Adding a Second Machine Mid-Project: What to Check Before You Call a New Supplier

Halfway through a package the programme tightens and one machine is no longer enough. The instinct is to phone around for whoever can deliver tomorrow. Before you do, it is worth pricing what a new supplier actually costs you, because very little of it shows up on the hire rate.

The hidden cost is site time, not machine rate

A second machine from a supplier already working on your site starts work on the morning it arrives. A second machine from a new supplier starts work once five other things have happened. Each of those is somebody who works for you spending an hour on it, and on a project where the site team is already stretched, hours are scarcer than ringgit.

Five things a new supplier adds to your day

Site induction. A new operator has to be inducted before he touches anything. On a controlled site that is a scheduled session, not a five-minute briefing, and it is frequently the reason a machine sits idle on day one.

Certificate verification. Operator and machine documents have to be checked against the safety requirements of the project. On a site with strict requirements this is done by your safety team, on your time, usually on the morning the machine was meant to start.

Access. A driver who has not run the route needs someone to meet him, and large site estates in Johor often have gate times, escort requirements and designated haul routes that are not obvious from a map.

Supervision. Two suppliers means two ideas about how the platform should be worked. Somebody on your side has to reconcile them, and until that happens the two machines are working to different plans on the same ground.

Coordination, permanently. This is the one that keeps costing after week one. Every sequence change is now two phone calls, and the two suppliers have different priorities and different other clients.

What to ask the supplier you already have first

Before calling anyone new, ask three questions of the fleet already on your site. Can you put a second machine here by the date I need? Is it your own machine and your own operator, or will it be sub-hired? Will it arrive on your own low loader?

If the answer to all three is yes, the second machine slots into arrangements that already exist. If the answer to the second question is no, you are getting a new supplier anyway, just with an extra layer between you and them.

When a new supplier is the right answer

There are real cases for it. If you need a machine type your current supplier does not run, if their fleet is genuinely committed elsewhere, or if the current machine has not performed, then bringing in someone new is the correct call. The point is not loyalty. It is that the decision should be made knowing the switching cost, rather than defaulting to whoever answers the phone first.

Why we keep a mixed fleet

Clients rarely need the same machine twice. A backhoe this month, a 20-tonne next month, a tipper throughout. What is actually being bought is the ability to change the mix without changing the supplier, which is why we run everything from a 3-tonne mini to 40-tonne machines alongside our own tippers and low loader rather than specialising in one size.

If you are already running one of our machines and the programme needs another, tell us the date. If you are not, tell us what is on site now and what it is not keeping up with. Contact us at +6011-105 95686.