Leading foundation machine manufacturer Fundex Equipment recently announced it has intentions to increase support, sales and service in Australia. Sales Manager Arjan Roubos explains.
With 60 years of experience in the field, Fundex Equipment produces and supplies multifunctional foundation machines and sells them all over the world.
“Fundex Equipment is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of multifunctional foundation equipment,” Arjan said. “With 70 employees, we are a relatively small company compared to some of our competitors, but we do have a rich heritage in the industry.
“A significant advantage for Fundex Equipment is the fact that we manage all the design engineering and manufacturing in-house. We operate our own engineering, R&D and software development departments and we manage the construction, assembly and service in-house.
“Whilst we offer a wide range of machines, we also manufacture a broad range of auxiliary equipment which includes rotary heads and ring vibrators. We also provide leading software solutions including intelligent data acquisition systems for piling installations, and GPS systems for monitoring the quality of the piles customers are working with.
“We manage the information from these software solutions via our online portal, MYRIX. We’re not just about designing, engineering and manufacturing world class machines, we have a very strong focus on the software systems required to intelligently run and service them,” he said.
Being based in the Netherlands, understandably the main countries serviced by Fundex Equipment include the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, United Kingdom and Switzerland, but Australia is also a significant focus, confirms Arjan.
“We sell a lot of machines into the USA and Australia. We recently visited a number of customers in Australia to understand how we can better service the market. During our visit we could see the industry is a deep Continuous Flight Auger (CFA) market and our rigs are perfectly suitable for the CFA installation method.
“We service our Australian customers through our online portal, MYRIX. Our rigs are full of sensors which enable our customers to monitor the technical condition of the rig every day in real time which helps to determine maintenance programs. If a customer has issues with our equipment, we log into the MYRIX portal, see what’s happening and can advise on the appropriate actions to take,” said Arjan.
In nine out of 10 instances, technical issues can be sorted through the MYRIX portal and by phone, but if it can’t be, Fundex Equipment will have a technical engineer on the first available flight. As far as parts are concerned, customers have access to the spare parts department at Fundex and if a part is required urgently it will be airfreighted on the first available flight.
“Most of our Australian customers operate their own technical department and before we deliver one of our rigs we train these departments. We have a simulator for the operator, and we provide technical training, including hydraulics and electrical training. We also train them how to mobilise and demobilise the rig. We frequently have Australian customers here in the Netherlands for one week, or two weeks, to familiarise them with our company and people and also with their rig,” said Arjan.
“I encourage Australian foundation and piling companies to engage with us. We are a Dutch manufacturer of deep foundation rigs specialised in (amongst others) CFA. We encourage companies to get to know us, see how we work and understand our ‘can do’ culture.
“We are not a big company, and we always focus on customer-specific solutions. We do not build all models for stock, we build when we have the order and this provides the customer with opportunities to customise our products to meet their specific requirements,” said Arjan.
Fundex Equipment will be exhibiting at bauma, the world’s leading trade fair for construction machinery, in Munich in April where it will be displaying the most popular model in its range – the FUNDEX F3500 – and demonstrating how this is now capable of working emissions free.
“I encourage all Australian visitors to bauma, to visit our stand (FN 721/2). Although the uptake of emission free machines is slower in Australia, compared to Europe for example, we can see that government legislation and requirements in construction and other industry sectors will accelerate the uptake. We would like to demonstrate how our most popular model, the FUNDEX F3500 can operate emission free and how this technology can be retrofitted to older models,” said Arjan.
The FUNDEX F3500 features a diesel engine and a power pack on the back which is also powered by a conventional diesel engine. The power pack provides the hydraulic oil flow for the tool on the front side. In terms of the bauma display, this will be a special tool, said Arjan.
Fundamentally, Fundex has replaced the power pack on the back with the Fundex Power Switch. The FUNDEX FPS803 is an electric/hydraulic power pack allowing the user to switch between conventional drive and zero emission drive, for both the foundation machine and tool functions.
“The FUNDEX FPS803 is an electric hydraulic-driven power pack which provides the flow for both the machine and tool functions on the front side of the rig which means you can use your conventional diesel rig emission-free with this setup. Of course, the electric engines on the back also require power, so we have two battery packs developed which are on the rig as well, meaning less cables on the job site,” said Arjan.
“We have a lot of interest in this technology, and we’ve already delivered the first complete setup, including the Fundex Battery Packs and Fundex Power Switch, to a very happy customer”