About us

Earthmoving Equipment for Perth Western Australia and Australia Wide

Welcome to Digrite, your trusted Takeuchi and Mecalac dealer in Perth, Western Australia. With a passion for quality construction equipment, we specialize in providing top-of-the-line excavators and skid steer solutions to meet your project needs.

At Digrite, we take pride in offering a comprehensive range of buckets and attachments compatible with all makes and models. Our extensive inventory ensures that you have access to the best equipment and tools, tailored to suit your specific requirements.

Why choose us? With years of experience in the industry, we have established ourselves as a reliable partner for contractors, builders, and construction professionals across Perth. Our team is dedicated to providing expert advice, exceptional customer service, and timely support to ensure your projects run smoothly and efficiently.

As an authorized dealer of Takeuchi and Mecalac, we are committed to delivering the highest quality machinery that sets the industry standard for performance and reliability. Whether you're looking for compact excavators, versatile skid steers, or durable attachments, we have the solutions to help you get the job done right.

Explore our range of products and discover how Digrite can elevate your construction projects to new heights. Contact us today to speak with our knowledgeable team and experience the difference of partnering with a trusted name in the industry.

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History:

Before the start of Digrite, Stewart completed his apprenticeship as a plant mechanic with a company based on repairing rail maintenance equipment for which he continued for 3 years after his ticket. Stewart then moved to Komatsu for maintenance on mining equipment in the remote north of Western Australia for 3 years. Stewart then returned to Perth to again work with his father Norm Shepley like he had done growing up, this partnership was strong for 6 years during the large backhoe period before mini excavators took over the market.

With mini excavators now on the scene, Stewart and Norm decided rather than growing the business further Stewart would part out and take on the growing mini excavator market while Norm would continue servicing the backhoe market.

With that, Digrite started in 1992 in a small shed in Kewdale, WA. Susan worked in the office managing accounts and parts, while Stewart continued service work and employed Big Dave, a full time boilermaker from the start. Stewart quickly employed an apprentice and the team of 4 got moving straight away. Digrite quickly became the service business for the local Takeuchi dealer due to impressive service and commitment to the product.

In 1998 Digrite moved forward and took on the Takeuchi dealership. Stewart's strong mechanical knowledge and familiarization with the product allowed him to be very honest and open in discussing machinery options with clients.

By 2000 the team outgrew the Kewdale property and we managed to purchase a much larger property in Welshpool.

At around this time, Digrite started a strong hire fleet to assist customers in their needs for extra machinery. Digrite hire is still running today and is focused on assisting customers, not competing. Digrite also took on the Grundomat product range in 2004.

Just before the recession hit the decision to rebuild Welshpool was a commitment on paper, this included demolition on the old buildings and a brand new purpose built layout was built. Unfortunately, this really was one of the worst timing situations we have experienced due to the recession. However, we have come out at the other end with a great new facility ready for the future.

In 2012 Phil Shepley, the son of Stewart, became involved with the business to help rebuild. Phil was previously engineering and had a strong mechanical background around the family business growing up.

Phil first focused on engineering attachments in a more cost effective method, building many prototypes and designs to create a smarter way of manufacturing attachments in Australia. The manufacturing of Dig It products was restarted in 2013.

The next few years was spent with Stewart and Phil working hard on the business to create internal systems and procedures to help Digrite's goal of high quality service. A fair amount of resistance to effective systems managed to filter staff down to the strong and focused team we have today.

In 2013 Digrite started national distribution of the Mecalac products. This unique product has brought extra change to the Digrite procedures, highlighting the advantages of high quality service even further due to the machinery’s extreme performance advantages outweighing the purchase pricing and allowing us to focus on other things apart from price.

2014 saw the start of our offshore manufacturing facility for attachments. This bold move was not made to decrease costs, instead it was to increase quality and quantity. This strange concept was because of the lack of good quality staff available in Western Australia for manufacturing the high number of attachments we now sell. The offshore team is managed by Phil and are motivated and focused on high quality attachments. When built in bulk using the same, or better material as local built attachments, the cost saving isn’t found in the manufacturing price, but in the reduced rate of error in the final products. However not all products can be manufactured with enough lead-time, so manufacturing at Digrite is still strong with a full shed always busy on new designs and custom attachments for customers.

We now employee more staff than previously and are still growing positively with an important small family ran business focus which helps us react quicker than larger corporations. Norm can be found working on backhoes at Digrite from time to time and it's great to see the three generations still working together.