With its huge fleet of reliable machines, Masaha Company for Rental of All Kinds of Equipment has shown its mettle on Kuwait mega-housing project Al Mutlaa, says Equipment Rental Manager Alaa Ghazaleh.
Al Mutlaa Residential City in Jahra Governorate is the largest housing project in Kuwait’s history, ultimately planned to provide homes for around 400,000 citizens. Work on infrastructure – roads, utilities, schools, mosques, shops and health centres – has been underway for a number of years on the massive 100km2 site, with major works already completed, though completion of the residential stock is expected to take years more.
For contractors, the mammoth works have required large amounts of equipment and workers. An additional factor has been tough ground conditions, notes Alaa Ghazaleh, Equipment Rental Manager at Masaha Company for Rental of All Kinds of Equipment, putting additional strain on machines and the service departments. The importance of the project for Kuwait, and the many different contractors on-site, means there is massive pressure on all players to meet their deadlines and avoid delays.
For Masaha, the project has been an opportunity to demonstrate the value it can bring to contractors, with large fleets of machines used by contractors on-site. Masaha’s rental fleet has been at work on Al Mutlaa for a number of years, says Ghazaleh.
The Kuwaiti heavy equipment and commercial vehicles distributor, a member of the Foud Alghanim & Sons Group of Companies, represents a number of brands.
Its total rental fleet numbers above 2,100 units, demonstrating rapid growth in recent years and even recent months. The young fleet helps boost performance and reliability, while ensuring the machines have the latest in technology and safety features.
The primary workhorse used by contractors has been the Sany SY335C, a 35.5-tonne hydraulic excavator which Masaha commonly supplies with breakers for excavation works. The broader range includes Weichai gensets, Foton trucks and buses, Heli forklifts and Sky Boom aerial working platforms, as well as the broader range of Sany equipment such as trucks, wheel loaders, rough terrain cranes and truck cranes.
“We are a one-stop shop. We can rent or hire up to 70% of all the equipment that a contractor needs on a work-site,” says Ghazaleh, noting that in most cases its machines are supplied with operators – cranes, excavators and so forth. Manlifts, scissorlifts and other Sky Boom aerial work platforms are supplied without an operator, but Masaha provides operator training for clients.
Sany mobile cranes are seeing increased market recognition, he says, and for generators the firm is seeing good demand in the 110-150kVA range. Importantly, Masaha machines have been inspected, approved and certified for use, allowing them to be used by oil companies and on major sites where machines need certificates of approval.
Ensuring the many machines have maximum up-time amid the hard ground conditions and double-shift work schedules is a key challenge for the rental company. Being able to keep machines running is a consequence of the Sany machines being durable and reliable, as well as the mobile workshops on-site that carry out regular maintenance and deal with any issues.
“We have a large storage of spare parts on-site, and we are ready to prepare any breakdowns within a few hours, or else provide a replacement machine for our customers,” says Ghazaleh. “We are the dealer for Sany as well as a rental company, so we have a large amount of expertise in-house and the necessary spare parts supply to quickly repair machines and reduce idle time.”
The company has a 5,000sqm workshop at its main branch, as well as six mobile workshops working 24/7. In addition to the large service staff, Masaha also has a significant supply of stand-by machines, meaning it can guarantee machine availability to rental companies in case of any incidents. It also uses telematics and regular machine monitoring on-site to carry out preventative maintenance and keep machines in top working condition, limiting the chance of break-down even in harsh conditions.
The Sany excavators can be supplied with a range of attachments, including the Sany bucket or a range of jackhammers. The optimal size is the large 3-tonne jackhammer, which the excavator can readily handle. “This configuration was enjoyed by contractors working at Al Mutlaa, as it was highly productive and with overall low fuel consumption,” said Ghazaleh. Whereas competitor machines typically use around 350 litres of fuel in an 8-hour shift, the Sany excavator uses 280-290 litres.
“When you do the calculation for a large fleet – say a customer with 200 excavators – and they are saving 50 litres per shift, with 26 days per month, that’s a significant amount of fuel savings each month.” For Ghazaleh, the Al Mutlaa project has been an opportunity to demonstrate to customers how reliable the Masaha rental offering is, ensuring that customers have the machines they need to get the job done. “Here in Kuwait, once you show to customers that they can trust you, they will stick with you.”
