Kimberley operation built on UD Trucks

Location is critical to any business. And for Kununarra based owner operator Peter Woodhead of JSW Holdings, navigating his business in such remote territory has posed many challenges since his father established the business in 1975.

However, with the right people, services and trucks, Peter has taken no shortcuts and has witnessed the success and longevity of the JSW business.

Starting off as a brick manufacturer, JSW has expanded the scope of their products and services over the years, with concrete, plant hire, civil contracts and aggregate supply forming the main part of their business offering today. Throughout the growth and the decades, one thing has remained the same – JSW’s trust and confidence in their UD truck products.

During the UD Trucks Lap of the Map travels through Kununarra, Peter explained just how desolate and challenging the conditions have been over the years and how critical UD’s reliable and robust vehicles are to the JSW operation.

“Probably the biggest pressure is our isolation with parts supply and getting and keeping things running. People are also a big shortage, I know we’re not alone with that but it’s pretty hard to entice people to come up and live in extreme conditions at the moment,” said Peter.

“During winter it’s beautiful up here, with nice 25 to 30-degree days. But from November until April it’s 40 degrees, wet and an afternoon shower can see 25-50mm of rainfall. Roads become impassable, so we’ve got to be careful where we go and don’t go depending on the time of year.

“The distance we travel annually varies due to the kind of work that we do, but it can range from 100,000kms to 250,000kms. Engine hours are probably more. It’s a lot of work off road and on dirt roads so we often travel at 40-50km/h.”

But despite the locational challenges, Peter has said that his UD Trucks have provided a solid and reliable platform to keep JSW running and with minimum downtime.

“Our business was built on them,” explained Peter. “What I like about UD Trucks is that they’re built solid, reliable, low maintenance, easy to drive and are comfortable. Our guys love driving the UD Trucks and out of all the vehicles in our fleet, they probably spend the least amount of time in the workshop.”

Woodhead said that, even their Workshop Manager Dion, loves working on the UD Trucks.

“We’ve got a UD CW 40 out the back. It’s a 1983 model and it’s the first UD we bought. It was purchased as a six-wheel tipper. The customer decided they wanted to go to a semi, so it was converted to a prime mover and towed a bogie tipper around for probably five years of its life and then as things got bigger, we converted it back to a tipper,” Woodhead explained.

JSW currently has five UD Trucks in their fleet but over the course of their business they have had 10 UD trucks in total. When recalling the UD Trucks that JSW has owned over the years, Peter reminisced on the early days, all the way back to the mid-70s where it all began.

“It was my old man on his own and once myself and my brother left high school, we joined the business and basically built it up from there. From a couple of trucks and a loader to a fairly substantial fleet that is now,” he said.