Supplying heavy machinery to large mining and construction concerns is big business, but supplying quality machinery of any size has its rewards. Merlo Cingo tracked carriers have proved the point.
Source Machinery in Perth, Western Australia, supplies and services construction, mining, and agricultural machinery. Recently a client had a need for specialised equipment, and Source Machinery was happy to meet the request with four Merlo Cingo tracked carriers.
Long association
Barry Murphy, Director at Source Machinery, kicked off the company in 2011 and oversees the sales, supply and servicing of Merlo telehandlers and Kubota machinery to the construction, mining, and agricultural sectors of WA.
Barry is a second-generation Merlo dealer. He worked in the family’s Merlo and Kubota dealership in Ireland before moving to Australia and setting up his own business.
“My association with Merlo goes back about 30 years,” Barry told Landscape Contractor magazine. “I have a very high opinion of Merlo. I have a strong belief in both the equipment and the people associated with it.”
Four sale
A recent sale of Merlo equipment was on a smaller scale than the equipment Source Machinery normally handles, but the customer satisfaction was the same.
“We sold four Cingos to a single customer,” said Barry. “We’ve sold quite a few Cingos, but four in one sale was notable.”
When we spoke to Barry, he’d had feedback from the Cingo’s new owner.
“The customer has had the machines for about a year,” he said. “We speak to this customer regularly because it has other equipment from us, and the report back on the Cingos and how they’re performing was short and concise: ‘Really good’.
“I suppose that’s the best compliment. The customer hasn’t needed to come back to us for technical support or spare parts. The Cingos are performing well and doing the job the customer wants done.
“I suspect that later this year the customer maybe back for some more units, so, for us, it’s very much a ‘no news is good news’ scenario.”
Not a one-trick pony
Dealing with an existing customer of Source Machinery and a user of Merlo equipment made proposing the Cingos easier than it otherwise may have been, but it wasn’t a free hit. They were subjected to tough and knowledgeable scrutiny.
“The owner of the customer’s business was an engineer, and he came in and looked over the Cingos. He liked what he saw. There isn’t a huge amount of electronics on them, the build quality and reliability are good, and he was confident in the support his company would get post-sale.”
Barry also cited the range of attachments and versatility of the Cingo models as a factor in their suitability for various tasks. They can do much more than work as a ‘motorised barrow’.
“That’s one of the advantages of the Cingo,” said Barry. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all proposition. There are many variants, and there’s a high-degree of interchangeability of attachments. The Cingo offers so much versatility.”
To see the Cingo range, visit merlo.com.