Versatile by name, and versatile by nature: this equipment rental company is servicing the diverse needs of WA’s Goldfields region thanks to the efficiency of Caterpillar equipment.
Spanning 771,276 square kilometres, the Western Australian Goldfields-Esperance region is bigger than states such as NSW, Victoria and South Australia.
So if you’re an equipment business hoping to service the area, having reliable, efficient machinery with solid backup is an absolute must.
It’s a lesson Phil Yates has learnt well, since landing in the Goldfields hub of Kalgoorlie in 2006 with the objectives of driving roadtrains and operating mining gear.
“The gold mining industry here was founded in the late 1800s,” he said. “That is what attracts people to the area, as tourists, investors, families looking to get ahead, or professionals looking to gain experience and build a career in the largest gold-producing region in Australia.
“After 12 years or so doing retail excavations in Sydney I was ready for a change, and Kalgoorlie offered opportunities to do earthmoving work that you just don’t get in a major city.
“Quad roadtrains, mining excavators, dump trucks, bulldozers. They don’t exist in Sydney, and the money on offer was mind-blowing at the time.”
So he spent six years spent working with roadtrains and in open pit mining in the gold- bearing dirt around the Goldfields, which eventually gave him the opportunity to start up his own earthmoving business, Versatile Plant Hire & Contracting.
“I started with a Bobcat on hire to a mill just out of town and added a second one for mine site jobs on my week off,” he said.
“Before too long I found myself with five Bobcats, a 3.5 tonne excavator and a five- tonne tipper. No employees, just me and the machines working a 7-days-on roster.”
It was a far cry to where the business is at now. Thirteen years after buying his first machine, Versatile Plant Hire & Contracting has a fleet of more than 50 machines and trucks and around 40 staff, and Phil is back to using the skills he learned working on building sites and in backyards in Sydney.
“The mining industry is massive, and a lot of the contracting companies that serve it are focussed on production contracts and the bigger gear that minesites use to move bulk earth,” he said.
“We specialise in doing the human-scale earthmoving our customers need to establish or expand a mine site. We’re a service provider working in the gaps that mining fleets can’t fit into.
“The gold mining industry is relatively small compared to things like coal and iron ore, and that suits us fine. We’re comfortable being the size that we are – it allows us to stay focussed on the type of work we do, maintain our standards of quality and customer service, and to build a small team of the best civil operators in the region.”
Like any earthmoving business, mechanical support is critical to the daily operation and long-term viability of Versatile Plant Hire & Contracting.
“I love operating machines and driving trucks, it’s what I was born to do and I learned from a very young age that if you look after your machines, they will look after you,” he said.
“But when we started buying dozers, rollers, graders and a fleet of light vehicles and trucks, I started to struggle with the maintenance task. It was costing a fortune and we were at the mercy of our mechanical service providers’ availability.”
Luckily, one of those mechanical service providers saw an opportunity and seized it.
“Lee Boath had his own mechanical contracting business, with field service trucks and some highly skilled guys working for him. They’d done a lot of work for us over the previous years and when he came to me with a proposition it didn’t take me long to see that this was the way forward for us,” Phil said.
Lee said he had worked hard to grow his own business and was doing well.
“But there’s economies of scale in business and Boath Mechanical was ready to take the next step up. Versatile had the admin staff, the workshop and the business systems that I knew I was going to need if Boath Mechanical was to grow.
“And Versatile had a need for in-house mechanical support. I felt that Phil and I would be able to work well together.”
The merger was sealed over a couple of beers, and Lee is now a director at Versatile, where he looks after the maintenance and logistics within the business.
“We have a great workshop in West Kalgoorlie that enables us to service, repair and rebuild earthmoving gear for ourselves and our customers, and field service vehicles equipped for anything the remote areas of the Goldfields have to offer,” Lee said.
Phil said the fleet is maintained to the standard he “always wanted”.
“I used to include contingencies for breakdowns when planning jobs, but now I send the gear out with complete confidence,” he said.
Phil says that like any business, people are the key to Versatile’s success.
“As FIFO has become more common, Kalgoorlie’s population has fallen by around 4000 people. So finding people has become a tough challenge for any business based here,” he said.
“A small business like ours can’t afford to be flying people in and out on rosters, we need people who live here.
“We have a couple of long-termers who we fly in and they stay in a unit that the business rents, but the majority of our workforce is residential and we’re proud of that. The money we make, the wages we pay mostly stays in the town.
“We aren’t a fluffy feel-good modern company; we do a tough job and we’re all hard workers. But we are a tight team where skills and experience are highly valued and I believe in reward for effort. It’s our motto.”
“Plenty of people have come and gone, but we have a core group of long-term team members now and we’re picky about who gets to wear a Versatile shirt these days.
“I believe in treating our people with respect, understanding that sometimes home has to take priority over work, paying them enough to remove money as a motivation and giving serious earthmoving operators the best tools available to do their job.
“That said, we’re always on the lookout for new talent. If you’re looking for work in the WA Goldfields, come and call us.
“We’ve worked closely with various labour hire businesses in town in the past, and we always weigh up alternative methods for getting work done with fewer people. But nothing beats having our own guys in the seats of our own machines.”
One of the avenues Phil and Lee have headed down is dry hire.
“We have a lot more machines than we have operators,” Lee said. “Utilisation of people might be at 100 per cent, but that still leaves half the fleet under-utilised. So we’ve invested in machines that are always in demand for short and long term hire in the area.”
Dry hire now accounts for about 20 per cent of Versatile’s revenue, and Phil and Lee plan to grow that figure.
“We have more machines on order, and we’re planning to stick to the meat and potatoes side of the dry hire game – rollers, dumptrucks, loaders, watercarts. Our point of difference will be that if it’s in our yard, it’s ready for hire,” Phil said.
