WCS Concrete, based in Western Australia, is a family-owned and operated company which supplies concrete products and services to the Wheatbelt and surrounding areas in Western Australia.
Under the leadership of Managing Director, Brendan Betty, the business, established by his parents in 1996, has gone from strength to strength. From having just the one location in Wongan Hills, it has in time expanded its reach with the creation of branches in Kellerberrin, Gingin and Toodyay.
“We now have four branches, accompanied by three mobile concrete batching plants operating throughout WA,” Brendan says. “We’ve also recently completed a new satellite tower at the New Norcia Deep Space Station, so things are going pretty well for us.”
At the start of 2019, WCS Concrete was tasked with supplying concrete from its Kellerberrin plant to Bruce Rock Engineering’s (BRE) original home base in Bruce Rock. It was this project which introduced BRE to WCS Concrete, and at the time, it was also what made Brendan’s decision that his next set of trailers would come from BRE.
“We always said that when the time came to purchase a new set of trailers, they would be from BRE,” he says. “That was definitely one of the main factors that drove us to them. We were pretty happy with the product as well, as far as how it looked and how everything stacked up. We didn’t see any need to look elsewhere.”
Brendan fulfilled that pledge with the purchase of a new TaREX end tipper made up of a 9.5m lead trailer and 9.8m dog. While the combination is still new to the fleet, Brendan says it’s had a great start so far.
“It’s been really good, we’re very happy with it,” he says. “It’s carting out raw materials from The Lakes, as well as the sand quarries which we draw from, to our Wongan Hills, Kellerberrin and Gingin plants. It’s faring very well and it’s doing the job to our expectations.”
Outside of these tasks, the unit also travels throughout the south-western, northern and central areas of the Wheatbelt region to transport decorative stone.
Image: Bruce Rock Engineering.With a tare weight of 17.5 tonnes, Brendan says the TaREX end tipper has increased productivity at WCS Concrete by improving the fleet’s efficiency and capacity to move raw materials around.
“The weight of it is one of the most important features to us, because we can carry extra load,” he says. “We were looking to increase our efficiency when carting product out to our plants, and it’s definitely helped. We’ve been able to cart more material from the quarries with less truck movements and less fatigue on the drivers.”
BRE’s end tippers are renowned for their high-quality and light tare weights. The chassis tippers are available in a range of different heights, lengths and capacities. According to BRE Sales Manager, Peter Oliver, the biggest benefit of the range, as proven with WCS Concrete, is payload capability.
“With the tare weight of the trailers being so light, WCS Concrete is getting a really good payload out of them,” he says. “The reason the trailers are so light is because the chassis is made with high tensile steel. The tipper bowl on the trailer is 4mm Hardox as well, so there’s a lot less wear on the material itself.”
Other features on WCS Concrete’s TaREX end tipper include a dual swinging tailgate for its quarry applications, a Right Weigh scale system, and electric tarps which have also contribute to the increased productivity within WCS Concrete’s operations.
“We went with electric tarps to allow us to get in and out of quarries quicker,” Brendan says. “We were finding before that when drivers had to stop to unwind the tarps manually, it was costing us around half an hour or so each time. With the electric tarps we avoid that because our drivers don’t have to get out of the truck to open them now.”
When it comes to using the TaREX end tipper in different sites, accessibility is another bonus for WCS Concrete – with the unit measuring under 27.5m in length.
The trailers are locally manufactured by BRE, and in addition, and are backed by customer support throughout the trailer builder’s several service points. Thus, if Brendan ever needs BRE, he says he can get a hold of the team at any time. This assurance has set him on BRE for the foreseeable future.
“We will definitely be dealing with BRE with any business that we do,” he says. “Peter Oliver has been exceptional to deal with. He’s been really good and has helped us throughout the whole process of getting the right combination and measurements. We’ve established a pretty strong relationship with him now, and because of that, we will move forward with BRE for any future purchases.”
Image: Bruce Rock Engineering.The post WCS Concrete deploys new BRE TaREX end tipper appeared first on Trailer Magazine.