CHOOSING WISELY SAVES OPERATING COSTS—EACH AND EVERY DAY

By Brian Lowe

It has been said that operating a wide area mower on a turf farm, while not the most expensive piece of equipment to initially purchase, has the highest overall operating cost. This isn’t due to the repair cost, but rather it’s a func- tion of how many hours in a growing season a mower is used compared to all the other equipment found on a typical turf farm. Finding a way to minimize operating cost per acre, each and every day, year after year, is an im- portant consideration when choosing a wide area mower.

Beyond the initial purchase price, selecting a mower with the right design is the key to adding profit to the bot- tom line. In addition to ‘excellent cut quality’ (which is the ticket for entry that all manufacturers must have), there are three main areas to consider when looking at total mowing costs. They are: the direct labor cost per acre mowed, the actual productivity per shift, and the unproductive time as- sociated with routine maintenance.

One Man + One Machine =

Lower Cost The actual operator seat time is only one part of the direct labor expense that needs to be considered—make the right choice and it can be turned into a savings. It is a well-known fact that if you can keep a single operator assigned to a piece of equipment, they will take ‘ownership’ of it and take better care of the equipment. Not only does this reduce down time and cost by ensur-

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ing that the proper maintenance is done, the pride of an operator also pays off in a higher resale value or a longer replace- ment cycle. While a cross-trained opera- tor that can rotate between equipment is important to maintain farm produc- tion when the need arises, a dedicated employee will generally provide higher overall productivity and be safer while doing it. From this perspective, wages are just a portion of the overall labor cost that needs to be considered.

Productivity at a Cost -Work more hours! -Go Faster! -Get a bigger mower! Sure working more hours per day is often required to ‘catch up’ lost production due to weather delays or for finishing a big order with a short delivery—but working continuous long shifts isn’t sustainable for the employee or the owner. Have you measured how much more grass is cut in a 13 hour shift compared to a 10 hour shift? It might be 30 percent more on day one—but it won’t be 30 percent more on day five and that means you are losing money.

So, go faster! A recent study of a 36 foot wide turf mower showed that at 4 mph, a turf farm was able to cut on average 13-13.5 acres / hour. At 5.2 mph they mowed 14-15 acres / hour. While their mowing speed went up about 30 percent, the productivity only improved an aver- age of nine percent, along with increased fuel consumption, added wear and tear and operator fatigue—not the result that was hoped for.

So, get a bigger mower! True, a wider mower will reduce the number of pass- es and the time to mow a field. With- out the need for a different tractor, you can select a 22 foot mower over a 20 foot cutting width and increase production immediately by 10 percent. Buying a much larger mower however, must be a careful decision. Not only do bigger mowers come with a larger purchase price, they also may require a larger tractor. With the added cost

of Tier 4, that becomes a significant purchase decision. Considerations such as the field size, how often the mower is moved between fields or the availability of a tractor with enough horsepower must be factored in. To increase overall mowing production, sometimes a larger mower is the right decision. For example, consider these two larger mower options: a 30 foot roller mower or a 36 foot conventional mower that can be added to an exist- ing 22 foot wide model.

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s focus on the more common 20 to 22 foot mower class.

Gaining by Reducing Simply getting more work out of the mower you have per shift is another way to increase production and reduce operating costs. For instance, if an owner can reallocate just 45 minutes per 8 hours of operation from time spent on routine maintenance into production time—production goes up by 10 percent. But this only works when the mower is actually designed to provide more productive time per shift; it’s counterproductive and costly to cut back on the manufacturer’s recommended maintenance.

Increasing the time available per shift for production is a focus of current mower design. One strategy has been to find ways to reduce the time re- quired for daily maintenance. To meet this goal, mower manufacturers have introduced game changing features in the past few years that have caught the attention of many sod producers.

One example is maintenance-free blade spindles. These innovations typi- cally are developed and then tested in real world conditions over several years to insure they perform as required. Only then are they introduced by the manufacturer as standard equipment on their machines.

Another example is the extended TPI TURF NEWS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015