A Look At The Polaris Opole Factory

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A Look At The Polaris Opole Factory: Founded by David Johnson and brothers Edgar and Allan Hetteen in 1954, Polaris Industries is now a global powersports leader. Employing over 10,000 people worldwide with annual sales in 2017 of $5.4 billion, Polaris has been the world leader in off-road vehicles for over 30 years. In 2014, Polaris enhanced its manufacturing capability by opening the first Polaris factory intended for the production of off-road vehicles outside of North America in Opole, Poland.

With over 300 employees, the 33,700m² Opole facility plays a pivotal role in the production, homologation and development of off-road vehicles for Europe, Middle East and African markets for Polaris. In 2017, the Opole Distribution Centre was built which occupies an area of 17,500m².

A Look At The Polaris Opole Factory

The average journey for one of the 7000 active components coming into the facility from one of the 200 vendors from around the world, would start upon their arrival into the warehouse area. There are over 3300 pallet locations in the racking system and 1000 supermarket flow rack locations for the components to be housed and sorted. Any parts that come from overseas in disposable packaging are repacked into internal reusable boxes.

Next stop is the Welding area, which currently produces 46 ATVs and 26 SXS each day. Each of the 10 dual stations for ATV or 20 stations for SXS chassis are fitted with fume ventilation systems and a Visual Work Instruction screen which presents an isometric view of the parts to the operator. There’s a robotic welding cell too, where suspension components are manufactured.

Painting operations consist of both plastic and metal painting areas. The plastic paint areas have two spraying ovens installed and the metal painting system has an automated painting line which takes care of the whole process from chemical pre-treatment to curing. All painters are trained in house to ensure they’re perfectly qualified.

The facilities and plant service team ensure the factory runs smoothly and equipment is maintained. There is also a dedicated test team who put the vehicles under scrutiny on the 2km test track, situated at the rear of the factory – this also includes an asphalt test area, to simulate on-road experience. This data, along with the experiences of the test drivers, is used to further develop vehicles with the US team.

Once the components have been welded and painted, they make their way to their penultimate stop – assembly. There are two horse-shoe shaped assembly lines – one for RZR, RANGER and GENERAL vehicles and one for ATVs and ACE vehicles. Operators are provided with visual work instructions – 3D image files and the operator can rotate the image to view different angles – instead of paper instructions. The material is presented in convenient packing and locations so that there’s little material handling for the operator.

Designed with efficiency at the heart, all of the operators are visible from any point on the line so that the group leaders can see how the production is flowing and make any corrections should there be any problems. The length of the assembly process depends on the complexity of the vehicle. An example of a complex vehicle would be the RANGER, which takes around one hour 20 minutes to assemble. Staff are rotated between the different assembly lines to ensure they are skilled on both lines and their minds are fresh.

Once assembled, vehicles are tested on a rolling road to check all functions and then put directly into a crate and wrapped, ready for distribution. Random vehicles are pulled from the line and checked for extra quality checks. Nearly 40,000 have been produced since the ISO 9001 certified factory opened in 2015 – it was the first Polaris factory with a certified Quality Management System.

“Working at the Polaris factory here in Opole isn’t just a job for our employees – our staff take part in charity events, attend Polaris events and are able to experience the Polaris product for themselves. We foster a positive working environment and as a result have a low staff turnover. Since opening the factory, the nearly three-quarters of the staff who started with us in 2015, are still with us and we have members of the same family who work here. We look forward to the future of the Opole facility – and see it going from strength to strength due to our capacity and our employees skills.”, said Director of Operations at Polaris Opole, Bogusław Dawiec.

‘Understand the riding experience. Live the riding experience. Work to make it better.’

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Trilo Makes Leaf Collection Easier

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Trilo Makes Leaf Collection Easier: Four SU60 vacuum units from Trilo are the latest additions to fleet at the City of Wolverhampton Council, and have quickly made the momentous task of leaf collection that much easier.  At just shy of five million square metres in area, the grounds maintenance and street cleansing operation is certainly ‘large in scale’. The 131-person team, including six dedicated grass cutting teams, is headed up by Citywide Area Manager for Environmental Services Richard Macvicar.

“Our leafing period usually lasts from October through to Christmas and the New Year” explains Richard, who has been in his current role for 26 years. “During this time, the mechanical road sweepers are out but trying to collect all the leaves saw them blocking up quite quickly, so we looked around for something that could be used in conjunction with our current activities.”

Trilo Makes Leaf Collection Easier

With the team having previous experience of Trilo equipment and recognising its reliability and effectiveness, Richard went to local dealer Oakleys who carried out a demonstration. “We looked at a few alternatives at Saltex but after seeing the SU60 on demonstration, together with our past experience, we had no problem in placing the order.” The council took delivery of two units at the beginning of 2017, and another two in the autumn, split between the two city depots. They went into the leafing period with four units ready for full-time operation, shared between the parks, highways and street cleansing teams.

