What is Weight Distribution and Why is it Important?

Weight distribution is the amount of the total vehicle weight imposed on the ground at an axle, group of axles, or an individual wheel. The weight on a truck must be distributed on the axles to comply with the chassis manufacturer’s axle ratings and weight laws. 

Axle capacities are limited either by the axle capacity or legal weight limits, whichever is lower. In addition to axle capacities, the Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) is the maximum operating weight of the vehicle specified by the manufacturer, which takes the cab and chassis, engine, and every other component of the truck into account. 

The centre of gravity of an object is a hypothetical point at which weight is evenly dispersed and all sides are in balance. Each truck component, including passengers and cargo, have a centre of gravity.  

In physics, “moments” are a force or weight times a distance. Moments provide a way to combine several components or items to calculate a centre of gravity for them as a group. When the centre of gravity is known for all items combined, it is possible to calculate the weight on each axle. 

From a vehicle owners’ perspective, it is important to match the capacity of the truck to the weight it is expected to carry. An overloaded truck is unsafe and illegal but if a truck consistently hauls less than its capacity, the owner is not realising a full return on investment and operating costs will be higher than they should be. 

In addition to being illegal and the risk of penalties, improper weight distribution and overloading cause excessive wear and premature failure of parts, unsafe operation such as compromised directional control and insufficient braking capacity and additional stresses that may be instrumental in causing the frame to crack or break. 

Careful consideration must be given to distribution of the load weight to determine how much of the total, including chassis, cab, body, and payload, will be carried on the front axle and how much will be carried on the rear axle, and the total. Moving components a few inches forward or backward on the chassis can mean the difference between acceptable weight distribution for the truck or an application that will not do the job satisfactorily. 

Headquartered in regional Western Australia, Shermac has been designing and manufacturing high quality, engineered-for-purpose mobile equipment in the mining, civil and commercial sectors since 2002. 

If you have a technical query or would like to discuss your next project, call our team on 1300 799 943 or email [email protected] with your inquiry.   

Jacob Moore purchased his first grader in 2006 and worked on a number of different projects in Townsville, Queensland such as subdivisions, road, railways, tailing dams and mines. 

Fast forward to 2021. Jacob has been based in Western Australia since 2011 and his business – Top End Civil, has expanded to include trim graders and trim dozers for clients in mining and road construction. 

As the owner of a small business, Jacob wanted to optimise his productivity without compromising the quality of his work and he realised that the biggest bottleneck was water. “When trim grading” said Jacob, “you need a water cart all day long and if you are relying on other contractors, you’re reliant on them for the pace at which you can work”. 

“I decided to invest in my own water cart – the first one that Top End Civil has bought – and I immediately spoke to Shermac. I’d seen Shermac equipment on plenty of jobs and it always impressed me as a really good quality product” 

“I had some well-developed thoughts about how I wanted the cart configured and Shermac made it incredibly easy. The process was fantastic – they listened to what I wanted and made a few helpful suggestions, and everything was sorted very quickly without any messing around. They stuck to the time frame for build and the cart was ready when they said it would be.

“The 8×4 cart is really well set-up. I’ve heard about how difficult other people were to deal with, but my experience with Shermac was fantastic and I got exactly what I wanted. It’s definitely the best-looking water cart I’ve seen – it’s a real head-turner and I get positive comments about it every day.” 

“While the compliments are nice, the real benefit is that I now have the best equipment and that maximises my productivity and helps me to do the best job possible.”  

“The truck has been fantastic and there is absolutely nothing I would change about the entire process of dealing with Shermac” 

After his initial experience with  Shermac,  Jacob has just ordered a service trailer from Shermac and said, “The process was just as easy second time around. It’s really refreshing to talk to people who really know what they’re doing.” 

Ready to find out more? Talk to our expert team to find out more about how custom design and concept-to-delivery engineering and manufacturing capabilities can optimise productivity and efficiency.   

The Black brothers – Todd, Dean and Marc, founded TDM Construction Ltd in 2004 and, today, the business is headquartered in Pukekohe in New Zealand’s North Island, about 50 kilometres south of Auckland.

Originally established as a small specialist drainage business, TDM has expanded its team and its services to provide a wide range of civil construction services to some of New Zealand’s largest infrastructure companies and private sector developers in the Auckland and Waikato regions.

TDM now own and operate a sizeable fleet of equipment including excavators, tractors, scrapers, graders, and telehandlers.

