The four wheel drive and truck lease company has also supplied vehicles to the SEA Gas pipeline, Wimmera Mallee Pipeline Project, Brooklyn Lara Pipeline, Nifty Pipeline, SESA Pipeline, Spring Gully, Telfer, Braemar and Eastern Gas pipelines, and that’s just the beginning!

Mary Ann says that with all this experience in the pipeline industry, Sargent’s team has no problems supplying and maintaining its vehicles on the pipeline jobs. “I suppose because we’ve been doing it for so many years,” she says. “Really it’s all to do with our people; we have so many tradespeople in our business, and we maintain our own fleet. We then can put them onto these pipeline projects, so our fleet is maintained.

“This means we can put our vehicles onto these pipeline projects, support them with our people and maintain our fleet onsite, keeping downtime to a minimum and ensuring the highest level of quality.

“When we’re on the pipeline, other contractors are there also, so we can save them the worry and hassle by servicing and maintaining their fleet onsite as well. After all, it’s what we do best.”

Mary Ann says that it is an enjoyable and interesting experience for her staff to work onsite at pipeline projects. “They can go and work on the pipeline, which gives them a change of scenery. It’s very versatile, very flexible, and they’re still part of Sargent to come back to a workshop environment,” she says.

In July 2007, a merger took place between Four Wheel Drive Hire Service Pty Ltd and Sargent Truck Lease Pty Ltd, meaning that Sargent can now offer a wider product range to its customers. Four wheel drives, trucks, buses, vans and specialty vehicles are all on offer, and the company is diversifying further into forklifts.

The company is also growing its locations base, with over 20 outlets around Australia and eight more locations due to open up in Australia in the next twelve months. Mary Ann says that they will also be looking into international expansion.

This means more convenience for Sargent customers, more locations to pick up vehicles and drop vehicles off. “Also, it means one stop shopping,” says Mary Ann. “They can rent – whether it is a truck, van, four wheel drive, bus or a forklift – from the one company.”

When we asked Mary Ann what the future might be for Sargent’s four wheel drive fleet, she says that the company currently has a ‘Man Haul’ vehicle which may soon be replaced by a new specification that can carry eight people with all forward-facing seating. Mary Ann says “We feel that there’s a demand out there for that. And apart from that we have four wheel drive trucks now, which is a new product, and is very big for pipelines. Pipeline customers are able to rent or lease the commercial vehicles, whatever their preference may be.”

Sargent will also keep its current Toyota and Nissan four wheel drive ranges going.

Asked about other expansions to the Sargent product range, Mary Ann says, “Apart from the Man Haul, which is our latest development, we will look at anything that pipelines require. Any extras on the fleet, we do that ourselves…we do internal fit-outs, we have special trays put on, we have troop carriers that we turn into emergency response vehicles for pipeline jobs, the opportunities are almost endless.

“Our partnerships with pipeline customers have opened up our project-specific offering to include amphibious 8 wheel drive vehicles and specialised material handling vehicles that perhaps we otherwise wouldn’t have considered.”

“We’re there for what our customer needs, so if on a pipeline a customer said ‘this is the sort of vehicles that I need’, we would certainly look at that. Firstly, whether we can purchase it, and the odds are you probably couldn’t if it were something specific. So we would start with the base model and we would modify that to what our customer needed.”

Sargent does so much work on developments and modifications that the company has a development team, concentrating on products. A National Development Manager is continually working on products, including those specifically for pipeline projects.

Peter Goopy, Sargent’s National Development Manager, is going to be on the APIA Safety Committee, and technical innovations in the area of safety are a big priority for Sargent’s fleet.

Mary Ann says, “We are very conscious of safety and give it a big focus, and really he is the right person to be on the committee because he’s my technical guy.”

Safety-wise, Sargent is currently looking into several developments for its vehicles, such as a GPS unit which would help Sargent in counting kilometres for servicing, but would also help in locating exactly where each vehicle is, so that help would be readily at hand if someone was distressed.

All Sargent vehicles are available with standard safety equipment such as striping, amber beacons and flags for easy identification. But Sargent also has a long list of ideas to take to the Safety Committee. “And then, of course, it goes the other way round,” says Mary Ann. Sargent is keen to discuss with pipeliners “What they want and what we can work on…to make sure that we’re on the same page and we have the same priorities.”

With so many pipeline projects located in very remote areas, Sargent is nevertheless able to supply vehicles, no matter where they need to go. “We support that because of our team of people,” says Mary Ann. “We are a national business, we have 200 staff, and a large team of mechanics and apprentices. We draw on our own mechanics and apprentices to go to remote areas, and we make sure that they’re rewarded to do this.”

Also, Sargent ensures that it fits in with pipeline construction schedules. Mary Ann says “On the pipeline jobs it can be 28 days on, 9 days off – whatever the cycle is we fit in with that. And then we have relief staff when they’re on their cycle.

“We also have a National Maintenance Manager and he’s regularly onsite to see how things are going, so we can improve things. And then we have Peter, who makes sure from an OH&S perspective and also the development area that he gets involved.

“So pipelines get a lot of attention from every unit in this company, because they are a core part of our business.”

Sargent is also often a major sponsor at APIA events, and Mary Ann enjoys these events, such as Convention last year on the Gold Coast. “It was fantastic…I thought it was unreal,” says Mary Ann. “To be quite frank, there are a lot of conferences and trade shows around, but supporting the pipeline one is great. It’s always so well organised and so well supported, and enjoyable as well. So I took my whole national management team to the one at the coast, because, being in Brisbane, we were so close. We went for the week and it was a great time to be involved with everyone from the pipelines, it was very beneficial.”

In future, Mary Ann sees Sargent having great involvement with APIA and the pipeline industry in general. She says they’ll be involved in “Whatever we can to be quite honest!”

A first step was to get Peter onto the Safety Committee, and the company has already put its name down to be major sponsors for the 2008 Annual Convention and Exhibition in Perth.

Mary Ann says “I had a meeting with Steve [Dobbie] to say any area that you want us to represent, please let us know. I’m happy to support in vehicles in any way, because [APIA is] a major segment for Sargent, so we’ll continue to support them definitely in any way that we can.”

When we asked Mary Ann how she sees broad growth and changes in fleet vehicles affecting the pipeline industry, she says “We don’t have a problem with supply any longer. A couple of years ago there was a problem with supply from Toyota, nationally, to keep up with growth. We don’t have that now, so there won’t be a problem in supply of fleet.

“I also think having the four wheel drive trucks will make a difference for the pipelines. Our customised four wheel drive truck fleet is designed specifically for project applications and is highly sought after. We will continue to work with our pipeline partners to ensure that our specifications are suitable for their projects. I believe that by listening to what our customers want on the pipelines and having a presence on the APIA committees…we’ll broaden what we already have.”

“The key to supplying fleet to the pipeline industry is to listen to what customers want, and make sure we deliver on that or work on modifying a vehicle that may not be just off the shelf, and usually they’re not. But we are prepared to modify a fleet as we have done with troop carriers into emergency response vehicles.”

From Sargent’s perspective, the only challenge is supplying the fleet, and the tradesmen, to be able to commit to more jobs. “And we can do that,” says Mary Ann. “As I said, there’s not a shortage now of fleet and as far as our tradesmen are concerned, they’re very loyal to Sargent and we make sure that we look after our people so that we can deliver.

“So, that’s where we intend to head - to perfect what we’re doing now, and to continue to do it in a professional manner. All the while keeping our integrity and being accountable for what we do and always making sure that we deliver a quality product.”