“The jobs get bigger, the fleet keeps growing and new business opportunities present themselves almost daily. We’re well positioned to make the most of the local mining industry, as a medium-sized fish in a small pond.”
The CAT connection
Phil and Lee make no secret of which brand takes pride of place in their fleet.
Lee said that when he first joined Versatile, there were eight different machinery makes in the line-up.
“Now we only buy new Caterpillar machinery, not just for their performance and efficiency, but importantly the service and availability of parts,” he said.
“Of the 30 or so machines in the fleet, about 20 of them are now Cats. As we make additions to the fleet, we are only buying from them.
“There are some other brands still in there but they are either machines that are not available from Cat, or older machines which will be replaced by Cat versions as they age out.
“We recently started a new contract for the Shire of Coolgardie doing road maintenance. We were awarded the project because we are local and have been providing a high quality, cost effective earthmoving service to them for some time now.
“The Shire has 1200 plus kilometres of dirt roads and now we are solely responsible for maintaining all those roads. It’s a big contract, so we’ve ordered Cat machinery that can do the jobs: a Cat 150 all-wheel drive motor grader, Cat 434 backhoe loader, and a Cat CW34 pneumatic roller.
“It’s the second 150 grader that we’ve bought. The first one’s been a great performer, it’s out working on civil projects at the moment.”
The Cat 150 has long been an industry leader when it comes to road maintenance and construction tasks.
The motor graders have been designed specifically for activities such as road grading, shaping shoulders, slopes, and ditches.
Motor grader frame and drawbar components have been built for performance and durability, with a one-piece forged steel circle standing up to high stress loads.
The drawbar, circle and moldboard make it easy for operators to keep the components tight from the comfort of their cabs, while shims and patented top-adjust wear strips are easy to add or replace, reducing downtime.
“When we signed the road maintenance contract, we had to add another grader and the Caterpillar was the automatic choice,” Lee said.
“With a lot of the roads that we work on, we cut drains that run out into the bush, and the ground around here is pretty soft when it’s wet; so really an all-wheel drive is the only option we had and this is going to be a great machine for our operation.
“As far as I’m aware, this is the first all-wheel drive 150 Cat grader that’s been sold in the Goldfields region. We’re proud to be trailblazers in this industry in our local area and we’re really excited to see what this machine can do for us.
“In fact, all the Cats are ideal machines for what we do. We know the quality of the equipment, but equally vital for a region as big as the Goldfields is the backup that’s available in the regional area.
“Our machines are often working hundreds of kilometres out of town. If we need service or parts, we just get onto Cat dealer WesTrac and they send someone out.
“Or we can log onto parts.cat.com to find the genuine Cat parts we need. It makes it easy for me to order the right parts before I drive 200 kilometres to the machine.
“We don’t need to keep the stock of parts because we know that WesTrac has them on the shelf and the genuine parts will fit the first time, every time.
“We have peace of mind using the genuine parts and also knowing that if we do have any dramas, they’re always backed up by the support they give us.
“So it’s great in knowing that with our machines working so far away and over such great distances, the support from Cat is always right there.”
One of the points of contact at WesTrac for Versatile has been the dealer’s Territory Manager Sales, Fintan Kearns.
“With so many different manufacturer brands in the fleet in the past, I’ve come across a lot of sales reps in my time,” Phil said.
“The change to Caterpillar brought not only better backup service, but the sales relationship is excellent. We’ve known Fintan for 10 years now, and if I need a machine, I can call him and he’ll bend over backwards to deliver what we need when we need it.”
Fintan said he was delighted to see how much Versatile has grown over that time.
“They had five to 10 machines with a mixed fleet of different manufacturers at the start,” he said.
“I sat down with Phil, had a conversation in regards to swapping the fleet completely to the Caterpillar product and we proved that we could support him in his growth.
“Phil likes to keep up with technology. Caterpillar product has all that to offer.
“So we’ve seen this fleet grow substantially. We have the 150 all-wheel drive going to be put into the road project. We also have the new 434 backhoe loader. Phil is very excited to get both products in the field and working.”
WesTrac customer support manager for the Goldfields, James Robertson, reiterated the strong level of reliable backup in terms of service and parts.
“If they’ve got a problem, they give me a call. We’ll sort it out for them straight away, whether it’s parts availability, service needs, warranty issues with machinery.
“I help them make it easy to own the product.
“I’ve showed them how various Cat tools can help them get their jobs done on time and keep them ahead of their projects.
“We also recently spent a bit of time on the Caterpillar VisionLink app, which leverages real-time data and analytics, helping users optimise their operations, reduce costs, and improve efficiency.
“We have 14 assets connected to the machines where Versatile can look at a number of different things, such as fuel burn of the machine, idle time of the machine location hours, and other relevant information that is very valuable and can actually enable the customer to better utilise his productivity within his fleet.”
Lee was definitely impressed, saying the fleet management tool enhanced the monitoring, maintenance, and overall performance of heavy equipment.
“We do most of our maintenance in- house. VisionLink makes it easy for me to keep track of what’s due for a service,” he said.
“Most of our fleet has GPS tracking and cameras on board, but we use VisionLink to keep track of engine hours, locations, working times.
“Our machinery is spread all over a 500 kilometre radius from Kalgoorlie and the app makes it easy for me in the office to make sure that everyone’s doing what they should, it lets me know where the machines are and how close they are for a service.”
Fintan said that ultimately, WesTrac aimed to be a partner with Versatile rather than just a supplier.
“James and I work closely with Phil and Lee. We partner together, we come up with a solution,” he said.
“We put it in the field and we support it from there, which works really well for both companies.”
