From its base in Adelaide, Davison Earthmovers has been involved in construction projects requiring commercial earthmoving such as excavation, demolition and major facilities such as car parks, hospitals and schools, distribution centres and sporting venues.
The compliance requirements of these types of work are generally significantly greater than for the typical residential subdivisions.
Paul Davison began working for his father’s company 34 years ago, commencing as a labourer while he studied surveying.
This ‘from the ground up’ experience equipped him well for the industry and he has been running the company in co-ordination with a general manager for the past 17 years and ultimately took on full ownership in 2022.
Paul is enthusiastic about the technology that has revolutionised earthmoving over the past couple of decades which has resulted in significant improvements in efficiency.
Davison Earthmovers was one of the first companies in Adelaide to implement machine control technology some 17 or 18 years ago, and the satellite-based guidance systems are now fitted to six excavators and four graders which can utilise the technology to achieve a grading accuracy of just 5mm.
“We’re working more efficiently and accurately so we are not burning as much fuel to do that type of work,” says Paul.
This commitment to the latest technologies has led to the recent purchase of an Hino Hybrid truck to operate as the field service vehicle and is fitted with a chassis mounted purpose-built module for the task.
The Hybrid joins another 12 Hino trucks in the fleet including water trucks, and dual axle 10-tonne tippers and single axle 8-tonne tippers.
As Hino has now emerged as the brand of choice, other truck brands will be progressively changed over to Hino. There are also around 20 Toyota HiLux utilities.
“For the site foremen we have moved to dual cab Toyota HiLux utes with purpose built canopies on the back,” says Paul.
“We choose Hino and Toyota because of reliability.” Larger trucks such as semi-trailer tippers and heavy equipment floats are sub-contracted as required. “We’re almost at the point where we should be looking at doing that work ourselves,” says Paul.
“But we are very conscious of value for money and costs within our business, and we don’t use them enough to make the level of return on investment we expect. We have some really good subbies who do a great job for us.”
For now, the size of company-owned trucks is adequately met by the Hino range and the retained resale value of Hino trucks is important.
Davison Earthmovers has its own well-equipped workshop but now with 90-odd pieces of plant and vehicles some servicing is outsourced to Adelaide dealers such as CMI Hino for trucks and Cavpower for Caterpillar machinery.
Fuel saving was a contributing factor to the decision to order a Hino Hybrid-Electric as the company secures a lot of government construction contracts which often include obligatory reporting on emissions and the steps being taken to reduce them.
“I guess with a hybrid we’re not getting a huge fuel saving but with the amount we pay for fuel each month, any saving is a good thing,” says Paul.
“But for me, morally, it’s more about reduced emissions. We burn a lot of diesel and create a lot of emissions through the work that we do in our industry and we are very conscious of that.”
Outside of the energy sector the earthmoving and construction industry is one of the country’s main sources of emissions.
Around half of the work currently being undertaken is on government projects.
Other clients are mainly builders, and in turn their clients are private investors, development firms, and even transport companies.
“The average job used to be five to ten thousand dollars when I first started, now they average over one million dollars,” says Paul.
“There are a lot of contracts that are now a little bit too small for us to handle.” Davison Earthmoving has built an enviable reputation within the industry over many years, as much for the culture within the business for looking after its personnel.
“The philosophy carried over from my father involves not losing control of your business by not micro managing but keeping a finger on the pulse,” says Paul.
“We look for quality not quantity for our works and we try to look after our clients like we look after our personnel, where, as much as we can, we treat them like family. We don’t have any ambition to be the biggest, so growth is not a core part of our business. Sure, we need to make a certain profit level to be sustainable moving forward so we can look after our people, replace our plant and machinery in a timely fashion. Most of our plant and machinery and vehicles are up to date and not that old because we replace as regularly as we can which means we are continually getting the next generation technology of emission controls.”
Not dissimilar to the transport industry, civil construction is faced with a shortage of skilled people. Paul has been on the Board of the Civil Contractors Federation (CCF) in South Australia for 13 years and is its Immediate Past President.
As President, Paul helped establish an apprenticeship program in civil construction and created a group training organisation which helped find people willing and suited to the various roles.
His own company currently employs five apprentices, with another to join shortly.
“It is hands down the best decision I ever made,” Paul says with justifiable pride.
“For years in our industry most of the people we were getting already had another career before they came to us. Now we have a pathway from high school and they actually earn an apprenticeship salary and start a lifelong career in civil construction if they want it.”
Although the scheme has only been operating for four years, three graduate are now fully employed by Paul’s company. The apprenticeship involves learning the basic skills the industry requires, for them to be a general construction hand to how to operate various pieces of plant.
Following the three-year apprenticeship graduates can go on to obtain a Certificate IV in civil construction and move on to site supervisor roles.
“What the civil industry is doing is going to take a long time and we still have people coming into the industry through labour hire and other pathways with limited experience, but my hope is that businesses will get together and make sure they are putting these people through apprenticeships,” says Paul.
“They may not hold on to them, and some may go to other businesses, but what you create is a skilled labour pool. My philosophy is if you treat employees well enough they won’t leave.”
The new Hino Hybrid Electric is just the first step in Davison Earthmover’s road to decarbonisation and Paul makes an effort to stay abreast of the latest developments.
Earthmoving equipment faces the challenge of mostly working on green field sites where the electricity is yet to be connected and Paul sees the folly of using a portable diesel generator powering an electric earthmoving machine.
“I’m keeping an eye on a number of different areas in the trucking industry which are going down the battery plug-in path using removable batteries. I think full electric in Australia is going to be a bit of a problem for some time due to the size of our country and the way we do business,” he says.
“Some of the equipment manufacturers are looking at a plug and play scenario like some of the trucking companies are with a removable exchange battery. I struggle to see how it will work because of the battery size, but instead of having an on-site fuel truck with 2,000 litres of diesel it will carry exchange batteries instead.”
Fully electric machinery being built at the moment lasts about six hours between charges, according to Paul, yet it needs to last about eight or ten hours.
“Batteries need more power and to be smaller,” he adds. “A battery for an electric 30-tonne excavator is about half the size of a car.”
Paul intends on travelling to Munich, Germany in 2025 to visit the Bauma exhibition, the largest of its type in the world.
“I’ve been three times previously and I’ll be there with the purpose of seeing where the plant and machinery and truck technology is going, so I know where I’m going to be investing my dollar in the future,” he says.
