Only the best will do for equipment hire leader ZELVi Equipment, which has found that its customers keep coming back for one particular brand of machinery.
ZELVi Equipment is often the first name on the lips of businesses in Perth and regional Western Australia which need quality equipment at short notice.
The family-owned and operated company specialises in delivering machinery to worksites quickly, ensuring the tools are available when needed most.
And as it continues to expand, ZELVi remains committed to supporting customers with advanced machinery designed for superior performance and comfort. From excavators to water trucks, the equipment is ready to meet the demands of projects across the state.
And what an impressive CV that is. Projects which have used ZELVi equipment include Elizabeth Quay, ATCO, Byford Rail, Tonkin Gap, Yanchep Rail Extension and other METRONET works.
ZELVi Equipment General Manager Damien Dadd told Earthmoving Equipment Magazine that the main priority was helping clients achieve success by providing top-quality machinery and equipment hire.
“If you have a short term or long-term project but don’t have the equipment or machinery you need, then ZELVi can help. Our modern fleet of hire equipment is always available and ready to help with any project,” he said.
“Our machines are regularly serviced and safety checked before each commissioning, ensuring the highest performance and total reliability, and if customers are unsure on how to use them, we can show them the ropes.
“The type of customers that we deal with are typically those in the civil industry: anywhere from road building, drainage, plumbing to construction work, electricians, and so on.
“We’ve got a fleet of four delivery vehicles on the road full time and our biggest service offering would be to get the equipment delivered to site.”
Damien emphasised how the quality of the fleet was paramount to the business.
“We understand that time is money and there is nothing worse than subpar equipment, which is why our hire range is comprised of leading brands,” he said.
And this includes CASE equipment.
“The brand is well-known, the machines are fresh-looking, they’re reliable and perform well, and have a very helpful dealership in the form of McIntosh & Son,” Damien said.
“We started this business back in 2018 as we saw a need in the market with the ever-growing construction industry in WA.
“We based our business on service and started with small machinery. It wasn’t long before we introduced CASE equipment into our fleet, starting with the 14 tonne excavators.
“As expected, with these machines, clients want quality specifications such as dig depth, fuel efficiency and power, but top of the list for me would be reliability.
“CASE machines just keep on going, ensuring that the jobs get done on time and users don’t waste time with maintenance and stuff like that.
“The CASE machines are always available on our yard. They’re always being hired out: as soon as they come back, they get cleaned. Because they’re so low maintenance, they get sent straight back out on hire.
“They tick a lot of boxes with our customers, particularly for projects like plumbing and trenching.
“Now, with great help from McIntosh, we have a whole line of 14t, 20t and 25t excavators, as well as 12t and 15t wheel loaders from CASE, and we only ever see that growing into the future.”
Helping ZELVi build up the CASE inventory has been Andrew Cox, a Construction Sales Representative at McIntosh & Son, Perth.
As Andrew explains, he spends his time “getting everything from a mini excavator up to large wheel loaders” out to civil customers or hire companies.
“We started working with Damien about three years ago, and started with a CX145C excavator and that’s been really good for him,” he said.
“Damien ended up buying a fair few CX145s and CX235 short radius excavators.
“The versatility of attachments that we’ve got also allows him to cover a wide range of customers.”
Backing this up, Damien said a welcome feature on the CASE excavators was the quick tilt hitch.
“It makes everything so much easier when switching attachments, because I know a lot of my clients do use a variety of different attachments on the machines, from grapple buckets to trenching ones,” he said.
The absence of tail swing was another winner.
“This feature is definitely really handy when customers need to get into tight spaces and don’t have a lot of room to move, especially with civil work,” Damien said.
“For example, when working on roads with cones around and traffic passing by, you can’t have the machine swinging out all over the worksite.”
Damien said that driving CASE machines was also a joy, with various mod cons enabling the operator to work in comfort.
“Things like powerful heating and air conditioning systems, cup holders, high tech touch screens, GPS systems, and the like.”
Andrew said the cabs were spacious, and even with the number of gadgets inside, there was still plenty of space for the operator to sit in there with plenty of legroom.
“In short, the versatility of the machines in the hire game allows Damien to just cover a broad range of customers: so they’ve got a dozer blade, they’ve got a short tail swing, so it’s easy to work in confined spaces while maintaining the lift capacity of those size excavators,” he said.
“We got him several more excavators, and now we’ve got him into a couple of different compact track loaders and a couple of wheel loaders, so we’ve grown with him and it’s been a really enjoyable experience.”
Andrew said a key aspect of the relationship with ZELVi was the level of service.
“It’s important to minimise downtime,” he said.
“While the CASE machines are extremely reliable, if anything needs to be addressed, Damien just needs to call me and we can talk to our service and parts department.
“We have three parts warehouses throughout Australia, and we’ve got four on-the-road field service mechanics that we can get out and about, backed by plenty of other sorts of service networks that we can use, whether it be regionally or around town.”
Andrew also highlighted CASE’s generous warranties.
All CASE compact track loaders, mini excavators (under 6t), skid steer loaders and backhoe loaders are covered by a three-year/3000 hours plan, while all excavators (over 6t) and wheel loaders (over 10t) are covered by a three- year/5000 hours plan.
The PROCover Plus Protection Plan program provides coverage in the unlikely event of a failure caused by a defect in materials or workmanship and can even be extended beyond the three-year period if required.
Damien couldn’t be happier with the backup from Andrew and McIntosh & Son in general.
“They’ve has been great: I’ve been able to get in touch with the whole hierarchy of the business right from general management through to the sales guys and they’ve been really accessible, from meeting them and getting invited to their big days and other trade events,” he said.
“We have really been welcomed and been appreciated as a client.”
ZELVi showcase
ZELVi is headquartered at a new purpose-built office and warehouse complex at its premises in the southern Perth suburb of Forrestdale.
“We acquired the land which we’re on now just after COVID started, and we moved quite quickly to this site and operated out of temporary equipment,” Damien said.
“We finished the new building in August last year. We spent a lot of time on planning and getting it right to build a culture and a team that would be ever growing to service the needs of the hire industry.
“We’ve invested in this property to give it a really easy flow for customers to come to.
“We’ve got entry and exit points, so large equipment can flow through the property easily, and then we have different areas in which the clients can go to get served for their different needs, from booking equipment through to loading up and receiving equipment attachments.
“The new facilities will help us service our customers better and the bigger yards give us room to stock more equipment.
“We have obviously branched out already and got the 20t and 25t excavators, along with the wheel loaders. It’s really helped us with our growth and reaching larger clients and assisting them.
“We can now service the bigger end of their projects and we only see that growing, by adding new delivery vehicles to the fleet to keep up with that demand and getting the machines delivered.”