“The Trilo SU60’s are towable on a general license and can be detached and easily manoeuvred for easy transportation around the yard and out in the field. The manual wonderhose helps us get to
space-restricted areas, with the size and capacity of the machine ideal for roadside work, where you’re additionally restricted by traffic and pedestrians. As planned it’s also been great working alongside our road sweepers, which gather the leaves into piles before the Trilo’s come along and collect them.”

Final word from Richard, “For many years, the lads swore by our previous Trilo unit for leaf collection. This doesn’t look like it’ll change now with our new fleet – my supervisor on the ground said the operation over 2017/18 had never gone so well.”

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Pitch Renovations At Wycombe

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Pitch Renovations At Wycombe: Campey Turf Care Systems has assisted contractors Turf Tonics with the first in-house renovation of Wycombe Wanderers Football Club’s award-winning pitch at Adams Park.

 The Buckinghamshire club enjoyed success on two fronts on the pitch during the 2017/18 season, not only achieving automatic promotion to League One but also scooping the League Two Grounds Team of the Year for the work conducted by Turf Tonics, led by full-time groundsman Sean Woodley.

Pitch Renovations At Wycombe

Preparations are now underway for the Chairboys’ first campaign back in League One since the 2011/12 season, with the playing surface playing an integral part to the team’s aspirations of another successful year, as Wycombe Wanderers general manager Michael Davies explains:

“We aspire to have a pitch which complements the football team rather than inhibits them, and it worked extremely well for us last season. Naturally, the players and the management staff request the best possible pitch that we can provide with the resources available to us, and our long-standing partnership with Turf Tonics enables us to meet those requirements with an outstanding surface.

“It’s testament to Turf Tonics and their hard work, expertise and dedication that we won the League Two Grounds Team of the Year award. It’s a phenomenal achievement and it is something we will be striving for again in League One.

“Last season we staged 50 games on the pitch, including 28 of our own in league and cup fixtures, plus Reading Ladies and Reading Under 23s matches as well as tournaments after the season had finished.

“Our club president, Ivor Beeks, is effectively the custodian of the pitch and carefully manages its usage and availability to ensure it remains in the best possible condition. The pitch is a highly sought-after commodity, and we receive many requests for private hire for matches or commercial use, but football comes first and it’s vital that we strike the right balance,” he added.

Bringing in additional income via third party pitch usage is important to the club, and whilst it’s clear that they respect the limits of the surface, the recent success has led to expectation and for Steve Gardner, a managing partner of Turf Tonics, a successful first in-house renovation is vital for the club’s financial and football plans.

“We’ve seen the renovations Premier Pitches have done at Adams Park in the last two seasons and they used what I’d regard as the industry standard machines by Campey,” he said.

“Because it was our first in-house renovation, it was important to us that we used the best equipment and Ben Taylor at Campey has really helped us out. We used their new 1.6-meter Koro FTM with Universe Rotor because it’s a Desso Grassmaster pitch and that went one direction across the pitch yesterday and took a majority of the top off.

“We also used Campey’s Raycam TB 220 brush, Raycam Speedresser and Raycam Aeraseeder to complete the rest of the work. Our first game is on 14th July, we’re making excellent progress to be able to provide the highest quality of surface for the season ahead.”

As part of the renovation, groundsmen were invited to attend and view the machines in action to gain the first-hand experience of best practice and learn more about renovating a hybrid pitch as they continue to grow in popularity throughout all professional tiers of football and rugby.

For more information, visit: www.campeyturfcare.com

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Terra Float Air Delights in Lancashire

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Terra Float Air Delights in Lancashire: In a previous life Stuart Hogg, Course Manager at The West Lancashire GC was among the first to own the Wiedenmann Terra Float & Terra Seed. Last year, more by coincidence than by design, he found himself back in the market for an overseeder just as the Terra Float Air was re-engineered and relaunched with an added computerised pneumatic unit.

“We bought one of the original launch Terra Float and Terra Seed combinations in autumn 2010 when I was Course Manager at St Anne’s Old Links, on the Fylde coast. They served extremely well. When I moved to The West Lancashire in April 2015, I inherited a more traditional type seeder. For the first couple of seasons we made do then we hired in equipment. Last winter a funding package allowed us to invest in a new machine. Darren Barker at dealers, Balmers GM, showed me some others but I liked that the three Wiedenmann drums are floating so cope well with undulations of a links green.  I knew I liked it before and the Air version was better again,” he said.

