Five years after a previous meeting to discuss the company’s Hyundai R140LCM-9A high-walker machines, James Hendrie catches up with Ron Young of Dunnydeer Services, who recently took delivery of two Hyundai HX 140LC HWC excavators.
BACK in 2015, I visited Ron Young and his father Ronald at their base in the north-east of Scotland to find out about their business, Dunnydeer Services. Now, as then, their business was built on providing a wide range of forestry groundwork services to clients, including road construction and maintenance, mulching, timber loading, and, in particular, reinstatement and ground preparation for mounding. They had at that time just started using Hyundai R140LCM-9A high-walker excavators to carry out this work.
Returning five years on, I was interested to find out from Ron not only how these machines had fared over the last five years, but also more about the newest high-walker excavators he had just purchased. Dunnydeer Services has just recently started using two Hyundai HX 140LC HWC excavators.
Catching up with him at the company base at Insch in Aberdeenshire, the first piece of news I found out was not about the machines’ performance, but sadly that his father Ronald had passed away in 2017.
Ronald and Ron’s uncle George had been involved in the forestry industry during the 1960s and ’70s, carrying out tractor-powered trailed and mounted ploughing. Their experience led Ron to set up Dunnydeer Services in 1992 using excavators to carry out mounding work on forestry sites. On a more positive note, Ron told me that Ronald Jr., one of his three sons, had now joined him in the business. Having one of his sons in the business is something that he did not think would happen when we last met up five years ago.
Ron’s thinking then, and now, on buying forestry-specification high-walker excavators remains the same. It is simply that these machines come forestry-prepared, with little or nothing more to do to them before they can start operating on jobs.
“These high-walker excavators offer so much more ground clearance than a standard machine and this is vital when working on mounding sites. Brash, roots and debris all present challenges to an operator while working on restock sites and the fact that this type of machine’s undercarriage is better protected is vital. Also, the fact there are track guards and adjusters on the machines, which are designed to help keep the tracks from popping off, is a godsend.”
Ron’s Hyundai R140LCM-9A excavators have Perkins engines, while his new Hyundai HX 140LC HWC have Cummins QSF 3.8 four-cycle turbocharged, charge-air-cooled diesel engines with Stage IV engine emissions. They have high engine performance specification offering both high power and fuel efficiency and are designed to be eco-friendly. These new machines also have an AdBlue system to reduce the harmful emissions of nitrogen oxides, which are a source of pollution in the atmosphere.
While Ron is fully appreciative of the need to protect the environment, he told me it is another thing that needs to be managed as it adds a cost to his operation.
“It is something I now need to factor in to our work; I need to make sure that we have AdBlue available on our sites. The cost of it is not a lot in itself, but it is another factor to be aware of in managing business expenses. To be fair on the new excavators, the AdBlue tank is easy to access to top it up and the filters are also easy to get to when they need replaced. Given that we do a lot of our own maintenance on the machines, this is really helpful.”
Ron’s latest machines have been purchased through Agritrac Plant at Insch and Niven Crow from Agritrac has been on hand to offer after-sales advice and support to Ron. I was to also able chat with him at Ron’s base and he told me he was assisting Ron with gaining the full benefits from HiMate, Hyundai’s new remote-management system.
The system, Niven explained, uses GPS satellite technology to feed back information on each machine’s performance and location, as well as important diagnostic data, to the operator. The mobile-operated version comes as standard but this can be upgraded to operate with satellite technology as an optional extra.
While Ron was honest enough to say he was still coming to terms with HiMate, he was very positive about its benefits: “I can’t be out on the sites all the time and I need to know that my machines are operating effectively. Downtime is a major issue and knowing that there could be a potential issue with a machine and fixing it promptly is definitely a big help. Simple things like knowing when the machine is operating and not operating, so I can manage staff, never mind being aware of when fuel is running low, are definitely beneficial. Also, given the remote locations we operate in, being able to track the machines and their movements is vital in trying to stop theft of equipment.”
The system highlights and sends back fault code messages, allowing remedial actions to be taken without the need to go to the operating site itself, as Ron explained.
“Water in diesel can become a major issue operating in the woods and this can be commonplace, so getting an error code to allow this to be identified and fixed is a big help. The need to keep air intakes clear is necessary because of all the debris in the woods that can be sucked into the machines. Blocked air intakes can cause overheating and increased fuel consumption, both of which are not good. Once we get the information, if we can’t deal with it we can contact Graham Tyson, the service manager at Agritrac, and he sorts us out. Graham has been very supportive and helpful to us and if we can’t sort it out by phone, he gets one of his team to go on site to sort things.”
Back in 2015, Ron described the Computer Aided Power Optimisation (CAPO) system on the R140LCM-9A excavators as a scary-looking box, so dealing with new technology on these excavators is something that I guess he has become used to. Back then, he was quick to identify the benefits to him and his operators of making use of CAPO to ensure his machines were working at the optimum engine speed for the job at hand and that hydraulic oil and coolant temperatures were being monitored. I am sure that with time and support from Niven, Ron will enjoy the full benefits of HiMate on his new excavators.
