Leading heavy machinery sales and rental specialists Porter Group is optimising machine reliability, uptime and safety through the power of its partnership with hydraulic services professionals, Hydraulink.
The Porter Group, which is the fastest growing supplier of new and used heavy equipment in Australia and New Zealand, supplies world-leading brands of machinery nationally to industries where time is money and the benefits of uninterrupted production can be measured in thousands and millions of dollars.
The customers served by the Porter success story – whose operations include some of the most remote and challenging terrain of Australasia – include mining and energy, quarrying and construction, civil engineering, forestry and primary production, roading and infrastructure, waste recycling and landfill, heavy industrial and agricultural.
Porter Group has grown from being a successful New Zealand company, representing brands such as Hyundai, ASV, Sandvik, Terex Trucks, Furukawa, Madill, and NC, to becoming an international outfit, with expanding operations throughout Australia, Papua New Guinea and Southern California.
“Integral to our success formula is providing a seamless, stress-free relationship for our customers, who know they can depend on us to deliver what they want, where they want it, 24/7,” said Porter Group Manager Simon Porter.
“We have built up customer-responsive networks throughout Australasia, so we can deliver exactly what’s needed in terms of new equipment customised to industry needs, or rental equipment delivered fast and backed with outstanding service. With heavy machinery, it is a big investment and reliability and safety is prized,” said Mr Porter, whose group’s Rental Division and New Sales Division provide thousands of pieces of heavy machinery a year, including bulldozers, dump trucks, excavators, graders, loaders, rollers, water trucks, crane trucks and access equipment.
Central to the reliability and operation of all this equipment is proper engineering and service of its hydraulic equipment, including the myriad of cylinders, pistons, pumps, hoses and filters without which machinery cannot do its job. This is a role for which Porter Group has depended on Hydraulink for nearly 20 years, expanding its relationship as Hydraulink has grown to more than 400 service points throughout Australia and New Zealand, supported by mobile units, providing hoses, fittings, adaptors and accessories and custom engineering and service for Porter’s rental and new equipment sales.
“Hydraulink has the scale of network and depth of expertise we need to provide uniformly high standards of engineering and safety across diverse markets, all under the one brand. They are quick off the mark – well organised and self-motivated,” said Mr Porter.
“They have got a lot of smart people across their network, with good industry knowledge. This means they are quick starters and they don’t have to re-learn the same lesson every time.”
“We can confidently depend on them to send experienced service technicians out to our customers, some of whom operate in rugged and remote spots where we have to deal quickly with service situations that could otherwise be very costly.”
Porter Group also depends on Hydraulink skills to keep its rental fleet in efficient shape, with high standards of utilisation, reliability and ultimately profitability for all involved. The group has, for example, more than 2500 items of heavy rental equipment throughout NZ, with much of it domiciled at its National headquarters in Hamilton NZ.
Hydraulink CEO Robin Simpson said that not only does Hydraulink share Porter Group’s safety ethos, but it can also deliver the same strong, uniform standards of safety, engineering and traceability across multiple sites and entire operations.
“We appreciate having a Partner who entrusts us with this philosophy and who deals in quality product and engineering.”