by Nick Drew | Tue 20 Sep 2016
Potter Plant Hire’s Magic Formula
Bringing another of my old Earthmovers articles to life on the internet now featuring alternative photos, with this story on Potter Plant Hire, a great company and a classic example of how, from little acorns, big acorns grow.
Giles Potter like so many plant men in the industry had a strong agricultural background, having grown up on the family farm in the North Yorkshire village of Catton, near Thirsk. After leaving school, Giles followed in his father’s footsteps and started working on the farm which he did for the next 3-4 years. In 1994 Giles and his father were working together developing the farm and installing some large poultry sheds. Around this time they were hiring in plant as and when it was required but an ambitious Giles decided that he would be better off purchasing his own machine, rather than hiring in with all the additional transport costs, so he set about finding himself a suitable cheap machine.
Photo: Case 450A an example of Giles Potters first machine.
Giles tracked down a second hand Case 450A traxcavator from CJ Leonard at Guisborough after a quick look round this and the toss of a coin the little 450A was bought for £1700 and a long lasting relationship forged with C J Leonards. The machine was mechanically sound but was in need of some TLC and a quick respray. The next project was to build a small low loader so it could be moved behind the farms tractor. This little machine was to be the catalyst for the Potter Plant Hire business as it is today. After and during using the machine on the family farm, Giles started to get requests to do some work for other neighbouring farms as is often the case the work snowballed as word of mouth got around that Giles had a machine for hire. In 1997 the first excavator arrived a used 1988 Hitachi EX120 again off CJ Leonard. This was shortly followed by a JCB Fastrac which was to be utilised on a sludge spreading contract for Yorkshire water.
Having spent many years on the agricultural work, Giles managed to secure a hire on a local pipeline for Murphy Pipelines, which proved to be a real eye opener for the Fledgling plant entrepreneur as he quickly realised what could be achieved by running plant in the construction sector.
As demand for hire grew and Giles’s dislike to turn any hire down, more machines were added to the fleet as and when needed, good working relations were forged with many construction companies ranging from housing developments to motorway contracts for the like of Birse , Alfred Mcalpine, Balfour Beatty and Amec with the introduction of major road works jobs there was a requirement for rubber ducks and dozers to be added to the fleet all for which skilled operators had to be sourced and held onto. This work gave the company a good run of hire right up to 2007, when the recession took hold.
With the economic woes of recession biting deep, many of the existing customers/ clients either scaled back or simply folded through the lack of sustainable work, however Potter Plant Hire were very lucky in the fact that they were heavily involved in a good 12 month run of work for Birse constructing a link road which was then proceeded in March of 2009 by the start of the first phase of the A1 M upgrade works, from Dishforth to Leeming. This job carried them through the toughest period of recession the UK has ever experienced and with very little other work around in the area, the company was able to focus on the job, which was ideally situated right on their doorstep.
The company are now involved on the second phase of the project from Leeming to Barton, which carries the acronym A1L2B and have a vast array of machines on the project working for the principal contractor Carillion-Morgan Sindall, who are delivering the £ 380m scheme as a joint venture. The project is one of the largest infrastructure schemes in the country and is currently a leading project in the highways sector. This current stretch of works, which started in early 2014 and is due for completion in 2017, involves upgrading 21.5KM of the current A1 from a two lane dual carriageway to a three lane motorway and includes a mix of new alignment and parallel widening works. A new interchange is being constructed at Catterick central junction and modifications will be done to the existing interchanges at Leeming, Scotch Corner and Barton. The project also involves work on 31 structures, which includes the construction of 15 new bridges and underpasses, the demolition of 9 existing structures and the modification of 7 structures. There is plenty of digging to be done on this impressive job with approximately 125km of drainage trenches to be dug and a total of 2.8 million cubic metres of earth to shift. It came as no surprise that on the day of Earthmovers visit the site was totally dominated by a vast array of machines from the Potter Plant Hire fleet.
Giles has invested heavily in his arsenal of machines and additionally embracing in new technologies such as GPS Machine control. With over 34 machines equipped with GPS Systems ranging from Dozers, Excavators and Graders, this is in response to the industries growing demand.
Giles is a big fan of GPS Machine control and can see the benefits first hand on their own contract earthworks jobs, with higher production reduced labour, higher accuracy and safety.
The magic formula for success of the Potter Plant Hire business is attracting and keeping hold of top quality skilled operators, with many of them being handpicked for their skills. Giles said ‘Good operators are essential for a business you can have the best kit going, but without good men in the seat, they are useless, so we try our best to look after our operators who in turn look after us and our kit and clients.
The firm has expanded rapidly and currently employs around 95 members of staff. As the firm gets bigger, it does get harder to maintain that personal touch with the operators, but Giles likes to try and maintain the contact and visits the site at least once a week to have the crack with his operators, many of whom have been long serving employees with the company, which says a lot in this day and age.
With the company’s first excavator being from the Hitachi stable, it will come as no surprise to discover that today’s Potter Plant Hire fleet is dominated by the Japanese machines, but there is also a significant amount of caterpillar and case equipment in the fleet too. Giles has nothing but praise for the Hitachi machines saying ‘We have had some Hitachi’s amassing over 16,700 hours of trouble free working time and they are rarely touched by a spanner except for the odd quick hitch hose pipe going, we also find that if they are to be sold they don’t even need any marketing as word of mouth gets around and they are very quickly snapped up by buyers’.
More recently the company have also invested in Case excavators, which have been purchased from their Local dealer CJ Leonard, Giles said ‘We have found the case machines and C J Leonard to be very good on a par with our Hitachi’s. The Japanese Sumitomo technology is excellent and our operators have all been very happy with the levels of comfort in the cabs and the way the machine operate so smoothly, the residual values on them are just not quite as good at the moment but that could change in the future’.
On road jobs like this, the wheeled excavator always has a vital role to play, especially when the ‘pavement’ has gone down, of which there is an estimated 605,000 tonnes. Three Hitachi Models are present on the Potter Plant Hire fleet ranging from the 14 tonne class ZX140W to the 21 tonne class ZX210W, with the smallest rubber duck is the popular 9 tonne class Takeuchi TB295W.
As far as dozers go, the fleet is heavily loaded with Caterpillar machines, ranging from the D3K up to the D6T, but there are also some machines from the Komatsu stable too, with the vast majority being fitted with GPS.
Articulated dump trucks are an important machine in the fleet too, with the latest additions coming from Danish manufacturer Hydrema and their 922D 6x6 offering joining the company’s existing fleet of Volvo A25D and smaller JCB 714 models.
Potter Plant hire have also invested in the top of the range motor grader, which has been well received on this job. The Caterpillar 12M2 model features Cat Grade Control and VHP plus and a rear mounted scarifier. Graders are not so common on sites these days and finding skilled operators for them is not easy.
One thing that struck me about Potter Plant hire was an over whelming feeling of teamwork and camaraderie amongst all employees I met, ranging from office staff to those at the sharp end out on site, there was a real vibe about the business and to me it proved that Giles and his team certainly do have a magic formula for success.
Check out this video which features Giles Potter talking about his use of 3D machine control on the project.
[youtube width="725" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIKk2dGLtYs[/youtube]