Another piece of technology Ron believes is worthwhile as an optional extra is the AAVM (All-Around View Monitoring) camera system, which offers the operator all-direction vision around the machine, helping minimise the risk of accidents and mishaps both to fellow workers and to the excavator itself.
“It is great to be able to see from the comfort of the cab what is going on in and around the machine while you are operating it. Cabs these days are so comfortable and nice places to be in that sometimes operators can become a bit complacent and miss something going on outside. These cameras certainly help in my mind. A simple flick of the eyes towards the dashboard and you get 360-degree vision; effectively a bird’s-eye view around the machine.”
Ron was also full of praise for the hydraulic thumb, which he has had fitted to his excavator buckets on the new machines. This allows awkward materials and debris to be better manoeuvred towards the bucket and dealt with in an easier manner than if just the bucket itself was being used.
However, Ron warned: “The thumb should be used to bring or push brash and debris towards the bucket and not the other way around, as the greater weight of the bucket would damage or even destroy the thumb if you are not careful! I will certainly be looking to retro-fit thumb technology to my other excavators, such is the benefit of their use, in my opinion.”
Ron told me that, since our last meeting, Dunnydeer has been taking part in a number of ground-preparation trials: “Changes have taken place from my father’s days when ploughing was the norm. In my time, mounding has been the norm using excavators. Recently we have been using a technique called windrowing. This involves stacking the leftover brash, vegetation and debris in long, narrow rows. This allows space to be created for the planting of new trees, as well as helping the creation of effective drainage on the sites. To be fair, the choice of how to prepare the land for planting depends very much on the soil in the area where you are working, I have found.”
Dunnydeer Services continues to carry out work for Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), using the Public Contracts Scotland portal, as well as for a number of estates and for Aberdeenshire Council. Such is the competitive nature of forestry contracts now that Ron has found himself being successful on contracts further afield, while some work in the woods around his base in Aberdeenshire has gone to contractors from other parts of Scotland.
While the work for FLS is centred on mounding work, the estate jobs are more varied. Interestingly, perhaps reflecting the changing climate of Scotland, these jobs involve a lot of flood-prevention and riverbank-protection work. Estates that Dunnydeer Services works for include Glen Tanar, Dinnet and Altries, all on Royal Deeside.
“On Altries, the recent work has been about protecting the banks of the River Dee, which flows through the estate, by using quarried stones to ‘rock armour’ the banks to help stop its erosion in times of flooding.”
Ron’s new Hyundai HX 140LC HWC machines have been getting used on the mounding jobs in Inverness-shire for FLS. His method of transporting the machines from his base across the north of Scotland is using his six-wheeled tipper truck and drawbar trailer, onto which his 17.5-tonne excavators can be placed, with the buckets and other equipment needed on site being put in the tipper of the truck itself for transportation.
“The tipper is also used for the council jobs that we do, which mostly involves spray patching repair jobs for the Highways Department of Aberdeenshire Council. We also have a New Holland backhoe loader, which is used for general road works and snow clearing in the winter. So, the tipper truck, while its primary use is for the council jobs, is great for the doing the excavator moves. In my experience it is great for getting into the small and tight access roads to the forestry sites that we work on.”
The Hyundai HX 140LC HWC excavators had just been shifted the week I met up with Ron to a restock mounding site for FLS at Belladrum near Inverness, while the original Hyundai R140LCM-9A excavators were going to be doing similar work on a site at Laggan Wolftrax near Newtonmore. The four original Hyundai R140LCM-9A high-walker machines now all have around 7,500 hours on them but Ron told me they were still operating really well and he had no immediate plans to replace them. So, the move towards these machines five years ago has certainly proved beneficial and successful to Dunnydeer Services.
The last time we spoke, Ron had told me that he wanted to see younger workers coming into this side of the industry and this remains a wish of his.
“My own son Ronald has joined the business in his early twenties and I am pleased that this has happened. However, mounding work is hard graft. You are out in the woods working a 10-hour day, five days a week, doing what can be a stressful, repetitive job in all weathers.
“More often than not, you are staying away in a caravan for long periods. A lot of this is in isolation, so it is not exactly the work that most young folk want to do in terms of a career choice.”
Overall, his view on the industry at large is that he hopes there is more encouragement or incentives to landowners to plant new trees and forests. He believes that landowners need to be convinced that growing trees can work economically for them and encouraged to use their land for that purpose. New plantings, in turn, will offer the opportunity for more work for companies like Dunnydeer Services and employment opportunities.
In addition, while understanding the need for the use of the Public Contracts Scotland portal and the need to have some form of measurement and appraisal of bids for work against the same criteria for all, Ron has an idea to help shape it. He can’t help wondering if, in terms of helping the carbon footprint, some form of points system could be developed to recognise the role that getting local companies and contractors to job sites in their areas could play in assisting this.
“Currently we have a situation where we are all travelling some distances to our work sites and that must have some environmental impact.”
Ron is heading towards 40 years in the industry and still has no regrets about working with excavators in a forestry setting rather than in a construction one: “Mounding and groundwork preparation in forestry is more specialist and challenging in my mind than on a building site.
“You also have the wonderful scenery of the Scottish countryside for company, with all the wonderful nature and wildlife outside your cab window. Finally, with today’s machines offering everything in the height of safety and comfort, what more could you ask for?”
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