The deal includes five Cat 320DL excavators, two Cat 962H wheel loaders, one Cat 966H wheel loader and a Cat M318DL material handler, with a guaranteed three year uptime promise for every machine. Finning has said that this is its largest general construction deal signed since the recession hit the UK market.
Raymond Brown Group plant director Mark Isaac said, “Even though the country is officially out of the recession, the current climate is still very challenging. However as a forward thinking and well run business, we recognised that there would be significant financial benefits in placing an order of this nature at this time. Not only would we have the most up to date fleet in the market that would give us the ability to ramp up our operations in a recovery, we would also be able to benefit from competitive pricing and equipment availability.
“Learning from our recent experience, we have now moved to more service delivery approach to our fleet purchasing decision making process, where the overall cost of ownership, servicing and performance per litre of fuel, is more important than unit purchase price for example.
“What we also needed to be confident with in terms of this purchase decision was that we selected a supplier business in Finning and Caterpillar that is here to stay, not only from a production point of view but from a service delivery perspective, as we are not prepared to compromise on this.”
