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Booming
business for Kocurek
It has been some months now that we from High Reach
Demolition.com visited the Ipswich- based Kocurek factory.
For five days we traveled around England to see the results
of the products Kocurek excavators build for it’s
costumers.
Kocurek
Excavators is a family owned private company and was founded
in 1979 when David Kocurek and
his mother Rita started the company a plant hire company specializing
in long-reach excavators.
It became a big hit. Costumers began to buy and rent these specialized
Kocurek machines on a more and more regular basis and so the
manufacturing of such machines continued to grow.
By
1994 after 16 years at Popular Lane the premises were filled
to bursting point and with the encouragement of the local
council steps were taken to locate a new site.
The company was fortunate to locate a site on the Hadleigh
Road Industrial estate on Land previously owned by British
Telecom. Work commenced in 1994 to create a purpose built
factory for the production of excavator front-end equipment.
There has been continued investment both in building and
equipment at the site to make this factory one of the best
of its type in Europe. One of the key elements in
successfully developing this facility has been the gathering
together of a skilled and fully committed work force.
The site now extends to approximately 50000 sq ft of
production area together with significant office space.
Staff and production personnel now number approximately 80.
Kocurek people work weekends
and evenings to keep the production process going as fast as
possible. “We can make a boom in less than 2 weeks. We
make as much as we can of what we need ourselves,"
continues David Kocurek, "that means hydraulic
cylinders, buckets and even nuts and bolts. We even generate
our own on-site electricity."
In
1992 the company was contracted to build its first
demolition machine. This product marked the start of real
growth at Kocurek both in terms of product range and
customer base, in the UK and Europe.
Kocurek's
big winner is the modular joint. It allows you to change an
excavator front-end from demolition rig to conventional or
vice-versa in less than 30 minutes.
The system was shown worldwide for the first time in 2000
and it's going down a storm since then.
Almost a 100% of the Demolition booms they produce have the
Modular joint system.
Contractors even bring their conventional
3-stage boom to add the modular joint.
The system was also responsible of getting the first OEM
contracts with Case, Volvo and JCB. It involved that Kocurek
builds the full OEM’s High Reach Demolition machine
line-up.
The
latest addition to the companies demolition program is the
development of the first ever Telescopic Demolition boom.
The system allows you to reach even higher, with the same
base machine, as you would with a conventional 3-stage boom.
The system was fist build in 2002 and around 50 others have
been build since and the company believes strongly in it’s
future.
Beside the demolition booms the company has a complete range
of related products some of them delivered standard with the
HRD package others available as
option.
"Our
huge advantage over OEM suppliers is that we can give a
well-engineered, proven product coupled with a fast delivery
time," says David Kocurek. "Because we have so
much specialist experience there aren't many problems we
haven't overcome before.
The
achievement of this development has come about for two
reasons both related to people.
- Firstly our customers who over the years have brought us
their ideas and their problems and
been prepared to enter into contracts with us on the
basis of drawings and face-to-face
discussions secure in the knowledge that Kocurek
would come up with a viable solution.
- Secondly the people of Kocurek who have been prepared to
work long and hard in all areas of
the business to satisfy the customer's requirements.
David Kocurek is not motivated by greed or ravening ambition
to feed his ego. "We like to do the best job we can for
our customers," he says quietly, "and I'd like to
think we've never actually lost one because we let them
down."
Now that's dedication. But it pays - Kocurek's kit is known
and respected throughout the industry.
David Kocurek: “ To
all our customers past, present and future and to all the
people of Kocurek both past present and future we would like
to say a big thank you for the past 25 years and eagerly
look forward to the next 25 years.
"If
you’re seeking for a
truly multi purpose machine, able to undertake many tasks
quickly and efficiently, Kocurek Excavators ltd. is the
right place to bring your excavator for
major front-end surgery".
We like to
thank all the people and companies we visited for their
hospitality. Especially all the people at Kocurek.
For more info visit the website: http://www.kocurek.com
For more pictures see: the
Kocurek photoalbum
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