TDM Fleet Manager, Marc Black said “We’ve only ever invested in high quality Caterpillar and John Deere equipment, and we look after it properly. About 5 years ago, we built a trailer so our maintenance teams could transport lubricants to job sites. While it helped us get the job done, it wasn’t optimum, and we decided to spend the money to get the right equipment for the job.”

“I’d heard a bit about Shermac. They had a good reputation and I thought one of their service trailers would help make everyone’s lives much easier. I wanted the trailer to be customised and told them the oil capacities I needed, and they said, ‘no problem’ – it was very easy and straightforward.”

“When the unit arrived, everyone was blown away. It is top-of-the-line equipment, and we were very happy with it. Our on-site team love it and it enables them to present extremely professional on site.”

“The business benefits have been obvious, and our service teams are much more productive on site and get the job done much faster. Another benefit is that we’re not asking people to handle heavy drums, and that has eliminated a health and safety hazard. Everyone is very happy.”

Shermac is an Australian family-owned business, headquartered in regional WA and employing a diverse, highly skilled, and multi-cultural staff of more than 50 people. Shermac manufacture high-quality, engineered-for-purpose mobile equipment in the mining, civil and commercial sectors. 

Many businesses have a tagline and while they may sound snappy, they often have no meaning.

At Shermac, our tagline – Safety and productivity engineered in. Hazards and risks engineered out® is derived from real feedback from a customer and serves as a constant reminder to our customers and our employees about what we stand for, what dominates our thinking and how we approach every project for every customer.

Established in 2002, Shermac is an Australian family-owned business that specialises in custom-built water cartage and support vehicles for the mining, civil and commercial sectors. 

Shermac was borne out of the realisation that the operational needs and operating environments of customers were so diverse that standardised equipment did not offer them sufficient flexibility and, while customers were looking for customised equipment options, these were not available in the equipment manufacturers marketplace. 

The Shermac team has addressed the specialised requirements of our clients that demand one-off engineering solutions to operate in some of the most hostile environments on earth. For the past 20 years, we have designed, engineered and fabricated equipment for some of the worlds’ largest mining and civil engineering contractors, including BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue, Thiess, Komatsu and Alcoa.

The entire Shermac organisation is relentlessly focused on maximising operator wellbeing, vehicle uptime and productivity with outstanding build quality that ensures lowest lifetime cost of ownership.

We will not settle for anything less.

Born out of the need for high quality, engineered-for-purpose industrial vehicles and equipment, and established in 2002, Shermac is an Australian family-owned business that specialises in custom-built water cartage and support vehicles for the mining, civil and commercial sectors.

Shermac realised that the operational needs and operating environments of customers were so diverse, that standardised equipment did not offer them sufficient flexibility. While customers were looking for customised equipment options, these were not available in the equipment manufacturers marketplace.

National Sales Manager Robert Ray said, ‘While our business has been based on customisation, over the past twenty years, perhaps inevitably, certain proven and popular designs have emerged particularly around our core of service vehicles and water carts.’

‘In all our proven designs, the key design elements such as tank size, dispensing systems and vehicle configurations have the flexibility to be changed to meet the specific needs of clients’

We might get an enquiry from someone who says, “I was looking at your Mineserve 1500 and, while I like the look of it, I need additional diesel fuel capacity. Can that be done?”. Our response is typically, no problem, let me send you through some details of a unit we previously configured like that…’

‘We want our clients to know that these configuration options are usually things that we’ve done before and are quick and easy to implement but still offer clients the benefit of proven design with operational flexibility.’

‘This doesn’t mean that we’ve lost sight of our roots and we’re delighted to focus the full resources of the Shermac organisation on developing customised solutions for clients with specialised or unique requirements.’

‘With everything we build, we actively minimise design and engineering risk, delivery risk and performance risk. This means that customers get equipment that is entirely fit-for-purpose and ready to do the job it is expected to do, and they get it on-time and on-budget. We stand behind our products throughout their operational lives and are so confident in their quality that we offer an industry-leading three-year warranty.’

With a deep understanding of operating in remote areas of Australia, the Shermac team can relate to the tough conditions that customers deal with every day, and the company has unprecedented experience in fit-for-purpose and lowest cost of ownership service vehicles for mining, civil and commercial environments.  

Ready to find out more? Talk to our expert team to find out how our service vehicles can maximise utilisation and productivity and minimise business risk. Call our team on 1300 799 943 or email [email protected] with your inquiry.

