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26
CONSTRUCTION WORLD
MARCH
2016
PROJECTS AND CONTRACTS
ment, parts and people to ensure efficient operational and communica-
tion management.
Accordingly, the administrative open-plan offices are located across
two floors. The workshop offices on the first floor overlook the 12 work
bays and service facilities area comprising the component workshop,
spray booths, wash bays and boiler workshops. All heavy equipment
operation and parts are on a single level enhancing safety when
handling these machines and heavy parts.
The workshop area
The primary workshop covers an area of nearly 2 000 m
2
under roof
and includes 12 nine-metre wide work bays in two adjoining rows of six
bays, all serviced by overhead gantry cranes. All bays have a ceiling of
9 m under hook, making it possible to service mega trucks, such as the
rigid and articulated dump trucks from Terex Trucks, bucket up.
All the workshop bays, component workshop, spray booths, wash
bays and boiler shop bays drain into a common settling tank and oil
separation facility before being discharged into municipal waste.
A further custom feature in the workshop is the railway tracks
linking the wash bays to four workshop bays, specifically for tracked
excavators and chain link front end loaders so that this equipment with
high point loads does not damage the site hardstand.
The workshop parts requirements are served by the parts ware-
house, connected by a three metre-wide east/west passage that runs
along the entire length of the workshops and warehouse. The ware-
house has increased from 280 m
2
at the previous premises to 1 615 m
2
to accommodate an increase in inventory and stock lines required.
This increase is largely attributed to regional growth and parts for the
new Terex Truck range. With extra stacking space of up to 5-6 m, larger
in Middelburg
ULTRAMODERN FACILITY
As a customer-focused company that
continuously invests in improving service
delivery, Babcock has completed an
ultramodern, bespoke sales, parts and
service dealership in Middelburg to offer
responsive regional support and service
across Babcock’s entire construction
equipment product range.
“When we increased our product line to include
the Terex Truck range with a payload of up to
100 tonnes, we knew we had the facilities to
bring these trucks to our customers.”
Babcock’s bigger offering
Babcock is the exclusive regional distributor for leading international
brands and equipment including Volvo and SDLG construction equip-
ment, Tadano mobile cranes and Winget concrete handling machinery.
Babcock was also appointed the official distributor of Terex Trucks in
October 2015 following the truck company’s acquisition by Volvo earlier
last year.
With an extensive history in sales and servicing of construction
equipment to the mining and construction sectors in South Africa,
Babcock has had a presence in the Middelburg region for the last
16 years and has outgrown two previous premises in this period.
The new Middelburg facility was purpose-built to assist and support
customers in the region and is expected to service the coal mining fields
of Middelburg and surrounds for at least the next 20 years.
Highly specialised
The estimated R100-million yellow-metal facility covers 30 000 square
metres and features highly specialised and unique design elements as
well as modern, high-end finishes.
Babcock’s project manager Michael de Weijer, who was instru-
mental in managing the construction of the new facility, says that
the ergonomic design was conceptualised around the flow of equip-