The BOA Journey So Far
One of the most progressive hydraulic hose solution company’s has been challenging the idea of autonomy when it comes to hydraulic hose repair and maintenance for the last 7 years, giving back control to the end user to keep their machines running, their businesses producing and their profits up.
However, this vision goes further back than the last 7 years and was born out of experience, observing the ‘the norm’ in hydraulic hose repairs, and a mission to “find a better way!”.
BOA Hydraulics History
The company has a long history spanning three generations. Started by Neville Boakes in 1963, the company originated as an auto electrical business. Several evolutions and name-changes of the business led it to become an automotive electrical parts distributor, and by 2014, the company completed its evolution to hydraulic hose and fittings. A name change to BOA Hydraulics in 2016 completed the transformation. Now with 3 generations of industry knowledge this family business is breaking new ground.
“We’ve always been pretty progressive, in that we’ve wanted to find a way to greatly increase productivity, and put more money back into pockets of hard-working people” says Simon Boakes, Director of BOA.
Since early 2000, Simon and co-Director and brother Greg, have had an ear out in the hydraulics industry. With over 55 years’ collective experience, they heard one common message, over and over, which was that hydraulic machinery users, particularly in the forestry, civil & mining industries, felt they were being penalised with downtime―that moment your digger blows a hydraulic hose and you’re sitting there in the middle of nowhere, waiting for someone else to come and fix the problem. Depending on your location this can be hours, sometimes even days with machines and staff sitting idle.
The Big Idea about Hydraulic Uptime
The losses due to downtime in these industries can be huge, four hours’ non-productivity is massive in terms of lost income. The contractor still needs to pay their staff for that time.
BOA have calculated that the forestry industry alone is bleeding in excess of $130m in NZ annually in lost productivity. This equates to 800 + forestry crews losing 10 to 15 hours per month at an average cost of $1200 per hour.
BOA’s vision has always been to offer the fastest hydraulic repair and maintainance solution, which gave life to the now trademarked slogan, “Hydraulic Uptime”.
“The idea of ‘Hydraulic Uptime’ came about as a way of trying to get clients to think of managing their own hydraulic repairs as ‘uptime’ rather than focussing on the “loss of time” that as has traditionally been experienced,” says Simon.
The Birth of the BOApod
From this idea of Hydraulic Uptime came the birth of the BOApod. This innovation from BOA is an all-terrain mobile hydraulic hose repair & maintenance facility, which houses European precision Crimping and Cutting machinery along with quality matched hose & fittings, delivered with all the tools & training needed to repair and maintain hydraulic hoses onsite.
BOA knows that when a machine is down it’s obviously not making money; so their focus is about providing a solution right at the need.
Hence the development of the BOA Onsite Hydraulic Hose Solution which includes the BOApod unit.
The result is that companies using the BOA Onsite Solution have allowed them to get back up & running in 20 minutes, drastically increasing their hydraulic Uptime. One of the key factors in this model is training, the passing on of BOA’s own specialist knowledge to the contractor so they can do it themselves perpetually.
Our Strategy
One of the strategies at BOA was getting hydraulic machinery users to understand how to factor in the cost of downtime.
As part of the BOA Onsite Hydraulic Hose Solution, BOA developed a downtime calculator, which anyone can access on the www.boahydraulics.com website. The BOA team have found that generally businesses are only looking at the price of the hose and the repair bill, not stopping to calculate the real cost of downtime and the effects on the environment through oil loss.
Businesses began to understand the implications of their whole operation stopping. “We found that as we showed our clients the BOA Solution and gave them case stories of what our adopters were doing and the possible opportunity, the light bulbs started to turn on.”
The BOApod has evolved over the last 3 years going through several iterations to add additional features depending on the customers need.
Additional elements such a solar panel charging, remote controlled hose reel system, underbody drawer, and tool box, contamination free hoses measuring and cutting surface along with accessories to run a proactive preventative maintenance programme.
And just when you think BOA hasn’t been busy enough with developing and distributing the BOApod, BOA has also successfully launched an app called the BOAhub, which helps with all of the processes around self-sufficient onsite hose manufacturing, inventory management, and easy re-ordering features, allowing technology to play a part in this journey also.
BOA’s vision has always been to find a better way of repairing and maintaining hydraulic hoses but in the process, BOA has set up 100’s of companies for self-sufficiency, reducing cost, and increasing productivity.
Now established in NZ, Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.
BOA has just rolled out the 100th BOApod off the assembly line on its way to another customer looking to turn their downtime into hydraulic uptime. And so the journey continues……
To learn more about the BOA Hydraulic repair and maintenance solution visit www.boahydraulics.com or call the team today on 0800 20 20 20 or 1800 40 30 40.