9 years ago, John Gallagher arrived in Western Australia to work alongside his brother, Pete, who was working in Perth. John was looking forward to getting stuck into work but said ‘I barely knew how to hold a shovel, never mind operating heavy equipment.’ 

John was a quick learner though, and with a lot of hard work and determination, it wasn’t long before he was operating heavy machinery. Over the next few years John gained experience on bobcats, diggers, scrapers, loaders, dozers and graders. 

After establishing himself as an operator, John met his partner, Aisling, who was a nurse working in Perth. Being away for long periods was tough, and John was soon thinking about getting a job closer to home in Perth. 

Before throwing it all in, Aisling said she’d like to spend some time working alongside John in the outback. John wasted no time in making arrangements and before they knew it, Aisling had taken 6 months leave and was driving buses and rollers in the Pilbara. 

After 6 months, Aisling returned to her nursing job in Perth but couldn’t settle. She had seen possibility to get ahead in life by working up North and felt that perhaps now was the time to invest in themselves. 

In 2019, after years of hard work, John formed Rockall Pty Ltd, a plant and operator hire company and, with Aisling by his side, they purchased their first piece of equipment – a 950H wheeled loader. 

After Rockall’s first successful year in business, John felt that a water truck would be a useful acquisition as he saw plenty of opportunities on projects over the years. John had a specific vision however and wanted a multi-purpose watercart designed and equipped for any job on site. When looking for advice from friends on who would custom build a water truck, there was a common theme, ‘Talk to Shermac’. 

John met Jim Ray in Perth. John said, ‘I liked the Shermac RS2000 on an FYH 350 Isuzu chassis, but I wanted a customised unit that could do all the jobs that I saw other watercarts lacking and more’ adding ‘when I told Jim my thoughts, he said that it could all be done. It was that simple! Nothing was an issue. He was so welcoming and accommodating, and in two hours, it was fixed, and I was sold’ 

‘The whole process was fantastic. I liked the people I met in Perth and when I went to their manufacturing plant in Dalwallinu, I realised that everyone in the company is really nice, and they all have the same can-do attitude. It was a great experience.’ 

‘They really couldn’t have built a better unit. It has everything I specified to make it a really versatile piece of equipment – high, low, side and batter sprays, left and right dribble bars, self-fill setup, multi-function cannon, stabiliser setup, fire hose reel and even an enclosed pressure washer unit. Clients look at it and say, “this man has thought of everything!” 

Since delivery, the water cart, with Aisling as operator, has been busy supporting trucks, excavators, loaders, dozers, stabilisers and graders on a road build project. Aisling calls the truck ‘my new office’ and John says, ‘She just loves it!’ 

‘There’s two things I’ve learned from this whole experience. Firstly, Shermac are the go-to people for water trucks. I can’t speak highly enough of them, and it won’t be the last piece of equipment I’ll be buying from Shermac. The second thing is this; behind every good man is a great woman!’ 

Ready to find out more? Talk to our expert team to find out how our custom water truck can maximise productivity and utilisation and minimise business risk.

Some years ago, whist working as an equipment operator in Western Australia, Robert Harvey was asked by his boss if he was able to service earthmoving equipment. Robert said ‘Sure – no problem’ and his boss tossed him the keys to a Shermac service truck. Robert used the Shermac vehicle and thought ‘This is the life – if I ever get equipment of my own, I want one of these!’  

Fast forward to 2016 when Robert started HRV Group – a GPS and UTS final trim earthwork specialist business working on civil and construction projects in Victoria. By 2021, HRV Group had grown to nine units and was working on high-profile tier-1 projects such as the M80 Upgrade, Melbourne level crossing removal projects and Melbourne Airport. 

While HRV exclusively uses Caterpillar equipment, Rob likes to service his own equipment and said, ‘I like to do it myself. It makes sure I stay connected to all my assets and I know that the job has been done properly’. Rob was always very conscious of the risk of oil spills when servicing equipment on site, saying ‘When I’ve got equipment on site, I think of it as being a guest in someone else’s house and if I make a mess, I’ll never be invited back again. Loading oil drums in the back of the ute was simply too high risk, and I needed a better way’ 

‘I contacted Wayne at Shermac and while a service truck was too big for my needs, a service trailer was perfect. I looked at a few options and decided that a 3½ tonne trailer would future proof my business and give me some room to grow into with the possibility of adding extra tanks, pumps, and hose reels’. Robert did look at equipment made by competitors but added, ‘The Shermac equipment was more versatile and more eye catching, and I remembered back to my positive experiences with Shermac equipment in WA.’ 

