The tree care industry is a growing industry, and growth is good! Growth breeds competition, and competition results in better technology, better products and better solutions. Challenges remain--including staying profitable in an ever-changing industry, recruiting and retaining dependable employees, and ensuring jobsite safety.
Today, the devastating wildfires in the western portion of the country will require salvage logging and forest replanting operations, while repeated violent storm activity across the land is keeping tree cutters busy in urban areas.
Demanding times in the arborist industry have traditionally served to increase the number of skilled arborists and the profits of tree cutting businesses. At the same time, manufacturers attempt to beef up new equipment models or add new features to the same tree cutting equipment.
This article aims to have a discussion on some of the past and current tree cutting practices and present new machinery that can offer tree dismantling and removal businesses a ten-fold increase in productivity and a reliable method to get jobs done without a loss in profit margin. Imagine, one person, getting more work done than an entire crew, and in less time.
If you are in the tree service and removal industry, think about some of the challenges your business faces on a daily basis. Although we don't claim to know them all, there are a few challenges that exist today that would certainly stand to benefit from a more streamlined and safer operation. A change that modernizes unproductive processes and transforms traditionally dangerous working environments into those that are dramatically safer. A few motivating factors driving a need for an industry transformation include:
Tree cutting can be a dangerous and labor-intensive job. With a limited crew of workers, a business is limited in the number of contracts they can effectively take on at one time. Additionally, bidding on large projects without adequate manpower and equipment takes its toll in time, effort, and lost profits.
An accurate picture of the state of the industry is also a challenge to determining the health of the industry. The tree care profession includes not only tree cutters, but also workers employed in the pruning of branches, removal of dead sections, stump grinding and removal, tree transplanting, fertilizing new and established trees, and the administrative workers employed by tree care services.
Since industry employment and economic impact statistics do not separate these jobs by title, and neither is there any meaningful separation between utility arborists, commercial tree services, municipal service providers, and independent operators, specific and concrete statistics remain elusive. In 2017, Tree Services Magazine conducted an industry survey of 250 arborists and published the following statistics which indicate industry-wide trends:
Today, the bulk of the projects completed by arborists and tree care workers include clearing right-of-ways and land developments for new construction, the removal of fallen and damaged trees following destructive storms, and the management of trees to prevent contact with utility power line dedicated space.
In these environments, when you consider that many professional tree cutters are tasked with working in these oftentimes risky environments, it becomes clear that a new approach to tree care can help to transform the industry with more efficient operations, increased profits and better safety statistics.
Through the years, advancements in personal safety equipment and increased governmental safety regulations have sought to overcome many of the challenges that workers face.
From the early days of the cross cut saw, the tree care industry has made many advances in equipment, techniques and technologies to meet these challenges. And while this is not to discount all the strides that have been made to increase worker safety and the continuing need for education, however, tree removal for utility line clearance, emergency storm response, and vegetation management still leads the nation in occupational safety hazards. Electrocutions, critical head injuries, falls, machine-related injuries (especially with wood-chippers), and being struck by falling objects continue to inflict workers and cause deadly results.
Bucket trucks, aerial lifts, chainsaws, and specialized wood cutting tools have not overcome these challenges. As a matter of fact, the use of power tools near utility lines and the risk of a false sense of security a percentage of workers may experience on aerial lifts have only added to making this industry one of the most dangerous in the country.
The truth is, today’s tree workers and tree removal procedures have not yet overcome many of the occupational safety issues, while at the same time the work is still labor-intensive and without remarkable offset in productivity, manpower, time, or costs.
What would your tree removal business look like if you could drastically reduce work-related risks and the associated legal issues and fines that accompany workplace accidents and property damage?
The future of the tree care industry is here - as SENNEBOGEN introduces its line of tree handling equipment that dramatically improves safety and reduces the size of on-site crews – all while simultaneously cutting and handling trees and branches in the most rugged environments and obstruction-filled landscapes.
The SENNEBOGEN 718 series is a custom-engineered versatile tree care handler that integrates multiple tree cutting production tasks into one machine – requiring one operator. Consider a saw head and material handler on one machine that precuts and safely stacks timber in a fraction of the time over conventional methods. When mated with a self-powered chipper, your operations become automated and your tree removal process will outpace the competition 10 to 1.
The versatile 718 series is purpose-built specifically for the tree care industry and is suitable for urban applications, including utility line management, maintaining road embankments, clearing land for residential or commercial construction, large-scale municipal projects such as parks, and widespread storm damage remediation.
For an industry that still operates to a large extent by man power and hand-held power tools – all while workers are oftentimes exposed to the most risky of situations – the SENNEBOGEN 718 is revolutionary.
Watch the SENNEBOGEN 718 E-Series in action on the YouTube channel or visit SENNEBOGEN North America online.