Equipment World

John Deere announced it will enhance the capabilities of existing diagnostic tools and expand their availability. In 2023, the company will roll out an enhanced customer solution that includes a mobile device interface, and the ability to download secure software updates directly to embedded controllers on select John Deere equipment with 4G connections.

In addition, John Deere announced that coming in May it will expand its offerings by giving customers and independent repair shops in the U.S. the ability to purchase Customer Service ADVISOR directly through JohnDeereStore.com.

Customer Service ADVISOR has been available through John Deere dealerships, enabling customers to diagnose, troubleshoot and repair their own equipment. With the ability to purchase directly from John Deere, equipment owners and independent repair shops will have expanded access to Customer Service ADVISOR, in addition to existing access to replacement parts to complete needed repairs.

John Deere owners will continue to have the option to visit a dealership, engage an independent repair shop, or self-repair their machines according to their preferences. Visit www.JohnDeere.com/repair.

Pewag group, a leading global company in traction chain devices and industrial chain solutions, has completed the acquisition of Wallingford’s Inc. and BABAC Inc., a leading U.S.-based provider of forestry traction devices, forestry supplies and snow chains. Wallingford’s and BABAC are now consolidated as part of Pewag’s traction and forestry segment.

The acquisition of Wallingford’s and BABAC is a strong fit with Pewag’s North American forestry business and in particular its forestry traction devices business. It is part of the strategy of Pewag to be a leader in this segment globally. Moreover, the high-quality forestry traction devices, developed and manufactured by Pewag in Austria and Czech Republic will be integrated in the portfolio of Wallingford’s. Pewag has hundreds of years of experience in the manufacturing of chains and their components.

Founded as a forging plant in Brueckl, Austria 1479, Pewag group became one of the leading chain manufacturers worldwide.

Today, its success is based on well-engineered state-of-the-art quality products. Pewag’s business areas are mainly snow chains, forestry traction, hoist and conveyor chains, do-it-yourself products, engineering, lifting and lashing chains and accessories and tire protection chains. It operates modern chain production facilities in Europe and in Pueblo, Col.

“The combination of Pewag’s strong portfolio in forestry with traction devices and the wide distribution network of Wallingford’s in the forestry industry will result in a leadership position in this sector in North America. Moreover, the skidder and ring skidder traction devices developed and manufactured by BABAC will complete Pewag’s global forestry product range,” comments Rob Bekkers, CEO, Pewag Traction and Forestry.

President of Wallingford’s Inc. Chip Wallingford adds, “We are very excited to now be part of the global Pewag group, which will add value and quality to our product portfolio, improve our position in the North American forestry market and will definitely give a further push to our professional customer service.”

Founded in 1975, Wallingford’s Inc. is an international wholesaler of tire chain, logging and industrial supplies. Products are predominantly sold to distributors in North America. The sales and marketing office is located in Oakland, Maine, with a distribution, assembly and administrative facility in New Hampton, NH, and Canadian distribution centers in Edmonton, Alberta and Montreal, Quebec.

In the position as President of Wallingford’s Inc., Chip Wallingford will be in charge for the future development and is taking over this position from John J. Wallingford.

Stihl Inc. has named Terrence (Terry) Horan as President and CEO, responsible for the management of the Stihl Group’s largest market and subsidiary.

“We are pleased to welcome Mr. Horan, an internationally successful leader with 35 years of experience in the power tools, DIY, and consumer goods industry to the Stihl family,” comments Dr. Nikolas Stihl, chairman of the advisory board and supervisory board at Stihl Group. Michael Traub, chairman of the executive board, adds, “Terry Horan has demonstrated proven leadership of major companies and global brands, creating winning cultures focused on innovation and leveraging a deep understanding of the end-customer. This makes him the right choice to lead the company and its employees.”

Horan joins Stihl Inc. after a successful career as RPM Consumer Group president at RPM International Inc. Horan has also held various senior leadership roles including president and CEO of DAP Products Inc., president of The Master Lock Co., president and CEO of the Robert Bosch Tool Corp. North America, and president of Dremel Power Tools.

