Plant hire companies supplying earthmoving and excavating equipment to customers need to know that the machines they provide are in top working order and are not likely to break down or have a key component fail at a critical time.

That’s why major equipment rental companies such as Brooks Hire carry out regular oil analysis of the machines in its fleet of over 700 pieces of earthmoving and construction equipment.

Brooks Hire has been renting earthmoving and construction equipment since 1979, and today has branches not only throughout Western Australia where it started, but also in all state and territory mainland capitals, along with key regional centres.

To stay on top of its mobile equipment fleet maintenance needs, Brooks Hire uses Komatsu’s KOWA (Komatsu Oil Wear Analysis) service – part of its Condition Monitoring Services (CMS) suite of sampling, analysis and diagnostics tools – to carry out regular oil analysis tests on its Komatsu and other branded equipment. 

According to Joe Piotrowski, Brooks Hire’s Service Manager WA/NT, the company – which has been using KOWA analysis for the past 16 years – averages more than 220 samples a month nationally.

In fact, the actual number of samples for the Brooks fleet is significantly higher, with many of its customers carrying out their own servicing and sampling on the Brooks machines they have on hire.

Brooks Hire was also an early adopter of the ability to order and manage KOWA samples when Komatsu’s CMS range of offerings became available through the myKomatsu online customer portal (my.komatsu.com.au/condition-monitoring) in mid 2021.

“In terms of convenience and ease of use, it’s been great to move over to the myKomatsu portal.  It’s a very handy tool which our service team uses daily,” he says.
Komatsu set out to make the process of accessing KOWA oil analysis services through myKomatsu faster, more efficient, easier to use and less prone to human error.

“That’s certainly been the case,” says Piotrowski. “We just have to enter the asset number or serial number, and the system shows all sample reports for that asset.

“And the turnaround times for reports once we’ve sent in a KOWA sample for evaluation has been good.”

An important feature of having KOWA samples carried out through myKomatsu is also the ability to have full records of sample histories held in one place for easy access.

“KOWA has always been an important tool in helping us monitor, repair and replace major components. It helps us reduce major failures onsite also down time for our customers,” says Piotrowski. 

“But with our results now within myKomatsu, we can very easily research our sample histories, so we can check trends and better identify where problem areas may be.”

Andrew Renshaw, Komatsu’s Perth CSSR (Customer Support Sales Representative) provided assistance to get Brooks staff their own individual logins, linked to the Brooks Hire account.

This allows each user to access reports and historical data on their own computer, laptop and mobile devices.  

“Our team regularly uses the portal as a tool to access sample histories when required,” says Piotrowski. “In the past, we would call Andrew for details of our CMS histories, but now we can search for just about all the information we need ourselves via the portal.

“It’s all user-friendly and well laid out. In particular, the Advanced Search function is extremely useful,” he says. 

The level of detail now in our KOWA reports has improved even further since we moved to managing them through myKomatsu, “All the reports are very detailed, filled with good, useful information,” Piotrowski says.

For more information about Komatsu’s CMS and its range of KOWA services, visit my.komatsu.com.au/condition-monitoring.