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Digger Man

Digger Man Blog

by Nick Drew  |  Thu 25 May 2017

Class image, class act

Looking back at another of my articles which first appeared in Earthmovers Magazine in 2015 and bringing it to life on the internet with different photos.

Class image, class act
There can be no denying the power of social media in today’s computer savvy high tech world, with platform favourites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin becoming essential tools for many companies who want to spread the word about what they are doing and what they can offer the industry. One such company that has embraced the virtues of Twitter is Bedfordshire based ECL Civil Engineering Ltd and it was through this media that I was fortunate enough to make contact with the companies Director Sean Hoare, who kindly invited me to visit his impressive business. Sean is another “old school” plant man who spent his formative years learning the ropes on machines for his father’s business. Sean had actually ran his own owner operated JCB 3CX previously and a spell owning and operating a grab lorry around the local area, but in 2006 Sean took over his father’s civil engineering business, which at the time was only running a JCB 3CX backhoe loader and a Hitachi FH150 hydraulic excavator. Under Sean’s control the business grew steadily and Sean decided to purchase his first piece of kit for this new and expanding company, that first purchase was a Hitachi EX135, which at the time was without doubt the pride of the fleet. This machine was later joined by some additional good condition second hand kit. In 2008 Sean decided to invest in some brand new machines, which once again came from the Hitachi stable, consisting of 3 x 13 tonne & 3 x 6 tonne machines. At this point the business was ticking over but Sean wanted to push it on even further. Sean said “The business was doing ok, but I really wanted to move it on and realised I simply could not do it all by myself, I was going to need help, so I rang one of my old bosses whom I had worked for in the past, Steve Tysoe, who had sold his previous business, to see if he knew of anyone who would be keen to join me. We met for lunch one afternoon and Steve said he would like to come on board and joined as a 50% shareholder, we have never looked back since and it’s great to have such an experienced Co-Director to work with”. The first deal for new machines under this partnership was with JCB, who through their dealer Watling JCB were very keen to get the company’s business. Sean commented “Watling JCB were extremely helpful in putting a competitive deal together for the business and JCB Finance have been phenomenal throughout, as we know it’s often hard for relatively new businesses to raise finance but JCB have been above and beyond helpful with us”. It will come as no surprise to discover then that the fleet of excavators is dominated by JCB machines, but just recently a small number of Komatsu machines have joined the ranks, this primarily came about due to the fact that machines were needed quickly and at the time JCB were flat out and could not supply equivalent machines within the timescale set due to high demand for JCB’s. However Sean and Steve were keen to stick with the yellow and white corporate colour scheme, so rather than going for machines in orange or a different shade of yellow they figured the Komatsu’s would keep the colour uniformity going well, Sean said, “For us our company image is everything and it’s very important to us that everything looks good, I’d probably go as far as saying that our professional image and the way we conduct ourselves on site has enabled us to secure a lot more work which really means a lot”. Co-Director Steve runs the commercial side of the business and has changed how the company does things dramatically since he joined the business, with Sean taking care of the day to day running of the sites and machines. Today the company employs around 300 members of staff and runs 70 pieces of kit, featuring 50 JCB machines and 20 Komatsu’s, all of which are under 4 years old. The company is currently on its second round of updating the fleet, with a significant order being placed with Watling JCB to supply 1 x JS300, 4 x JS220’s, 6 x JS130’s and 6 x 65R-1’s, in a re-run of the last order 4 years ago with an additional 4 new machines on top. The key to ECL’s success is the ability to attract the very best staff possible and it’s often the case that operators are hand-picked for their skills and in return are paid very well with the vast majority of operators also being given a company van to get to and from work, which in turn gives the company the flexibility to move machines and operators around the jobs easily. The vast majority of ECL’s operators are well known local lads of long standing in the industry. Sean says it took a while to get some of them on-board, but as the business grew and people started to see what the business was about the phone started to ring and today they have some of the best operators in the business. One of those longest serving operators is Gary Dalton, who has been with ECL for some 7 years. Gary was actually one of Sean’s machine operators when he himself was a ganger man on another company, so there is a long term association between them. Gary had high praise for the company saying, “It’s a great firm to work for, one of the best in fact, we are all well looked after and the machines are excellent, we all like to look after our kit and for that we are well rewarded”. If proof were needed that operators are highly thought of on ECL it would be the fact that the company rarely loses any of them, operators come on and generally stay for the long haul, which speaks volumes in my book. However Sean says the standard is extremely high on our company and if operators aren’t up to the task during the customary trial period they don’t get the full start, this skill level was very evident during Earthmovers tour of the Bellway Homes site in New Cardington, Bedford, where ECL are doing the roads, sewers and all other groundworks for 500 new units. Sean had particular praise for the merits of the JCB JS220LC model saying, “We feel the JS220 is a fantastic all-rounder, especially for a lot of our work that involves fine grading, we do a lot of it so the machine needs to be up to the job, we find the Komatsu’s are a great digging tool but they don’t quite match the smoothness required for our type of finesse work. On our latest batch of machines coming through we have decided to move away from JCB’s slightly over complicated quick hitch system and we’re now specifying the Miller Twin Lock system, this is another move to keep the operators happy, which as I said is very important to us”. The company’s six tonne machines are generally operated by lads who do a bit of groundworks too, so they are often jumping in and out of the cab, but each gang has a dedicated operator/groundworker who performs that kind of role rather than all and sundry jumping in the cab, it’s somewhat reminiscent of the old school type of JCB 3CX style of operating and works well for the company. One of the star attractions during our visit was the largest machine on the ECL fleet at the moment, which is a Komatsu PC360LC-10, this 36 tonne class machine has been affectionately nicknamed “The Beast” was working on a drainage run which was relatively shallow, but this machine gives the company the capacity to work on deep drainage and large muckaway operations. Sean’s story is another example of what can be achieved by one man who started out as an owner operator and gone on to achieve what he has today. It clearly shows that with determination and by bringing on board the best people in the industry, the results can be very impressive indeed, an inspiration to anyone out there thinking of having a go!

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