HIRE
new. The magazine used to be the official
mouthpiece of the association many
years ago. The CPHA was established
in the 1970s which makes it one of
the oldest associations in the plant
equipment and hire sector around. It
consists of a crane chamber and an
earthmoving, small plant equipment,
compressors/generator, mobile elevating
work platforms (MEWPs) and insurance
chambers.
“This is a wonderful opportunity as an
association. The CPHA started out with
Plant Equipment & Hire magazine many
years ago and it is great to once again
unite with a publisher in South Africa that
is already well-established in the plant
equipment and hire space, as well as
many other related industries, says Clive
Wicks, CEO of CPHA.
Brits adds that in the magazine’s quest
to share meaningful business intelligence
they hope to grow and develop according
to the needs of the sector. “We invite
all role players to engage and share
with us their comments, suggestions
and focus areas that could advance
industry knowledge, or drive resolution
of persisting issues. This is their industry
and their magazine - so we want to hear
from them,” says Brits.
Challenges in the industry
According to Wicks one of the major
concerns in the industry at the moment
is skills development and training. “The
CPHA is in the process of creating
a database of all legal and qualified
operators and developing an industry
standard which does not currently
exist,” says Wicks. “There are training
institutions where operators receive
their full qualification after only 60
www.equipmentandhire.co.za
hours of training, and this is wrong,” he
adds. Despite all the efforts to train up
operators in the past, industry remains
reluctant to commit fully to quality skills
development, primarily as a result of the
cost and time involved. It takes up to 12
months to train an operator, and most
companies are pressed to deploy their
machines on site. Training operators are
costly with the result that hire companies
start taking shortcuts. Therefore, Wicks
and the CPHA regard this issue as critical
in their pursuit of improving industry
safety and standards.
In addition to base training, regular
testing, upskilling, and renewal of
the necessary licenses is necessary
to maintain the required standards.
“Statistics show that after about two
years, bad habits start creeping in and
operators really need to be tested
again. Occupational health and safety
certificates need to be reviewed annually
and industry relicensing bi-annually.
That’s what we are looking at. We did
some research last year and discovered,
with shock, how many operators are
working without valid qualifications or
unit standards”.
Establishing a plant hire company
It is not easy to establish a plant hire
company and Wicks says that prospective
entrepreneurs have to be sure which
segment of the equipment space he or
she wants to service. “In addition, one
has to look at the economy and determine
which sectors are growing, which are
declining, and try to predict what will
happen in the future. The South African
construction sector is in the doldrums,
but improvement will come. However,
it is pointless to buy a big fleet of TLBs
right now if the machines are not mobile
and just collect rust in the yard because
there are no contracts,” says Wicks. He
adds that other sectors like crane hire and
MEWPs are performing better but are not
doing exceptionally well either.
Prospective
entrepreneurs
have to be sure
which segment
of the equipment
space he or she
wants to service.”
Entering the plant hire industry requires
immense capital investment and financial
commitment. The funding of start-up
companies and financing large capital
equipment, has proven to be the Achilles
heel of many aspiring companies.
Nevertheless, as most successful hire
companies would attest, funding has never
been easy to come by, and in today’s
connected world there are innovative
ways to get people to invest in an idea.
Membership in an association like CPHA is
not mandatory, but certainly an advantage
in a very competitive and complex industry.
Wicks and his team have many years
of experience and represent a highly
diversified conglomerate of interest.
Being a member of CPHA gives plant
and equipment owners access to that
institutional knowledge, and the comfort
of knowing that someone represents your
interest when it matters most.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020
33