Capital Equipment News February 2018

The Wirtgen Group has the second-biggest stand at Bauma Munich and its local subsidiary, Wirtgen Group South Africa, would like to build on the international success to further get closer to its African customers.

focusing on individual products or applications,” says Launspach. “Our strength is more than just the breadth of our product range, but also the fact that the majority of our products carry OEM approv- als. As equipment becomes more technologically sophisticated and downtime a critical factor for contractors, the quality of the product and its ability to perform to optimal levels for long periods of time is a huge factor from an operator’s point of view,” reasons Launspach. He adds that the fact that FUCHS is a major supplier of private label lubricants to many of the OEMs operating on the sub-continent is an indication of the quality and reliability of the company’s products in all applications and under the most strenuous operating conditions. Bell rings loud According to Mark Hughes, sales and marketing director at Bell Equipment Sales South Africa, Bell Equipment will showcase a selection of 25 machines of its 150-strong product range at bauma CONEXPO AFRICA. This will include Bell Equipment’s own machines as well as those of its partners: John Deere, Bomag, Terex Finlay, Kobelco and KAMAZ. “We will use the show to officially introduce our new strategic partners and products following our exclusive dis- tribution agreements concluded last year with Kobelco for its range of excavators and KAMAZ for its range of heavy-duty tipper trucks. The new partnerships will be celebrated at Russian and Japanese theme evenings during the show,” says Hughes. Bell expects the new partners and product ranges to generate a considerable amount of interest as they bring quality and competitive machine solutions to the local market, and are all backed by Bell Equipment’s extensive support network in southern Africa. “The Kobelco range of excavators, from 5,5 to 85 t, was added to the Bell stable in mid-2017 and has been well accepted by the Bell customer base. bauma will be the first time that the mini-excavator range (below 20 t) will be displayed to the public,” says Hughes. Japanese-based Kobelco is widely recognised as a global excavator specialist and through the partnership, Bell is able to offer competitively priced and perfect-

ly-matched loading tools for its range of articulated dump trucks in the construction, quarrying, mining and forestry industries. Additionally, the introduction of the KAMAZ trucks at the end of 2017 has given Bell a presence in the southern Africa tipper truck market for the first time, to further expand the company’s one- stop-shop offering to customers in the region. Established in 1969, KAMAZ manufactures out of Naberezhnye Chelny in Russia and

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