Terra Float Air Delights in Lancashire

Offering maximum accuracy at quantities as little as 1 g / m² the Terra Float Air, combines three units in one. A base unit aerates or loosens soil to 30 mm using either spikes or fine slits assuring a receptive seed bed either pre or post top dressing. Next the distribution of the seed is absolutely uniform via the air flow and deflector system.  Finally, a brush and roller combination incorporates top dressing materials to the ground before smoothing the surface.  With its very fine seed rollers exact calibration is achievable. Those with expensive or ‘rare seed’ can be confident of success while memory function on the control pad stores input and calibration data for the next use.

The West Lancashire GC is a proud host of R&A and England Golf competitions as well as featuring in the Top 100 Golf Courses in Great Britain.  It is one of England’s ten oldest clubs and will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2023. The role earmarked for the Wiedenmann Terra Float Air has been well considered to help deliver incremental improvements to the quality of the course and take advantage of the machine’s versatility and potential.

“This purchase is not just about one area or one type of grass or indeed just limited to seeding,” said Stuart Hogg.  “We want to be able to do tees, greens, fairways and walkways with different grass species.  The fact that the seed delivery hoses are kept dry and clean with the airflow is a big plus. If we want we can brush the greens without overseeding or we can sarrel roll the greens. There is much that can be done. But for now we’re going with little and often; playing the long game. It will take a period of time before we see a change of any botanical composition in the grass but that’s where we want to be in seasons to come.

“So far the Air has had one outing around the pathways with dwarf rye fescue mix, a couple of passes on the tees and three passes on the greens both with a pure fescue mix but we’re on a break until after The R&A’s Open qualifying and the club championships.  During August, September and possibly October, weather dependant, I expect it to be constantly overseeding the greens every two to three weeks to let germination happen ahead of winter.”

Terra Float Air Delights in Lancashire

Where the Air comes into its own is its high performance air stream which effortlessly directs precise amounts of the seed to the prepared perforated holes A series of steel deflector plates ensures uniform depositing of the seeds from a short distance while lifting the unit automatically triggers a shut off.

“The in-cab control saves time and effort.  Our team really likes this. If one of the greens, or a specific area is a bit weaker there’s no requirement to get out and recalibrate the machine.  It’s a couple of presses of a button and the machine does it for you, storing the data for next time. You are far more in control of which green gets what and such versatility on a golf course makes the job a little bit easier,” concluded Stuart Hogg.

Stuart Hogg is one of a rare breed of course managers having spent his entire career on links courses.  He took up his Course Manager post at The West Lancashire GC after 11 years at St Anne’s Old Links and before that spells at two other links courses, Fortrose & Rosemarkie GC on the Black Isle and West Kilbride GC at Seamill in Ayrshire. At The West Lancashire he is supported by a team of seven full time plus three seasonal staff.

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Get More With Toro Cylinders

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Get More With Toro Cylinders: Reesink Turfcare is reminding customers that replacing or upgrading to new Toro cylinders offers customers so much more than a perfect finish, among many other things they bring the best possible value, too.

Value, one of the most important factors determining purchasing decisions. Budget control is something all course managers and greenkeepers will feel the pressure from and getting value from what is spent is paramount. Which is what makes Toro cylinders such a sensible option. Here we look at the reasons why.

Get More With Toro Cylinders

With the workings of a cylinder mower so intricate, it would be unwise to upset the equilibrium by putting anything other than genuine parts in your Toro, and only genuine Toro cylinders balance with genuine Toro bedknives for the perfect fit.

Fitting an inferior ‘will-fit’ part against a genuine Toro bedknife removes the guarantee of a consistently accurate cut right down to 2.5mm, increasing the risk of turf damage. This means only genuine Toro cylinders give you the best fit and deliver the cleanest cut, promoting healthier turf and giving you an amazing after-cut appearance.

And because genuine Toro cylinders are built strong and fit in the cutting units so well, they wear less, so the need for constant cylinder grinding is less, meaning less maintenance and more efficient mowing operation.

Toro cylinders are also the only cylinders available in 5, 7, 8, 11 and 14-blade configurations to fit all cylinder mowers, including the Greensmaster and Reelmaster ranges.

Add to that Reesink’s parts backup is widely accepted as being second-to-none -15,000 Toro items, with performance parts delivered within 24 hours’ notice pretty much anywhere in the UK and 12,000 fast-moving lines are housed at the European distribution centre in Belgium with 48-hour availability. If all else fails, a 72-hour trans-Atlantic airfreight service comes into action calling on parts held at Toro’s Minneapolis manufacturing base. This is all at no extra cost to the customer and represents the kind of reassurance Reesink wants to give greenkeepers: minimum downtime, maximum productivity and more customer service.

In fact, it’s this approach, focusing on keeping the customer’s total cost of ownership as low as possible – a shared philosophy with The Toro Company, that has seen Reesink recognised by The Toro Company for outstanding performance in Parts, Service and Technical Training in the past.

 Contact distributor Reesink Turfcare’s Toro parts department on 01480 226800, email info@reesinkturfcare.co.uk or visit reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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