Contractor and Earthmoving company Derks regularly rented a DX225LC-5 crawler excavator from Staad. “Until our tipping point came and our application stabilized,” Rick Derks begins to tell. Rick is the fourth generation of 'Derks' who will soon be able to continue the company.
Father Derks has been general manager of the family business for 22 years, which has specialized since 1933 in contracting and carrying out agricultural contract work and earthmoving work. Last winter they celebrated their 85th anniversary. Son Rick joined the company five years ago and has been co-owner since January 1, 2019. “I want to master the work within our company. I think I should be able to offer added value and that is why I want to improve things I see.” Rob adds: “That is also necessary, we grow from that.” And they certainly do grow. With eleven employees and three mobile, one mini and one crawler excavator, they do a lot of work in Haps and the surrounding area. Rob: “We have a lot of work to do in the coming years, especially on the industrial estate down here. That also made us decide to buy the DX225LC-5 that we regularly rented from Staad.”
Request stabilized
Rob continues. “We rented from Staad because we didn't have enough work to buy the machine ourselves.” Rick adds: “The sector is also vulnerable.” “That's right,” says Rob, “But at some point you get the tipping point from renting to buying. Our work stabilized to a point where it was better for us to buy the machine. No sooner said than done.”
'Good' machines
It was not only Staad's (rental) service that made Rick and Rob decide to buy the machine. Rick: “We just know that Staad always has 'good' machines. Even if the machines are rented out, you just know that they have only been used for few hours, that they are always ready to optimize the machine and that the machines look good. You can trust that blindly. So we took over our DX225LC-5 at about 1750 hours. We hired it for the first time when it had very few running hours. You have to think, most hours up to that 1750, we played with the machine ourselves. That is beautiful!”
interchangeability
The machine does not have a permanent operator, yet father and son ensure that the same man is running the machine 80% of the time. However, Rick says this also depends on the type of work to be performed. “Every driver has his own qualities, of course. We use our DX225LC-5 widely: infrastructure, subdivision, excavation of ponds – we can actually take on anything in civil engineering with this workforce. We think the interchangeability of the machine is very important, both for our operators and for the type of work we take on, which is a very important factor.”
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