating of 14.2hp (10.2kw) and tipping the scales at 1,860kgs its more like a 2 tonner in terms of power and capability. The company was also in the market for a new 20 tonne class machine, with their existing fleet offering a JCB JS220LC being moved on after its last hire. At the time of our visit Ben was looking at Kobelco’s offering in that sector but is keeping an open mind on other makes, “At the end of the day I can’t afford to wait too long for other manufacturers to deliver” said Ben. Ben also mentioned that he struggles to find an 8 tonne offering that suits their market, he said, “We are due to upgrade our 8 tonne fleet shortly, but I am keen to find something else, we find with a lot of the manufacturers 8 tonners the cab is too small and if fitted with an offset option they do suffer from premature wear, we used to love the JCB JZ70’s that we used to run with the fixed boom, a really compact machine with a decent sized cab, they rarely gave us any trouble, so the search is on for our next purchases really”. Having checked out the machines in the depot, we headed off to catch up with the civils team working close by at the Cheltenham Racecourse where the guys were busy putting in new stone access routes. Hitachi was very much in dominance on this job with a ZX65USB loading stone onto dumpers which was then being delivered to long standing employee Brian Roberts to level off with his ZX130LCN-6. The company spend a lot of time working in and around the racecourse and there is always something to be doing there. A new footbridge is going to be built over the Evesham Road so race goers don’t have to cross this busy main road on race days and O’Connor’s expect to be heavily involved in that work. At the time of our visit everything was gearing up for what is one of the biggest events in the racing calendar, the Cheltenham Gold Cup Festival where they expected to receive well in excess of 250,000 people attending between March 13th -16th so there was plenty to get on with for the lads! As ever it was inspiring to visit another family-based firm and to see what makes them tick, especially with such a long-standing legacy in the plant hire sector in Gloucestershire and the surrounding areas.

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