DHHI’s “new way of working” has seen it succeed in 2024. ABHR speaks to the company’s sales manager to find out how.
Supplying stackers, reclaimers, and shiploaders requires specialised skills and capabilities. These massive machines form a critical path for the supply chain of millions of tonnes of bulk commodities both exported and imported by major mining Companies across Australia.
High capital investment, complex engineering standards and high availability/reliability demands are just a few of the reasons mining companies are looking to DHHI to as their complete lifecycle solution for balanced machines services.
DHHI sales manager Will Haua told ABHR that the balanced machines supplier landscape has undergone significant changes over the last years. The complex and often variable engineering processes under fixed price engineering procurement construction (EPC) style contract arrangements and challenging Australian construction industry environments combined with lead times up to three years resulted in the leading suppliers walking away from the industry.
However, this departure of original equipment manufacturers presented DHHI with an opportunity to establish itself as Australia’s leading balanced machine supplier.
“We had a very successful year in 2024, from a business and a personnel growth perspective,”Haua said.
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“No other company has successfully designed, supplied, and constructed as many balanced machines as DHHI over the last years to the Australian market and all in compliance to the latest Australian Standards and strict client specifications.”
“Furthermore, earlier this year we were able to secure a significant project at one of the Pilbara’s major export terminals including what will be one of the most impressive delivery concepts ever seen in the balanced machine industry, watch this space.”
To keep up with a rapidly changing industry landscape, DHHI has put in place several strategies to ensure its longevity in the market.
One of the key strategies has been the growth of its project execution office in Osborne Park, Perth, which has undergone significant expansion. The company has recruited leading balanced machine engineers, project execution, and aftermarket personnel to ensure it can lead projects across all disciplines directly from Australia for the whole lifecycle of the machine.
Haua said a common misconception is how much of the company’s machinery is made up of Australian-based content.
“Due to the large amount outsourcing required for mechanical and electrical components onboard our machines, as well as support from local subcontractors with specialised labour such as engineering and site construction, the majority of our content is Australian-based,” he said.
“Growing our presence and service capabilities across regional mining hubs will form a key strategy in ensuring we meet our local content and community engagement objectives moving forward.”
“The DHHI management team, including myself, are well experienced in the balanced machines industry. These experiences inherently come with lessons learned and thankfully DHHI have approached the growth strategy of the Australian business with an open mind and flexibility to structure our organisation in a way which avoids making the same mistakes.”
DHHI values its company culture, seeing it as key to long-term success and growth. It aims to break old industry habits and create a team workplace of respect, inclusivity, and flexibility that empowers its employees to innovate on complex projects and provide better results for clients.
Company culture is also a key driver in the business relationships with its customers. DHHI prefers a streamlined management structure and open access to single points of contact with the authority to quickly resolve issues during the project.
Partners for life
Major mining companies are also recognising the importance of creating more sustainable project execution and complete lifecycle service business models for the balanced machines business.
These machines are required to move high tonnages of bulk materials and are designed to very detailed client specifications.
The resulting high capital expenditure and long lead times has historically meant the industry had a cyclical nature, resulting in few opportunities each year to secure orders, which in turn cause cash flow constraints and make it difficult to retain key resources from moving project to project
Haua said DHHI’s strategy is to form long term partnerships, which includes complete aftermarket lifecycle support services.
“Almost every client we deal with has established relationships with Australian suppliers and service providers particularly those with established networks for ongoing technical support, maintenance and spares strategies,” he said.
“These are the type of companies DHHI looking to partner with.”
In 2024, DHHI focused heavily on building up its Australian aftermarket capabilities. This has allowed the company to react to local needs quicker, while still benefitting from an immense manufacturing capability and engineering expertise offshore.
Moving forward, the company is committed to growing its Australian presence to provide clients the complete lifecycle service opportunities, particularly across the Pilbara region.
Haua said standardisation of structural and mechanical components, as well electrical systems, will form a critical part of DHHI’s design processes moving forward.
“Standardisation will help to de-risk our projects by providing more predictability in design processes, project schedule and pricing,” he said.
“DHHI would like to make it known to the market that we as are also looking form long term partnership agreements with key equipment suppliers and subcontractors who share the same vision and benefits of standardisation.”
Design and manufacturing
DHHI has five large manufacturing and research facilities across the province of Dalian, China totalling more than 2.5 million square meters of real estate, including direct access to multiple deep water port loading facilities.
Its manufacturing capabilities range from bulk handling machines, conveyor systems, port machines, metallurgical and power generation equipment, logistics centres, heat treatment, advanced machining computer numerical control workshops, foundries, spare parts workshops as well as our own electrical manufacturing and control equipment plant.
“To put into the scale of our combined workshop capacities, in 2024 DHHI set the target to manufacture 642,000t of steel for our entire product range,” Haua said.
“All our workshops have a comprehensive system of ISO accredited quality assurance (QA) systems and processes to ensure the highest standard of fabrication and assembly works.
“DHHI Australia embed our local QA management team members, project engineers and construction supervisors into the manufacturing works to further ensure compliance to the specifications and provide the necessary feedback/hold point checks to our clients and third-party inspectors.”
The DHHI headquarters in Dalian includes more than 1600 engineers and technicians across 12 professional design institutes, including a bulk materials handling institute, port machinery institute, simulation design institute, intelligent modelling institute, as well as all the latest software.
On a case-by-case basis DHHI Australia can draw upon the vast resource pool of engineers and project execution personnel and embed them into our Perth office to support its projects.
DHHI’s future
In decades past, most balanced machines were presented as part of major greenfield and expansion projects.
However, Haua said many of these now brownfield machines are either reaching the limits of their design life or succumbing to fatigue from the excessive demands they are put under.
“This has resulted in in a solid pipeline of balanced machine opportunities over the next five to 10 years and DHHI will be focussing our efforts to ensure we are there for our customers over this period to provide the optimum lifecycle solutions specific to their business requirements,” he said.
“Beyond our core product area of balanced machines, DHHI plans to diversify and build our presence to the Australian market and leverage off our groups product capabilities to offer a wider portfolio of solutions to our customers including complete processing plants, car dumpers, and more.”