 Green Circle Growers uses around 60 electric carts for shipping, production and maintenance.Trying to move people, plants and supplies around a 100-acre greenhouse operation might seem like a daunting task. But at Green Circle Growers in Oberlin, Ohio, the use of electric carts, tow motors and people-moving trolleys gets the job done.Green Circle buyer Dean Palm said the company uses around 60 Cushman and Taylor-Dunn electric carts or “tugs” to move its managers, growers and maintenance people around the massive facility. “We’re using electric tugs to move plant carts. That’s how we pull them through the greenhouses,” Palm said. “We retrofit the tugs a little bit. We put interchangeable battery packs in them. We do run two shifts here, so in the spring we’re running basically 24 hours a day.” The battery packs eliminate having to have extra tugs sitting idle while being charged. “We can get by with half as many carts as what we would need by having the interchangeable battery packs,” he said. “So we have a lot of battery packs and chargers that are charging the batteries constantly. We have a hoist that people can use to remove a used battery pack and replace it with a charged one.” Palm said the company’s maintenance department does a good job of making sure the electric carts are operating properly. “I have been here 36 years and there are some electric carts that are still here from when I started. The one that I use was here when I started.” .jpg) Moving supplies, peoplePalm said that TCM tow motors are also an essential piece of equipment for moving supplies and plants through the greenhouses and in the shipping area. “Each tow motor operator is issued a tow motor,” Palm said. “We have shipping tow motors that are kept in our shipping barn. Those are for unloading and loading trucks. We have three full-time operators that move plastic supplies like pots and hangers to our production barn.” Palm said the pulling of the orders is done during the day. A shipping crew that starts in the afternoon will begin loading orders on trucks and won’t stop until all of the orders are loaded. During the spring, loading might not be finished until 6 a.m. the next morning. “We push in the spring. Our record was 80 semis in one day,” he said. The company has also come up with a way to move people around the operation. “We have people-mover carts that are pulled behind the tugs,” he said. “They hold about 10-15 people on each cart. We’re being about being smart and efficient here. You need to find the right equipment for what you want to do. The company is very good about getting the equipment needed to make the job more efficient and easier on the employees.” Want to know more? Green Circle Growers, (440) 775-1411; www.greencirclegrowers.com. |
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