Rapid Case Expansion

Wed 08 Feb 2017

Rapid Case Expansion

Demand for housing in Wales and in particular South Wales continues to grow at a steady pace, with a good combination of populated cities surrounded by beautiful rural countryside the area is enjoying a strong demand for new properties. This of course is great news for the area’s civil engineering and groundworks contractors. One of those contractors is groundworks specialists Rapidgrid, who have been performing civil engineering works in South Wales for over 25 years. The company has previously had two owners but is currently owned by two brothers Grant and Craig Hughes.

Pictured above: Grant Hughes Rapidgrid (Left) Rob Vaughan LDH Plant Sales (Right) The two men both have degrees in quantity surveying and Grant Hughes was formerly employed by Rapidgrid for some 16 years as a QS. Both he and his brother purchased the company in 2005 via a management buyout and although like most businesses there have been some tough times along the way they have never looked backed. In the past 11 years the company has rapidly expanded, working for major blue chip housebuilders like Barratt, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon’s and Redrow to name a few, on sites mainly in South and West Wales but on the odd occasion they have been known to work in the South West of England on sites in and around the Bristol area. Today Rapidgrid employs around 190 staff and has a turnover of £20 million.

When Grant and Craig took over the business the plant fleet was somewhat dominated by JCB products but since those early days they have tried a number of other makes including Case, Hitachi and Doosan. However the company’s preferred excavators today come from the Case stable thanks in part to what Grant describes as an excellent working relationship with the main Welsh Case dealership LDH Plant. Grant openly declared that he has very little technical knowledge of plant in general but of course he knows what is required to get the job done and more importantly he is on the ball with the figures so likes to know he’s getting a good deal on the machines he is purchasing. If he needs to know anything plant related Grant more often than not turns to LDH Plant’s owner Rob Vaughan for the answers and thanks to that special relationship Grant receives impartial advice on the type of machines he needs to get the job done. Talking about the progression to a mainly Case machine fleet Grant said, “Having run a mixed fleet in the early days we now prefer not to mix and match the machines in our fleet, some people say to us oh well you have all your eggs in one basket, but from our point of view if you are running all the same brand of kit it is so much easier to manage in terms of spares and servicing, plus with our good relationship we know the dealer will back up the product and if there are any issues that they will be sorted with minimum downtime which is so important when you are working to tight deadlines like we are”.

The company run a fleet of varying ages with older models being replaced for new within a specific timeline, so the fleet is constantly changing rather than swapping the entire fleet for new in one big deal, this arrangement works well for Rapidgrid. Earthmovers caught up with some of Rapidgrids machines on sites in the beautiful Vale of Glamorgan area. On the first site in Wick the company had a variety of Case machines at work, comprising of three CX130C models, a CX210C and working on muckaway duties loading wagons was an older CX210B model which is due for replacement soon.

On a tour around the jobsite we did notice that it was not entirely swamped with the yellow tan colouring of Case machines, as lurking around one of the corners was the familiar red and grey paintwork of a Takeuchi TB228 3 tonne class machine at work digging out for some drainage and loading the material into an awaiting Thwaites dumper.

Another very well kept and tidy Case CX130C was busy working on a drain line repair job in the middle of the road on one of those tricky little jobs where you have to keep moving out of the way to allow site traffic in and out of the site! A brief chat with the operator revealed that he was a fan of the Japanese built machines and had particular praise for the smooth and positive feeling hydraulics on them, especially useful of course when working on drainage in close proximity to live services and existing drain lines.

Case are certainly on a roll in the UK at the moment and it’s not hard to see why, the Sumitomo based excavators are quality through and through and as each new model comes out they just seem to get better and better. Rapidgrid are now starting to receive the latest D series incarnations and have been very impressed with them so far, talking about the brand Grant said, “We had the latest D series machines on demo and everyone was delighted with them, the key elements for us were pricing, reliability, back up and servicing, all of which we knew would meet our criteria thanks to our good working relationship with LDH Plant”

Grant continued, “At the end of the day it’s a great product and they use some of the finest components available so you just know they are going to be good. Our operators are all generally very impressed with the Case machines, although we do get the occasional fussy operator who would prefer another make but that’s often down to personal preference or previous experience and familiarity on other machines”. Talking about operators and Grant like so many company owners we speak to these days mentioned that the biggest issue facing the business today is finding good quality operators to run the machines, with so many old school operators “hanging up the keys” these days and a lack of opportunities for young blood to come onto sites, the industry is facing a severe shortage of skilled operators, which is only going to get worse over the coming year’s.

We then headed off to another site in the Rogerstone area of Newport where we would catch up with one of the company’s new CX130D models. Case’s latest 13 tonne class offering tips the scales at 29,131lb (13,214kgs) and takes its power from the ever popular Japanese built Tier 4 Final emissions compliant Isuzu AR-4JJ1X four cylinder engine which offers a power output rating of 102hp (76.4kw) @2000rpm, driving another favourite Japanese blue chip component in the form of a Kawasaki hydraulic pump.

The machine on site in Rogerstone was performing the delicate task of placing concrete floor beams onto the oversite and once again demonstrated the precision and finesse of the machines hydraulics, something that was once again highlighted by the operator on the machine during a brief chat.

The new machines are being supplied with full boxing ring protection and cab vandal screens complete with storage cradle from Cab Craft and this example was fitted with a Miller Twinlock automatic quick coupler, talking about quick couplers Grant Hughes said “We don’t generally specify any particular brand of hitch and we generally trust whatever Rob decides to fit on the machines for us”.

As part of an ongoing service plan deal with LDH Plant Ltd all machines up to 4 years old are serviced at 500 hour intervals by LDH technicians which offers great peace of mind that the kit is well maintained at all times. Summarizing Grant Hughes said, “We have been more than happy with our Case machines and the service we get from our dealer, it goes without saying that we will be buying more in the future as an ongoing part of our fleet replacement programme”.

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