For more than 30 years, Arbor Age magazine has been covering new and innovative products, services, technology and research vital to tree care companies, municipal arborists and utility right-of-way maintenance companies
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/44468
SPECIAL FEA Arbor Age magazine recently asked a wide range of equipment manufacturers and suppliers to share their insights about the equipment market,and how the trends they are seeing will impact your equipment decisions.Their observations are as follows: What trends are you seeing in terms of the overall buying habits of those in the tree care industry? FEVA has benefited from a significant increase in bucket truck purchasing midway through Q3. — Robert Dray, sales and marketing manager, Forestry Equipment of VA (FEVA) The end user is looking for a lightweight, comfortable product with innovative ideas to make their job easier. — Jim Pennefeather, vice president sales & marketing, Buckingham Manufacturing Co., Inc. Folks are waiting until the last strategic moment before invest- ing. As always, they want long-lasting tools as inexpensively as possible. — Tobe Sherrill,CEO, SherrillTree We see a continuing trend of our customers managing their equipment investments very carefully due to the uncertain eco- nomic conditions. In general, customers are delaying replacements until absolutely necessary and are being very cautious about fleet expansion. That said, when our customers do need to purchase equipment, they are choosing machines that are the right fit for their particular business needs.We are seeing less "buying off the rack," and more focused purchas- ing decisions. — Tommy Nix, VP - strategic markets, Terex Utilities Purchasing versatile equipment that can handle jobs fast and efficiently is a key consideration for contractors hoping to differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace.Traditionally, crews sent out to remove and chip trees haven't hauled stump-removal equipment with them.We see more operators purchasing portable products,such as the SGR-6 and SGR-13 walk-behind stump grinders. With lift handles that make for easy loading and unloading, both commercial-grade models fit easily in the backs of trucks, 16 Arbor Age / October 2011 equipment Folks are waiting until the last strategic moment before investing. As always, they want long-lasting tools as inexpensively as possible. —Tobe Sherrill, SherrillTree We see that tree companies are becoming more mechanized. The goal here is to reduce the amount of labor needed to process their urban wood waste, but they also want more production at a lower operating cost. Some are investing in bigger chippers that can be mechanically fed, allowing for greater overall production with fewer employees on site. On the other end, we see many companies going to smaller chippers that can still deliver produc- tion of the larger machines they had in the past, when fuel prices weren't such an issue. Regardless of the size, companies are now looking much closer at the quality and consistency of their end product.That's because it can be a source of revenue used to grow their markets, whereas in the past may have been sent to a landfill or dump site. — Christopher A. Smith, communications editor/public relations, Bandit Industries Inc. Access to capital is still difficult, suppressing demand for equipment, and pushing more cus- tomers toward used equipment and rental. — Frank Schneider, senior product manager, Terex Aerial Work Platforms (for Genie) Photo courtesy of Genie Interest continues to build around organics and compost tea. We have added more brewer/extractor sizes, now carrying everything from 12G up to 1,000G, not including our 5G homeowner version. We are working with the Rodale Institute on validating the science and brewing/extracting procedures so they can become more standardized and widely accepted. We are also marketing the only piece of ride-on equipment that can make compost tea applications —along with every other kind of application.And we continue to develop high-volume application www.arborage.com SPECIAL FEATURE allowing contractors to offer additional on-demand services to their customers. —Greg Lawrence, product marketing manager for Toro compact utility