PLANTWORX 2017 – R


Mud – but no Blood or Guts It seems from my experience, that some of the essential ingredients to a


successful Plantworx Show are rain, and then of course the inevitable mud. The mud is largely made worse by the hordes of visitors who tramp round the exhibits, and seem remarkably undaunted by it. I guess, for many of them, it is no worse than a day on site, and they are used to that. They come prepared with serious waterproofs and big boots. The usual British bonhomie of laconic and witty complaints about the conditions manages to give a common experience to joke about, and there are few long faces. I should add that when the sun comes out the demos are easier to do and see,


and the majority of the 2017 Plantworx did not have to endure rain and winds over its three-day duration. Bruntingthorpe is a great place for showing off plant – large and small - simply


because there is so much space, and there doesn’t seem to be any objection to digging up swathes of field to demonstrate the capabilities of machines. In fact, this year, the amount of exhibition space was increased by 20% and the Central Hub area was created to allow visitors a centre point from which to view their maps, plan their days, and look at a range of indoor exhibits too. Oh, and grab a coffee and snack, catch up on emails and messages, and even find a quiet spot for a meeting. The Innovation Award Winners were also celebrated at The Hub – a truly multi-purpose space that was much used, especially when the squalls of rain struck. Since Plantworx is absolutely vast, the ToolBusiness representatives


concentrated on a few areas where we wanted to bring a particular focus for the readers.


Garic Innovations The first of these was at the Garic stand where we were welcomed into a


space that was particularly appropriate for the day – a dry room – but a dry room with a difference as it is self-contained and solar-powered. Perhaps I should explain that medium and large building sites should have a dry


space in which workers can dry out and warm up. They may also use this space to keep valuables and also sit and eat their lunch. Anyone who has done a few days on a wet and cold building site in winter would know how valuable a warm and dry space is for maintaining worker morale, as well as enhancing health and safety in the round too. The Garic dry room is designed as a simple prefab-looking and self-contained


space. The inside can be configured with benches, hanging space, security lockers etc on a custom basis to suit the clients. The units can be joined together to make bigger spaces, but a key point is that each unit can be delivered to the site on the back of a lorry and craned into position where needed. But perhaps even more interesting is that the Garic dry rooms are solar


powered – and even on the cold, cloudy and wet day at Plantworx, the room where we got our introduction to the system was indeed warmed and dried by the solar powered system. The implications of this system are obvious in terms of saving energy, as well as saving the use of generators and mains power. I think that ToolBusiness and Hire needs to return to this story to follow it up on a real live site and see how it progresses. I think the solar-powered dry room has success written all over it. Garic also has another system in development that uses IT and sensor technology to maintain supplies to work sites. As Merc Albiston, Operations


22 ToolBUSINESS+HIRE


www.toolbusiness.co.uk


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