Product Focus: Toyota Huski 5SDK5 skid steer

Operations manager Craig Gierke says having the Huski 5SDK5 to hand has enabled it to tackle a wider range of jobs while cutting labour overheads by up to 50 per cent in some cases.

 “We have been using it for a lot of work, including for bigger jobs and including ground maintenance, softscape and hardscape work,” he says.

“It’s a very versatile machine in terms of the things it can do such as preparing surfaces like driveways, rubbish removals, prepping for retainer walls, levelling ground and excavating for drainage.”

The more efficient machine has enabled the company to reduce the number of workers needed – using only two instead of the usual three or four on a job.

“So, those two staff are still able to do the job in the same timeframe as four, but I’m not having to pay out for the extra labour – it’s win/win in that respect because there’s a definite return-on-investment from the machine,” Gierke says.

GreenScope Property Services’ bread and butter is in ground and property maintenance, primarily in the real estate sector.

“We deal with everything from government – such as Defence Housing – to residential, but most of our work is with real estate and body corporate. We do a lot of rental and lease property grounds maintenance,” Gierke says.

That variety of clients meant that Gierke needed a machine that was powerful enough for large jobs but small and manoeuvrable enough to operate in constricted spaces, Toyota Material Handling Australia Queensland area sales manager – Earthmoving, Jason Stamp says.

 “Craig came to us with a brief that included having a machine that could deal with the tight access of his housing developments clients,” he says.

“After checking out the Toyota Huski 5SDK5 in our showroom, we gave him a demo unit to use on his sites to ensure he was happy with it and, as it turns out, he was.” For Greenscope, the Huski 5SDK5’s combination of manoeuvrability and power was an upside.

“We looked at the spec’s and settled on the Huski 5SDK5 because of the access widths we deal with,” Gierke says.

“There’s a lot of tight access down the sides of our clients’ properties and the five is a happy medium in that it has the power to do the big jobs, but is also nimble enough to get through some pretty snug spaces.”

“I really like being able to change from one implement to another – whether it’s a bucket or an auger, it’s easy to take one off and put on another really quickly,” he adds.