Michael Roberts of MDR Combined Services On providing tailored construction and concrete repair products and services

Your industry is extremely unique, share with our readers what you do.

At MDR Combined Services we give time back to communities and businesses by reducing traffic delays due to road works and by carrying out businesses expansions and repairs without disrupting their day to day operations. We do this by using high quality fast setting construction and repair systems including state of the art mobile concrete batching equipment, the latest in CTS Rapid Set Cement technology as well as Fastpatch polyurethane pavement repair products.

Tell us about your recently recorded record.

Using our Volumetric Concrete Australia (VCA) mobile mixers and CTS Rapid Set Cement we recently poured four concrete tilt panels which were lifted less than 24 hours later. This is a new record for Australia and the USA which we are very proud of. Using these methods we were able to save our client 14 days of delays and keep the project on schedule. Another advantage to using this particular kind of cement for a concrete panel placed underground is its impressive moisture resistance. The finer cement creates a less porous finished product which removes the need to apply a water proofing compound to the outside of the wall before the excavation was back filled.

Where do you see your company going in the next 2 years?

We have diversified into other concrete repair technology to be able to add further value to our clients during maintenance periods however ultimately we see ourselves providing exceptional value pavement maintenance solutions to every major Airport in Queensland and on every major highway constructed with concrete. We have the ability to provide savings of over 70% to the client while conducting these repairs and it is this value proposition that will continue to drive our growth.

What’s been your biggest obstacle to date?

Our biggest obstacle without doubt has been going to market with new equipment to Australia and a new cement technology that produces results most people would still say are not possible. We have some of the major operators who have been in the game for decades who are starting to make an effort to prevent us taking market share, which was a little daunting at first but the bottom line is it proves our concept has a place. As a young operator (under 30) making extraordinary claims of opening concrete to traffic within hours rather than days I need to make sure our message is conveyed quickly and concisely otherwise potential clients will happily stick with the methods they have always trusted.

If you could leave our readers with one last piece of business advice, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid to aim big and go to market with something that the rest of the world says is impossible. The advantage you have is that if the rest of the industry doesn’t believe in what you are doing it will be a while before they attempt to compete with your offer. It will take far more work than you firs thought to get your potential clients to come around to a new idea but if you keep working at it and continue to be an educator and a trusted professional in your field they will come around and when they do all of a sudden the rest of the market will be left behind, still doing things the old out dated way and looking for a way to catch up.