STAND K36
ALL GOOD AT GREENMECH
W
ho among us doesn’t enjoy a few interesting facts and figures? Not your
author, for one, and I was mildly startled at the amount of primer, paint, raw materials and component parts entailed in the manufacture of GreenMech’s distinctive machinery. Let’s start with a big one – the company consumes 25-30 tonnes of steel every single month, its sheet materials ranging from 3-15mm. As the equipment begins to take shape, the welding team – all 16 of them – blast through 65 spools of welding wire, roughly equating to 118km. Sub-assemblies are shot-blasted prior to painting, which demands 1.5 tonnes of steel shot costing £2,000 – that’s 10-15kg of shot used per unit. Next up, powder-coating, an average machine requiring 5kg of primer and
10kg of top coat – that means 500kg of primer and one tonne of top coat monthly. And lest there be any residual doubt that woodchippers are complicated beasts, the parts department carries over 31,000 line items. At the end of all that, the company employs 112 staff and builds just over 100 machines every month, its portfolio consisting of some 25 different models.
At the heart of every GreenMech machine is the engine, the company favouring Kubota for diesel power and Vanguard and Honda for petrol-driven equipment. How has the introduction of Stage V affected the business?
“We knew that Stage V was looming, says Sales Director Martin Lucas. “At the time, we were looking at 20 models that would need to be re-engineered. However, COVID helped in extending the use of transition engines, and this enabled us to get on with some of this engineering. It has been challenging, making sure that Stage V machinery is fit for purpose while not adding too much weight or cost.
GreenMech has four folding machines.
“The introduction of Stage V has also meant that it has become prohibitively expensive to use 35hp diesel engines, so everybody in our market has moved to 25hp.
GreenMech is bringing the popular EVO 165 to the Executive Hire Show.
There’s rather more to woodchippers than meets the eye, as we discovered at a recent GreenMech press event and a subsequent tour of the factory.
We compensated by introducing a larger flywheel, but this too presented a challenge, as a large part of our market is still sub- 750kg machinery. We launched the EVO range in 2019 and we’ve since brought in some new Stage V 750kg products.”
Stage V hasn’t been the only problem for companies such as GreenMech, which exports and has outposts in Europe and beyond. The dreaded B word raises its head…
“We’re probably all fed up of talking about Brexit, but the major change for us was the additional bureaucracy and paperwork. To be honest, we weren’t advised very well, and multiple border crossings for countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic became particularly problematic. However, our sales haven’t diminished – about 30% of our products go to the UK, 70% is export and of that Europe is our biggest market by far.”
Different countries undoubtedly have different requirements, so how does this break down in terms of the product range?
“Eight of our 25 products represent the majority of our business, and five of those
20 Executive Hire News - Jan/Feb 2022
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