My
My name is Laurent Dufey and I am an operator for Carrières du Lessus, a recycling and disposal company in Valais, south-west Switzerland. It was established in 1930 by owner Luc Briquet’s grandfather.
Carrières du Lessus employs ten people to work at its quarry in St Triphon, which has recycling and crushing facilities on site. I have worked here for three years and operate a ZX470LCH-3. It loads waste material on to a crusher. It then travels along a conveyor belt to a machine that separates the iron, aluminium and other reusable materials from the rest of the waste, which is used to fill in the quarry.
HITACHI
Carrières du Lessus’s Hitachi fleet includes a ZX130W, a ZX180W with a raised cab and a ZX350LC-3. The company has been a loyal customer since 1980, when Luc bought his first Hitachi machine from distributor Probst Maveg.
Experience
Operating a Hitachi excavator gives me a great deal of job satisfaction. The cab is a comfortable working environment – I particularly like the air conditioning. The controls are also easy to use and precise.
The ZX470LCH-3 is a powerful machine and has excellent lifting capacity. Compared to the model I used previously, the bucket is twice as big and it can do twice as much work using the same amount of fuel. I don’t always need to operate it at full power to get the job done. Not only is it fuel-efficient and economic, but it also has a high level of productivity.
SWITZERLAND > ZX470 > WASTE/SCRAP RECYCLING
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My name is Luc Briquet and I am the owner of Carrières du Lessus in Valais, south-west Switzerland. The company was founded by my grandfather in 1930 and now employs 11 people.
Until 1994, our quarry was a valuable source of limestone for road and general construction. In 1994 the regional authorities withdrew our licence to excavate the stone. I had to rethink our business strategy when I knew that the quarry had to close. I needed to find another way to continue the family story here and look towards other potential interests. So I transformed our quarrying business into a recycling and waste disposal company.
We are now refilling the quarry with construction materials such as stone, bricks and concrete. We also process incinerated waste from a nearby plant. Iron, copper and aluminium are extracted using on-site magnetic devices, and then sold to customers in France. The remaining waste is used to fill in the quarry in an approved, environmentally friendly way.
HITACHI
Our history with Hitachi is all about excavators. Our first model was a second-hand 45-tonne UH171, which we bought in 1988. Then we bought a new EX330, which was also very good. Other machines in our fleet have included an EX165 and EX17.
They have all been sold now and replaced with Zaxis excavators. The fleet currently includes a ZX22U-2 mini excavator, ZX130W and ZX180W wheeled excavators, and a ZX350LC-3 and ZX450LCH-3.
Our policy is to replace the machines after 3,000 or 4,000 hours. Technology moves forward every three or four years and our aim is to benefit from all the latest advanced features. This also helps with the resale value, of course.
Experience
The quality of the Zaxis range is very good. They are well finished, reliable and comfortable for our operators. I am very happy with the service we receive from Jean-Marc Probst, Gaston Monney and the rest of the team at the Swiss Hitachi dealer, Probst Maveg. We have a strong relationship, which is based on many years of friendship as well as business.
Overall, it’s a winning combination. I have seen for myself the high levels of discipline and organisation in the Hitachi factory in Japan, and that’s one of the reasons why Hitachi is such a strong brand.