All Things Dumpers and So Much More

The small village of Beare, near Broadclyst in Devon, is perhaps the unlikely home to what is probably the leading supplier of construction site dumper spares, both nationally and internationally.

Long established Plant & Engineering Services Ltd has actually been in existence since the late 1980’s, but in those days was known as Devon Plant, before changing its name to PES in the late 1990’s. Devon Plant used to hire out wheeled diggers and even back then they held stock of dumper spares and parts which they used to sell.

Jim Prior the current Operations Director joined the business in 1997, and with the former owners deciding to go their separate ways, he has been in the driving seat ever since. It was around that time that Plant & Engineering Services Ltd became its own entity, just selling dumper parts and some second-hand construction equipment.

Talking about the progression of the business Jim said, “Dumper spares is a massive part of what we do here, and we hold around £1.3m worth of dumper parts, specialising in Thwaites, Mecalac, Terex and some Barford parts, the latter of which is now getting less and less as they are no longer in business.

We don’t do any Wacker Neuson, and we no longer do AUSA, although we did support their dealer network in the past, but more recently that brand seems to have disappeared from the UK. For us the beauty of supporting a dealer network with parts was that we were achieving £25-30k of sales a month because they were selling a lot of machinery, so as an organization, we learned a lot not just about being a dealer, but about dealing with dealers, if that makes sense, which has set us up well for how we operate today.

In terms of our parts, we don’t just sell direct to end users, we do a lot of wholesale dumper parts to people online, and in addition, we sell to other dealers as well, so we have a whole different range of people who we supply dumper parts too”.

For many years the humble site dumper has been a relatively simple piece of kit, often sharing some common components. 30 years ago, every dumper was fitted with either a British built Lister TS3 or a Petter PH Series engine, but these days it tends to be Japanese powerpacks from the likes of Yanmar, of which PES are now dealers for, or Kubota. Like many other machines in the construction industry today, there are more and more electronics involved in the engines, which ultimately means gone are the days of your man with a box of spanners sorting problems out, now an engineer has to turn up with the laptop in many instances.

Jim commented, “We have one of our engineers in the workshop who is young, and he’s well into all the electronics, whereas Glynn, who is the same age as me, is proper old school and still prefers the spanner work”.

PES send dumper spares all over the world to far flung places such as New Zealand, Australia, and South America, and everywhere in between. Many people think that the dumper is primarily a UK product, and although we probably do use the most dumpers in the world, they are a globally used product.

We took a tour around the various spare parts storage facility which is crammed with every possible component you could think of relating to dumpers, from steering wheels and seats to clutches and brake pads. “We are just about coping here with what we have, our philosophy has always been, if you can stock it, you can sell it, so that’s what we do, if someone rings up and wants a handbrake cable we have got it, or they need a damaged steering wheel replaced, we have them on the shelf ready to go next day to keep those machines going and ultimately earning their keep” Said Jim.

Another side of the business is PES Plant Sales which in 2006 saw them become a dealership for the Volvo Construction Equipment Compact range. They are also the official dealers for Thwaites dumpers in the Channel Islands, however Jim said that they don’t sell that many dumpers, but do sell a massive amount of genuine Thwaites dumper spares.

Talking about spare parts in general Jim said, “Times have definitely changed these days, when I first started working here, companies and contractors kept spare parts for their fleets, so say for instance if they had a handbrake cable failure, they would have the bits and Joe the fitter would be dispatched to repair it, but these days they don’t keep any stock anymore, they only order parts when they physically need them because something has broken down on site.

And then there’s the health & safety aspect these days, back in the day if the dumper handbrake wasn’t working nobody batted an eyelid, whereas these days, the machine is parked up immediately, and the same now with a flashing beacon for instance, so its very different now.

So to be able to get the parts you need for your dumper the next day is now very, very, very important, and that’s the reason our business does so well, so if they order the part before 3pm that day, they can have it delivered before 9am the following morning if they want to and that’s the way we win in the spare parts game, because A) we know what we are talking about and B) we have the massive stock to be able to deliver”.   

One of the keys to this business’s success is its people, the team comprises of just 14 employees, most of whom in Jim’s words have been there forever and all help to contribute to the business’s annual turnover of between £7m-£8m. These loyal employees were recently rewarded for their loyalty as Jim explained, “So up until September 2025 I was the owner of the business, but around that time we transformed into an employee ownership trust, so the employees now effectively own the business, and I am back to being an employee.

So, we have PS Trustees Ltd that owns Plant & Engineering Services and basically instead of me and my partner, Jackie Prior, who is the Accounts Manager getting dividends, now all the employees get the dividends”.

Some of the key members of staff include Mike Murphy and Laura Bool who are more often than not out on the road selling machines, Mark Cox who is the Parts Manager, Glynn Hawkins, Workshop Manager, Mel Adderley, Financial Director and Dave Biddulph, Parts Supervisor, it was also interesting to meet Tina Metherell who works in the workshop and has a wealth of knowledge on repairing gearboxes and transmissions.

Expanding further on the success of the business Jim said “We are very profitable, because our overheads are very low, and we own our own premises. We have one part-time sales ledger, one part-time purchase ledger. They're the only two people here that don't earn money. Everybody else here is involved in selling, whether it be fitters selling their time and experience or Mike and Laura out selling kit or me selling Yanmar engines, we all pull together for the greater good”.

The company is also the largest dealer for Yanmar engines in the country, something that Jim got involved in some 15 years ago, when he was looking into other avenues for the business. Back in the day they used to be heavily involved in engine remanufacturing in particular with the old Lister and Petter engines, which companies often bought for life because they could be rebuilt over and over again. But in today’s world it’s become a bit like televisions, if they breakdown, you just throw it away and go and buy a new one.

Using the same philosophy as they have done with dumper parts, they keep a big stock of Yanmar engines, all ready to go on a next day delivery basis, on an average year Jim says he sells somewhere in the region of 150 engines which is pretty good going by anyone’s standards. Jim compares his business model to that of online giant Amazon, everybody wants a quick fix, order it today, for immediate delivery tomorrow, so if you can fulfil that for customers, they will keep coming back time after time.

One thing that struck me from this visit was the broad depth of knowledge that everyone involved has about dumpers and dumper parts, from the days of Benford’s and Barford’s, right up to today’s most modern Thwaites and Mecalac examples.

The PES Team: Back row L-R. Mike Murphy, Tina Metherell, Mel Adderley, Jim Prior, Jackie Prior, Sam Cox, Marc Cox, Laura Bool, Jason Shelbourne

Front row: L-R. Dave Biddulph, Glynn Hawkins, Richard Pickering, Shaun Phillips, Steve Prescott

It’s a real credit to this little company that fly’s relatively under the radar on the outskirts of Exeter, that so many people we talk to know about them and their levels of professionalism and expertise. It was clear to see that everyone at PES is truly passionate about what they do and are totally invested in providing the best levels of service for their customers, I found it truly inspiring.