Working with Shermac was a really good experience and once the unit went into production, I was continually sent photos of the build and that was really reassuring.’  When the trailer was completed, Robert was going to have it delivered to Victoria but his father volunteered to drive to the Shermac factory in Western Australia and collect it – ‘Dad had a really good trip and was extremely impressed by the size and scale of the shermac operation in Dalwallinu and the people he met there. They looked after him really well, explained all the details about the trailer and sent him on his way’. 

Once back in Victoria, the trailer was on site within 24 hours. Robert said, ‘I tow it to work, operate equipment all day and service a couple of units on the way home. For me it’s been a tremendous success and I estimate that the payback on my investment will be about three years. When I roll onto site with the trailer, people think “this guy knows what he’s doing” and it reinforces the fact that we’re a really professional operation’. 

‘I had a 10 out of 10 experience with Shermac. Their advice and communication were outstanding. All their staff really know what they’re doing, and I simply cannot fault them.’ 

In 1991, Ken Maher acquired a generator hire business in Melbourne, commencing with five staff. Ken’s 20 years’ experience in electrical fitting/engineering with the Victorian railways was of great assistance in developing the specialist skills required to operate a power generation business. 

Today, East Coast Generators remains a family owned and operated business and has grown to a staff of over 25 people servicing clients across Victoria, southern NSW and eastern SA. Based in Altona North, the company is Victoria’s leading specialist generator hire, sales and service business and has been helping communities, organisations and individuals to resolve their power supply problems for nearly 30 years. 

East Coast Generators has an extensive fleet of modern generators from 2kVA to 1500kVA and can produce solutions greater than 10,000kVA within 1 working day. Generators are supported by an extensive inventory of cable sets, distribution boards, extension leads, cable covers, junction boxes and transfer switches which provide customers with an ‘end to end’ solution. 

Custom Configuration

Part of this end-to-end solution includes on-site service of equipment to ensure it continues to operate at peak performance. 

Ken Maher had a service trailer but wanted a more sophisticated unit with greater capacity and started evaluating products from various suppliers. From the outset, Ken was impressed by Shermac and their products saying ‘Shermac presented themselves similarly to the way we present to our client base and that immediately made me feel very comfortable with them. We anticipated a long service life for the service trailer and based our decision making on value and quality.’  

Ken added, ‘We wanted to specify the trailer to suit our needs – this involved the configuration and capacity of tanks and hose reel configurations’ adding, ‘Shermac made the configuration process straightforward and seamless, and I was very happy with my interactions with the Shermac design team’. 

‘The trailer was delivered on-time and as-specified and being able to deliver more efficient and effective on-site service, the expected benefits have been realised’. 

‘The whole experience with Shermac was excellent. I was very pleased with our dealings with them, and they really performed very well’. 

On average, in the Australian manufacturing industry, 8% of people change jobs every year. At Shermac, the figure is less than a quarter of the national average, and once people start working for Shermac, they often stay and become long-term employees. 

We spoke to Shermac Chief Executive, Mike Ray. 

We value and respect our staff and we look after them well 

‘Shermac is a stable, family-owned and operated business that has enjoyed long-term growth. We employ a diverse, highly skilled and multi-cultural staff of more than 50 people. We work hard to offer our staff a safe, supportive work environment and create a mutually beneficial experience’ 

Shermac manufacture specialised purpose-built service vehicles designed for the mining and construction industries. Clients are highly demanding and run 24 x 7 x 365 operations in some of the most hostile environments on earth. Mike Ray said, ‘We believe that we manufacture the best equipment of its type in the world, and we have extremely high standards. Our staff take immense pride in the equipment we build. Every job we do is different, and we encourage our staff to draw on their experience and tell us where opportunities exist to do things better and where we might improve.’ 

Shermac are an end-to-end fabricator and doing everything in-house not only enables the company to control every aspect of production and quality but also exposes staff to a wider range of activities than most fabricators and creates opportunities to improve their skills and develop new ones. 

Mike Ray said, ‘We We operate from a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, and we are constantly updating our processes to keep up with the latest equipment and technological advances to maximise efficiency. We have recently constructed a purpose-built heavy fabrication workshop to build large tank modules and install completed modules on off-road chassis. This facility included an industry-first custom-engineered tank rotation system where equipment, mounted in a floor pit, is connected to the tank which can be lifted and rotated as needed.’

