COVERSTORY
product tanks designed in-house to slide in and out for easy repairs and cleaning. The vans also have a spring-assisted manual ramp so that technicians can load equipment. They use the side door to load fertilizer bags onto the top of their tank frames with a forklift — instead of having to haul them on their own. “We’re interested in any way that tech- nology can make our crews’ lives easier and make their workday more efficient,” Reindl says.
Photos: Yellowstone Landscape
SiteRecon and they send back a detailed report, including how much mulch to put down,” Ogden explains. “It’s eliminated several hours on properties for us. We’ll still go out to put eyes on things like slope and drainage issues but getting those measurements and recommenda- tions have been a huge time saver.” Ogden says that on their irrigation side, they’re also having a lot of success with Tapigo, a mobile/cloud solution that uses built-in GPS to allow technicians to identify and locate all irrigation assets on a property. They create a report and drop pins for all irrigation components — then that data lives within the system to increase efficiency later on. “If we have a tech go out that’s new to that property, all they have to do is pull
28 The Landscape Professiona 28 The and ca e Landscape Professionall //July/August 2021July August 2021
up the information instead of wasting time having to find everything,” Ogden explains. “It keeps us moving.” In Loveland, Ohio, Oasis Turf & Tree is also using technology to streamline operations for everyone from the field staff to those in the office. In the field, owner Rob Reindl, LIC, says the company has been in the process of converting the fleet from gasoline to electric — including their Z-Sprayer equipment. It’s all part of the company’s effort to convert their oper- ations to net-zero emissions while also operating as efficiently as possible. The company has also been recog- nized for its fleet of fully customized Mer- cedes-Benz Sprinter vans which have every possible bell and whistle, including
On the office side, this includes a pre- dictive dialer system that saves the sales team time in hand dialing and maximizes the number of people they can reach in a day. In the office, they’ve also invested in state-of-the-art, 34-inch flat screen computers and wireless headsets with a 300-foot range for all office staff. Oasis also has digital media boards in their brand-new state-of-the-art facility, which are used for various real-time communication. This will include where technicians are out in the field and also positive comments from customers as they come in. The new building was also designed to be energy efficient. It uses geothermal energy as well as solar panels on the roof. At Neave Group Outdoor Solutions, headquartered in Wappingers Falls, New York, CEO Scott Neave, ASLA, PLA, says that technology allows for “communica- tion, accountability, and a firm grasp of what’s going on in the business.” He uses everything from Go iLawn for property measurements to Basecamp for project management to HubSpot for marketing — and Aspire as an internal software system to manage the busi- ness. Neave says the company had also adopted Microsoft Teams prior to the pandemic, which made it easy to adapt as many things changed.
“Our office staff was already set up remotely, so the pandemic wasn’t a learn- ing curve for us in that sense,” he says. “I think for our industry, which is on-the-go, using technology to be able to stay in touch and check in makes a lot of sense.” Yellowstone’s Barnes says that Aspire software is helping give the company a real-time look at business operations and performance. “The ability to know on a daily basis
exactly where you’re at with labor hours is critical when it comes to the bottom line,” he says. “We also use Aspire’s GPS integration in our fleet vehicles for easy routing. But it’s also been great to give our customers more precise information
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
