With its head office at Moolap, a suburb of Geelong, Newcomb Sand and Soil is a family-owned company, started by Doug and Joy Dunoon in 1973. Joy continues as CEO today, with sons Chris and David as the operations manager and general manager respectively, and daughter Joanne as administration manager.
The company prides itself on being a “one stop shop” for the Geelong and southwestern Victoria region, and the state as a whole. Newcomb offers recycling services, retail garden supplies and fine sand supplies, along with plant hire and subcontracting.
Its recycling operations cover asphalt, concrete, brick and soils, while it operates four fine sand pits at Portalington and Inverleigh, along with two retail garden outlets in Newcomb and Torquay.
Newcomb provides hourly plant hire and subcontracting services for local councils and contractors, with a complete fleet of equipment covering excavators, graders, scrapers, wheel loaders, dump trucks, trucks and trailers, mobile crushers and screens, and other ancillary equipment.
The business is also a significant contributor to the Geelong, Bellarine and Surf Coast areas, donating garden supply prizes for raffles and fundraisers for community groups. It sponsors junior teams at the Newcomb Football Club; indeed, the football ground has been renamed Newcomb Sand and Soil Oval. It also offers work experience opportunities for school students through a joint program with the Newcomb Secondary College and the Victorian Department of Education.
Newcomb Sand and Soil has also been a long-time supporter of the Torquay Surf Life Saving Club, purchasing a trailer on the club’s behalf that assists the life savers in transporting their surf boat. It also sponsors court number one at the Moolap Tennis Club, where members of the Dunoon family have been long-time members.
{{image2-a:r-w:300}}When it comes to long-term relationships, Newcomb Sand and Soil has been buying Komatsu earthmoving equipment for the past 10 years, due to equipment reliability, machine performance and a strong relationship with Komatsu’s local representative.
Currently the business owns three Komatsu excavators: a five-tonne PC50MR-8, a 21-tonne PC200-8 and a 25-tonne PC220-8, which was purchased in July. The company also recently retired a WA380-3 wheel loader that it had owned for 20 years.
According to Chris Dunoon, Newcomb Sand and Soil’s long-term partnership with Komatsu began in 2007, when it bought a PC50MRX-2 excavator from local representative Geoff Killury.
“We went for Komatsu because I liked their reliability and service, plus the local knowledge from the likes of Geoff, his communications with us and focus on relationship. They’ve all lived up to expectations,” he said. “So far, the service and support we’ve received has been excellent.”
Newcomb’s excavators carry out a range of tasks, including general plant hire work, loading screens at crushing sites, shifting soil from site to site, and loading dump trucks at its sand pits.
“We find the excavators ideal in our sand pits,” Chris said. “Being fine sand, we have to move it in layers.”
The latest Komatsu PC220-8 replaced a 20-tonne unit of another make. “That machine was well worn, and we needed to replace it,” he said. “We find the Komatsu is better in fuel economy, diagnostics and reliability, plus we know we have that relationship with Geoff and knowing he’ll help us if we have any issues. Basically we prefer to go with Komatsu in our excavator fleet.
“Since the PC220-8 was delivered, we’ve found a huge difference in performance between our previous 20-tonne machine and this 25-tonner. It’s more stable in our sandpit operations, and the all-new electronics make it very efficient.”
Chris said all of Newcomb’s Komatsu machines utilised the KOMTRAX remote monitoring system. “It’s always good to get that report every month, showing us fuel economy, engine hours, idling times and so on. And if a machine is ever stolen, we have that extra peace of mind that it can be tracked.”
Source: Komatsu Australia