Good relationships build great businesses

Pilot Crushtec's business is founded on its belief in relationships, a philosophy that is consistently confirmed by its ever-growing share of the crushing and screening market.

According to director sales Graham Kleinhans, these gains are especially evident in rural areas such as the North West Province where customers like Vryburg Crushers cc have been able to develop excellent businesses with the assistance of a supplier that knows and understands the industry.

"Vryburg Crushers has been in operation for four years and has used our equipment from the very beginning. Crushing and screening is a high maintenance business, requiring regular calls from sales engineers and all-importantly, rapid response when it comes to service," says Kleinhans.

This dedicated care paid off recently when Vryburg Crushers gained its biggest ever customer with a contract to supply large volumes of road stone and aggregate to Concor Roads.

"The business needed an immediate increase in capacity and, among other requirements, ordered a duplicate of its existing Pilot modular plant as it knows what it is capable of."

Over the past three months, Vryburg Crushers has been supplied with a Pilot Modular/TRIO MJ2436 jaw crusher, a Pilot Modular MC90 cone crusher, a refurbished Twister AC08, two Pilot Modular/TRIO DD3615 double deck screens, and various Pilot Modular conveyors to suit.

While the total cost of this equipment is around R5 million, Vryburg Crushers owner Jan Roos believes this is money well spent.

"We could look around for something cheaper but we have never had a problem with the plant and Pilot Crushtec is very well equipped with its comprehensive stock of spare parts. They deliver overnight and at weekends and are always happy to open the factory after hours if we want to collect an urgently needed part."

Roos, who also operates an engineering company, is impressed by the sheer toughness of Pilot Crushtec products and the quality of their construction.

"Someone recently told me that the chute on a rival crushing product was made out of 6mm plate, twice the thickness of that on our Pilot Modular/TRIO DD3615 double deck screen in the quarry. I showed him our machine and he was staggered to see that the 3mm plate, showed absolutely no signs of wear despite having processed more than 90,000m³ of rock."

An increased focus on regionalised sales and marketing is a key aspect of Pilot Crushtec's distribution strategy, however Kleinhans is at pains to emphasise that the first priority is to support existing customers.

"Word of mouth communication is an important ingredient in our marketing mix and we most certainly attract new business through the provision of world class service to our long-standing customers, be they large or small." Pilot Crushtec is proud of its role in supporting Vryburg Crushers to grow their business to a point where they are able to compete with some of the biggest aggregate quarries in South Africa.