We live in an unprecedented age of options. Cars, phones, jobs, products, lifestyles - at no other point in time has there been such a variety of choice. In our industry, we only have to consider past procurement habits. For decades, we had to labour and trawl through the yellow pages, cold call or use a generic search engine to find the equipment needed on site. It's expensive and time consuming.
I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing, because I have too many other decisions to make. - Barack Obama, on why he only wears grey or blue suits
Obama isn’t the only leader who follows this logic. Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and late Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs wore the same outfits every day as well.
It’s not because the three men have poor fashion sense -- it’s because they understood that making decisions causes mental [and economic] fatigue.
Finding a procurement solution
As you make choices throughout the day, PlantMiner provides your business a shortcut.
Whether through our get quotes now feature, or contacting our expert equipment hire team, you can easily match your hiring needs to equipment specification and job location.
Established nearly 40 years ago, Doval Constructions is a small-to-medium sized civil engineering company based in Brisbane. As a well-known force in civil engineering, general contracting and building construction, their site supervisors are focused on procuring competitive and tailored rates for upcoming projects.
Image Source: Doval Constructions has a proven track record in the successful completion of a wide range of infrastructure contracts.
In April of this year, Dan McMath (of our QLD Business Development team) discussed an upcoming Doval Constructions project at Seventeen Mile Rocks. We have engaged with Doval Constructions for previous jobs, successfully matching their equipment needs with PlantMiner hire suppliers, and developed relationships with their teams on other job sites.
Sam, the site supervisor in charge of sourcing equipment for the project, sought a solution that would better manage their procurement process and efficiently secure gear for their job, saving time and money.
With PlantMiner, Sam felt they would benefit from the all-in-one platform and said "PlantMiner is one of the best systems I could use to identify people who had available gear at the right time place and price".
How PlantMiner helped
It's important for site supervisors, like Sam, to use a centralised hiring system that ultimately saves time. He wanted to engage a handful of suppliers who would be able to quote all of his needs.
In one site visit, the PlantMiner BDM team was able to confirm all of the relevant project information, including a list of plant gear. Dan, still on site with Sam, submitted the confirmed job request through the PlantMiner system.
Within 10 minutes, Sam had received phone calls from relevant suppliers who could discuss the list of gear and shortly send through quotes. In two days time, Sam identified four separate PlantMiner suppliers that he would be engaging and confirmed the use of PlantMiner "for every plant & equipment requirement he had moving forward for this project and any future projects." The four PlantMiner suppliers secured a range of gear on site, totalling $383,000.
With four confirmed hire transactions from one project, PlantMiner's procurement platform is a proven portal to simplify the process.
A hirer can submit a request for rates, whether they do this on our website or by calling our team, from relevant PlantMiner suppliers matching location and equipment needs. This form can specify a timeframe to hear back and request the reply method (through PlantMiner system, by email or text notification etc). With relevant leads directed to the hirer, it's easy to review quotes and choose the preferred supplier.
The art of face-to-face is still alive in our business, PlantMiner simply connects you to the right people in the right time.
Hiring a suitable excavator can be tough. From sourcing the right machine, to evaluating the right skills of the operator, finding the perfect supplier can take ages. PlantMiner and Solution Plant Hire, want to make finding your ideal excavator and/or operator a little bit easier with tips to ask prospective suppliers, and what to look for in their answers.
Quoting for a project can take serious time and manpower. Whether you're pricing or negotiating, both parties have invested time and effort into the deal, and cost can sometimes stall the signing of a contract. So how should you talk about your rates during a potential hire engagement?
The Federal Government has agreed to financially support the proposed expansion of the Gold Coast Light Rail project, allocating $95 million towards the long-awaited second stage of the rail line. With all three levels of Government committed to fund the extension, construction is expected to start in April 2016 and completed in time for the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
If you're looking to contact us about other matters, please contact us.