“I am excited both personally and professionally to join the team at Stihl Inc.” Horan says. “I look forward to working with the men and women here in Virginia Beach, our branch and distributor teams, and our vast network of more than 10,000 local Stihl dealers across the country.”

Horan, a native of the Chicago area, received a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Notre Dame, and a bachelor’s degree in marketing at Northern Illinois University. He also volunteers as a Start-Up Advisor at the IDEA Center at the University of Notre Dame. He and his wife Jill have three children.

Rottne Industri offers Rottne XParts, a preventive replacement program of machine parts. Rottne Xparts emphasizes four steps: ● Take the opportunity to replace a component when your machine is already scheduled for a shutdown. ● If a unit breaks, order a new replacement part from your dealer. If your need is urgent, Rottne will send it out to you by express delivery. ● You then send the worn/replaced unit to Rottne within 30 days. ● In its workshop, Rottne repairs the worn unit and you only pay the cost of repair or restoration. The price will never be more than 90% of the new price and the average price ends up at about 60%. ● Rottne offers a better guarantee compared to a new spare part. Compared to a new spare part, which has a warranty for six months or 1,000 hours, you get double that—one year or 2,000 hours.

Ponsse’s investment in a new and modern service center in Joensuu will further improve the quality and efficiency of maintenance and service in Finland. The 1,000 sq. mservice center includes field and information system maintenance, spare parts and machine sales, technical support as well as a well-stocked spare parts storage and the Ponsse Shop.

“The new service center allows us to provide an even better level of service to our customers and ensure a fast turnaround for machine maintenance. On the spare parts side, we can now provide a delivery service, making it possible for our customers to sign a service agreement on equipment purchases,” comments Ponsse Finland’s Country Director Jani Liukkonen.

Ponsse reports its market share in Finland is 45%.

The international Ponsse maintenance network consists of 235 service centers.

Barko Hydraulics announced the addition of National Equipment Dealers (NED) as the company’s newest authorized dealer. With more than 30 years of industry experience in heavy equipment sales, rentals, and serving customers in an array of industries, NED will sell and support the full line of Barko equipment in

South Carolina. With 15 locations in Texas,

North Carolina, South Carolina,

Georgia and Florida, NED is one of the preeminent heavy equipment

dealers in the U.S.

NED serves customers in earthmoving, forestry, mining, oil and gas, scrap and material handling, road construction, landscaping, government and municipalities.

Paul Harmer, NED Forestry Div. Manager, comments, “We are thrilled to expand our relationship and our territory with the innovative Barko product offering. We look forward to growing our business throughout the NED territory with this great product.”

Remsoft’s collaboration with ForestPHD, an Australian-based developer of Sticks, opens new opportunities for forestry companies to drive more accurate harvest, delivery and wood flow schedules and budgets. This partnership will enable the use of forest machine data in Remsoft Forest Intelligence solutions. The partnership will improve visibility and data-based intelligence for forestry companies using Remsoft Operations SaaS software to plan and schedule their harvest and wood flow activities.

Widely used throughout Australia, New Zealand and increasingly other parts of the world, ForestPHD’s Sticks cloud solution enables data collected by forestry equipment to be analyzed for better understanding of harvesting operations, wood flow logistics and value recovery. Sticks aggregates data from feller-bunchers, harvesters, processors and forwarders that support the internationally recognized StanForD data format that is used by manufacturers.

Linking the machine data from Sticks with Remsoft Operations opens new opportunities to drive more accurate harvest, delivery and wood flow schedules and budgets with improved harvest unit inventory updates and forecasts, harvest productivity rates and harvesting costs.

“As forestry companies make the move from spreadsheets to intelligence-based planning in Remsoft Operations, data integration is a key focus for delivering more value,” says Doug Jones, Senior VP, Remsoft. “Our collaboration with ForestPHD opens the door for clients to incorporate and extract more value from their forest machine data to inform supply chain decisions.”

Hägele GmbH, manufacturer of Cleanfix Reversible Fans, announces a number of personnel promotions throughout its growing global operations.

These include Steffen Erhardt as Director of Engineering; Matthias Fischer, Team Lead, Application Engineering; Gideon Flor, Marketing Manager; Brad Reibling, Production Manager, North America; Michael Anderson, Marketing Manager, North America.

