ON SITE
Moretele. On the way, we will tie into
various existing pipelines in order to
increase the supply.”
Excavation
M&D has built up a plant division that caters to all construction divisions within the
group. They have a range of machines, which includes Komatsu.
Large side booms are specific to the pipe laying industry.
From left: Thomas Zikhali, machine operator; John Mkwane, M&D Construction
operator manager; and Rowan Barnard, M&D Construction plant manager. Thomas
Zikhali has 35 years’ experience as a machine operator.
26
APRIL 2019
Rowan Barnard, head of plant at M&D
Construction, explains that the size of
the trenches for the pipe diameter, and
the design metreage per day quota,
necessitates the use of excavators.
M&D has built up a plant division that
caters to all construction divisions within
the group. The company considered
it strategically necessary to own
sufficient plant to both increase the
competitiveness of the various divisions
and to ensure an accessible pool of plant
to satisfy site needs and requirements.
Certain plant items such as large side
booms are specific to the pipe laying
industry, but most of the plant owned can
be used in general building, earth moving,
as well as civil engineering projects.
The company constantly upgrades and
renews its plant fleet to increase its
production output.
“When our plant is not being utilised
by the group, it is available for hire to
the open market, for selected clients.
Items of plant owned include excavators,
rollers, front-end loaders, tipper trucks,
water trucks, side boom pipe layers,
tower cranes, concrete mixing trucks,
TLBs, screens, graders, dozers, and
mobile cranes — all handled by our plant
division,” says Barnard. “Equipment we
use are majority CAT machines, but we
have some Komatsu machines as well.
Our tower cranes are Potain and mobile
cranes are Terex and Tondano.”
Plant equipment is only as good as
its operators, and Barnard says that the
equipment operators have different skill
levels — some operators are accustomed
to pipeline excavation, while others are
accustomed to bulk excavation. “Pipeline
excavation is specialised work; the
excavators work in built-up areas, often
with little space, and trenches need
to be base-even for the laying of the
pipes. We tend to put our more skilled
and experienced operators on pipeline
excavation,” he says.
“When it comes to training our
operators, we find that what works best
is to send younger operators to work
with our more experienced and skilled
operators, in order to further develop
required skills on site. The best training
comes from practical, physical learning,”
Barnard believes.
One of the operators, Thomas Zikhali,
has been operating excavation equipment
and bulk-handling machinery for 35 years.
“Thomas is highly skilled at what he does
www.plantonline.co.za