Durbanville building firm Atuba Construction believes it has found the perfect fit in Manitou as a supplier of equipment that precisely suits its materials handling requirements.

Having acquired a telescopic rough terrain forklift early last year from Manitou, the original inventor of rough terrain forklifts, Atuba “has not even had a flat tyre” on the machine during the construction of buildings up to 5 storeys high.

“The quality of a Manitou machine is outstanding,” enthuses Atuba Construction’s Jacques du Toit. “On top of that, we can carry out a host of other tasks with the machine that previously required either additional equipment or manual labour, with the related safety risks and cost involved.”

“With its 13m telescopic boom, this machine is everything I need in the construction of single and multi-storey buildings,” he continues. “No matter whether it involves the positioning of columns, hoisting of bricks, plastering, lift shaft construction or casting concrete walls, we do it all with the Manitou, using several of the 38 standard attachments available. Anything smaller would not have been able to do all this work and anything bigger would not have proved economical.”

A single Manitou MT can lift, dig, load/unload, clean, scoop, tow (up to 30t) and carry items weighing as much as 4t. Whether its task is to lift workers and material to heights of up to 13m or the digging of foundations, Manitou machines offer operators cab comforts ranging from air conditioning to comfortable seating, ergonomically designed switch-and-move joystick options and safety from falling objects.

In addition to the large range of standard attachments, Manitou frequently assists in the development of custom attachments as required. With only 60 seconds required to change between attachments, one machine can carry out the tasks of four others in a fraction of the time, requiring only one operator, and while using far less fuel.

“As part of the sales agreement on our first Manitou, Manitou sent specialists from Johannesburg to provide three days of training on site, two theoretical and one practical,” Du Toit reports. “This meant that two of our three operators were brought up to speed with the important aspects of correct operation, maintenance and protection of the machine, to get more out of it while operating the machine, but also to prolong its service life while minimizing maintenance costs. We now have one operator taking ownership of the Manitou, and he looks after the machine, greases it, keeps it clean, fills in daily usage reports, notifies us of services and so forth. I think it is commendable that a forklift supplier also assists in bridging the skills gap with regard to skilled operators. They have realized that, in South Africa at present, it is easier to arrange finance, import and purchase a quarter-million Rand machine than to find a skilled driver for it. Manitou’s ability to fully train and licence any operators we may require will be a strong consideration for us in future buying decisions.”