Grass is grass right? It grows, you cut it. This hasn’t changed in a long time but how we go about cutting the grass has.
In March the Parks and Reserves team from Burnie City Council, Tasmania, took delivery of twins – two identical shiny new tilt/slide tray trucks for the mobile mowing crews.
Each truck transports two ride-on mowers and two operators without the need for trailers. This approach isn’t new and this is the third set of tilt/side tray trucks Council has purchased.
What is exciting is how these trucks have evolved over time to become safer, leaner and better.
Significant effort was made to address safety and storage concerns on the previous trucks and through consultation with the operators and modifications to the truck trays the old trucks were improved and became a prototype or template for future trucks.
The new trucks supplied by Webster Trucks with trays manufactured in Tasmania by Frost Engineering, incorporate all the improvements from the old trucks in addition to new refinements and improvements on the new trucks.
Again, through consultation with the operators the truck trays were redesigned to provide additional storage and safety features.
A 5S project was done on the trays and now there is a place for everything and everything has its place. The behind cab storage cabinets store two brush cutters, fuel drums, parts and spares and all the personal protective equipment needed in a dry, secure place. The tray is now uncluttered and everything is secured and restrained to comply with transport regulations and the tray is safer for operators to load and unload their mowers.
Council Works Coordinator, Pat Chick and the operators collaborated in developing these trucks in partnership with the tray fabrication company.
This supplier has worked closely with Council on these and several other new trucks which have seen significant improvement and enhancement over the units they replaced.
Council is very fortunate to be able to supply such bespoke and high quality equipment to its people and the operators are very appreciative of the investment Council continues to make in their safety and productivity.
The entire fleet has seen significant modernisation in recent years using LEAN principles applied through the Burnie Continuous Improvement Program and will assist in improving efficiencies out in the field. They are very smart professional looking trucks.
