How Husqvarna’s robotic lawn mowers have elevated lawn maintenance at Leppington Anglican College.
Sure Green, a grounds-maintenance and landscape-construction company based in Sydney’s west, suggested installing Husqvarna’s robotic lawn mowers to a client, which led to an excellent result.
“We work in the environment, and it makes absolute sense for us to align with United Nations sustainability development goals,” explained Justin Mortan of Sure Green. “The main objective we have as a landscape business is to minimise our waste. We also want to minimise the chemicals that we put on the ground, including synthetic fertilisers.”
“When we’re talking about machinery,” he continued, “that’s emissions we don’t want going out into the air, not just from petrol fumes, but from the noise we’re creating.”
Sure Green’s sustainability goals were a good fit when he was assessing a job at Leppington Anglican College – a job which presented some unique challenges. Challenges which Husqvarna’s robotic lawn mowers were able to answer.
Timing
One of the factors which needed consideration was the machinery operating around the schedule of the students, who ranged from pre-schoolers up to year 12, and another was ensuring the students’ environment was kept as healthy and emission-free as possible.
Justin did some research.
“It was about a year ago I started looking into autonomous mowers,” he remembered. “Leppington Anglican College felt like the perfect location to introduce one of Husqvarna’s robotic mowers to maintain the grounds. The robotic mower now looks after all of the turf areas there.”
The first problem – operating without disrupting the students’ schedule – was solved.
“In the past, because the kids are here all the time, we couldn’t mow during the week, explained Justin. “Traditionally the school grounds were maintained on a weekend, which obviously increased labour costs.”
“Now, when the kids go home at night, the Husqvarna Automower® robotic mower comes out and mows silently. When they come back in the morning, it’s all freshly cut,” smiled Justin, clearly happy with the result.
Positive environment
Having the Husqvarna robotic mower maintain the lawn also meant quiet running and no harmful emissions, as well as no waste to deal with, a big positive, as Justin explained.
“As a grounds-maintenance business, waste is something we pull out of our jobs every single day,” he said. “Wherever we possibly can, we recycle them on site.”
“Because the robotic mower mows so regularly and only cuts a little bit off the top of the grass, we’re seeing that there’s no clippings around. The grass is getting thicker from the frequent cutting, and I’m not needing to utilise as much fertiliser.”
“I think the simple fact is that it’s a better turf for being cut every day,” he said.
As an added benefit to both the health of the turf and the presentation of the grounds, Justin has found the much lighter robotic mower doesn’t leave tracks in the turf after rain the way his heavier ride-on mowers would.
Commercially sound
While environmental responsibility is important, it can be difficult to justify if the cost benefit isn’t there. Fortunately, Justin and Sure Green have found some substantial gains, thanks to the use of Husqvarna’s autonomous system.
“It’s benefitted us because I don’t need to bring a ride-on mower to this site. All the team needs to do when they come in is to blow the leaves and do the weeding – just edging and whipper-snipping. That’s it. We use battery machinery that is much quieter to do that, so we’re not interrupting any of the classes,” he added.
And to those who believe autonomous mowers are taking jobs, Justin hasn’t found that to be the case.
“We’re finding it’s really hard to get staff, so we want to utilise our staff in the most efficient way we can,” he said. “Even though our team isn’t actually mowing the lawns, somebody needs to come out to install the robotic mower. It needs to be maintained. The blades need to be changed and scheduling of the robotic mower needs to adjusted in the dedicated app.”
“I definitely see it as something that’s not taking away roles anywhere. It’s providing opportunities. And I think the upskilling of the staff who normally would have been mowing and now do robotics work – it’s just training. It’s something we put in our development plans for our staff to get them ready.”
Great result
Not having to transport a ride-on mower to and from the site is a considerable saving in both time and finance for Sure Green, and so is the management of the Husqvarna Automower® 550 EPOS™ through the Husqvarna Fleet Services app. It allows one person to effectively manage and monitor the mower’s performance and service history without even visiting the site. It also makes programming operating times and exclusion zones a breeze.
For more about Husqvarna’s commercial robotics, scan the code or head to husqvarna.com/au.