Treating people well is hard-wired into our DNA 

‘It doesn’t matter whether you are a team member, a supplier, or a customer, we treat everyone with decency and respect. We want everyone who comes in contact with Shermac, whether it’s a local work-experience student, a delivery driver or a multi-million dollar customer, to have a positive experience.’ 

‘We treat our customers the same way we would treat a guest in our home. We do everything in our power to ensure that their needs are met and that we provide not only the best solution to their problems, but also the best possible customer experience.’ 

We actively support the community that is our home 

Shermac’s home is Dalwallinu - a small town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, approximately 250km Northeast of Perth.  

‘Over the years, we have become a major employer in Dalwallinu, and we acknowledge and embrace our responsibilities to our home community. We actively play our part in supporting the economic and social viability of the community in which we live and work.’ 

‘This community perspective is apparent in everything we do. While we have always endeavoured to hire and spend locally, we have sponsored skilled migrants and are delighted that they have become active members of the local community and now consider Dalwallinu as their home. We offer work experience to local youths and hire apprentices from the local community.’ 

‘We sponsor and donate to local sporting, community and not-for-profit groups. We have staff members that volunteer with the local emergency services and, when they respond to local emergencies, we continue to pay them as-if they were still at work as we won’t allow them to suffer any financial penalties when supporting our community. We recently covered all costs for staff that travelled 400kms to support cyclone relief efforts in remote WA communities.’ 

‘Families are at the heart of all vibrant, caring communities and we are as flexible as we can be in terms of work arrangements and accommodating the needs of our staff to balance work and family commitments.’ 

Working with Shermac 

‘As a growing business, we’re always interested in hearing from people who’d like to join our team and if Shermac sounds like the type of business you’d like to be part of, we’d encourage people to contact us as we’d love to have a chat’. 

If you’d like to find out more about opportunities with Shermac, please call us on 1300 799 943 or email [email protected]  

The road network is critical to open pit mining and to keep productivity at an optimum level, every road must be properly maintained and in good condition. 

Mine haul roads are typically dirt roads, and they sustain continuous heavy vehicle traffic. The EPA noted that “Dust generated from haul roads within the mines is the biggest source of fine dust particles on most mine sites, contributing about 40 per cent of total emissions” 

Mine roads are generally watered to suppress dust and mine operators face a continuous struggle when trying to balance dust suppression and overwatering. 

As a result, mine haul roads invariably suffer from one of two conditions – under-watering resulting in a dry and dusty surface or over-watering that washes away the surface layers of the road, degrades road quality and results in changes to the surface friction coefficient that reduces tyre traction, increases skid potential and increases stopping distances. 

Over a 5-year period, the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines reported there were 477 high potential incidents in Queensland and noted that three key factors contribute to truck slides: 

• Road material
• Road geometry
• Road watering

The most common reason for truck slides is over-watering and inappropriate watering of mine roads, and this factor accounted for 49% of incidents. Over-watering is a common term but really only applies to low friction or road wearing course material that is friction sensitive to water. 

The Department advised that a clay surface can lose up to 50% of its coefficient of friction through the application of water, and that weathered overburden clays have half the coefficient of friction of some siltstones and sandstones. 

The Department encouraged operators to conduct road surface frictional coefficient testing to better understand road surfaces and noted that testing the frictional coefficient of road surfaces allows engineers to better understand surface materials, how watering affects the frictional resistance of different road surface materials and allows them to make changes to watering systems and practices. 

In addition, the Department advised operators to regularly check the calibration of water trucks and noted several common issues that were identified from testing the calibration of water trucks:­ 

• Identical trucks and watering systems delivering very different application rates of water 
• Water rates are not being applied consistently across the travel path (overlapping of sprays, direction of sprays etc) 
• Overwatering occurs when water trucks are travelling at slower speeds 
• Water being wasted due to spray direction and width
• Sprays applying wider than required strips of water meaning a truck can have all wheels in the wet line

Shermac are the recognised experts in the design and manufacture of water carts for the mining industry and was founded on the understanding that the operational needs and operating environments of customers were so diverse that standardised equipment did not offer them sufficient flexibility. 

Ready to find out more? Talk to our expert team to find out more about how custom design and concept-to-delivery engineering and manufacturing capabilities can minimise project risk and ensure lowest total cost of ownership.