A flexible fleet of new and used equipment and a relationship built on trust and reliability are behind a successful partnership between SNK Group and Komatsu.
SNK Group is a second-generation family business based in Eraring, between the Central Coast and Newcastle in NSW. They focus on projects across bulk & detailed earthworks, mining, site rehabilitation, municipal and contract crushing throughout the Hunter region.
Lee Kenworthy took over as Managing Director from his father Stuart six years ago, and says for their wide range of projects, they need a machinery fleet that has the versatility to be used across their projects as well as flexible enough to meet changing needs. A mix of new, used and hire equipment hits the sweet spot.
“As our projects can include anything from open cut mines to crushing and screening on quarry sites, and mining and power station dam and road construction, we need a fleet of machines that can really tackle any job and is available for work when we need it.
“We currently have around 30 pieces of Komatsu equipment in our fleet, both new and used, which includes excavators, dozers and dump trucks. During Covid, we all saw a lack of availability in new equipment because of the supply chain impacts, so we turned to adding more used pieces to our fleet, as there were more available and at a competitive price,” Lee says.
“The Komatsu team worked with me on what equipment we needed, or what gaps we needed to fill, and helped source those used pieces. They were reliable, flexible, and priced well for us. I can’t fault their customer service.”
Lee adds that the strong partnership has led to them working with Komatsu on trials for their suite of technology solutions for excavators and dozers.
“We’ve been lucky enough to work with the team on different trials of the Komatsu intelligent machine control (iMC) technology, so they can stress test it in real environments before rolling out to customers. It’s been good for us too as we’ve now got mostly iMC machines and have also been able to pilot their other products in the Smart Construction and Smart Quarry Site range, which has seen our productivity go through the roof.
“The Komatsu machines are great all-rounders. They’re productive and reliable and the back up and support from the team is second to none. The partnership we’ve built with them to not only grow our fleet but grow our business has been invaluable,” Lee says.