CEO Steffen Hägele comments, “As a business entity, and as a family, it is so rewarding and reassuring to us to be able to confidently promote people from within.”

The purpose-built Tigercat 180 swing yarder combines the speed and stability of conventional yarders with the mobility and simpler controls of excavator-based yarders. The result is a powerful and versatile yarding machine for extreme terrain logging applications. The 409 HP carrier was carefully designed with a component layout, hydraulic system, drivetrain, and boom system optimized for yarding. The result is high line pull, excellent stability, and efficient operation.

Designed to achieve exceptional stability, The 180 can achieve high line pull without the use of guylines in most operating conditions. The undercarriage has a reinforced pedestal and carbody with an extended blade for added stability. Blade mounts are tied directly into the carbody for added strength. The machine can be quickly moved to the next setup by simply lifting the blade. In operating situations where additional stability is required such as with extremely long yarding distances or low deflection conditions, a simple static guyline can be quickly set up. The machine still retains the ability to swing with this guyline attached. Visit tigercat.com

Waratah Forestry Equipment announced the H225E—a new generation of its H215E head for single-pass eucalyptus debarking. Designed for use on large, wheeled harvesters and excavators, the H225E is a powerful, high-capacity debarking head that productively dominates in the harsh application.

With a weight at 3,720 lbs., this new 200 Series head features a higher performance valve that allows for better oil flow and greater hydraulic working pressure capabilities (35 MPa or 5,076 PSI) for more feed power. It also boasts reduced frame fric-

tion for straight or curvy trees. Improved measuring wheel log contact enables more accurate measuring while a new find-end laser sensor reduces the need to saw.

The H225E also includes patented variable angle feed rollers for better bark separation cutting as well as debarking initialization and efficiency, improving debarking for varying diameters. Redesigned swept cast arms improve delimbing in harvesting or processing applications with lower knife improvements for reverse delimbing. The H225E features Waratah’s TimberRite H-16 measuring and control system. Visit waratah.com

John Deere offers the Forestry FullTree Training Simulator for cost-effective and efficient operator training in a risk-free environment, all while avoiding wear and tear on equipment.

The Training Simulator allows operators to explore interactive virtual logging sites as if they were in the cab of a John Deere machine. This product offers realistic, true-to-life controls that can be swapped out to quickly convert the simulator to a different John Deere forestry machine type in a matter of minutes.

Operators can view the simulation through a single-display, 55" TV. The display screen offers highly detailed, realistic graphics allowing operators to create custom environments, switch between machines in the same environment or mimic stump to landing material flow. Visit deere.com

Komatsu’s 845-1 forwarder offers an excellent combination of high crane capacity, maneuverability and rough terrain capability to help you maximize your productivity. With high productivity for thinning and light clear-cutting, the 12-metric-ton class forwarder offers several frame-length options.

Designed for smooth and precise operation, the 845-1 has a long reach with excellent lifting power and slewing torque. Even when fully loaded, operators can maneuver with confidence in the most rugged forests. The chassis and suspensions on Komatsu forwarders are designed for perfor-

mance under demanding conditions. Komatsu Comfort Bogie axles with a high portal offset and V-shaped frames provide some of the highest ground clearance in the industry.

Designed to maximize performance with high power and torque with a Tier IV Final fuel-efficient engine, the sophisticated control system on the 845-1 automatically adapts to changes in engine load. Computerized HST system considers machine load, terrain conditions, power and torque output to give you exceptional tractive force. Hydraulic retarder overspeed protection ensures the driveline won’t run too fast.

Operator comfort is key to productivity and the spacious and open cab on the 845-1 provides excellent visibility, ergonomic controls and a seat that delivers all-day comfort.

The state-of-the-art MaxiXT system monitors and controls everything from engine and crane to the transmission and service ladders.

A standard diesel heater system heats the engine coolant, hydraulic oil and the batteries to facilitate cold-weather starting on the 845-1. Maintenance is quickly and easily completed with a service-friendly design that features an electronically powered tilting hood. All filters are located together for easy access under the hood. Visit komatsu.com

ASTEC Industries Peterson’s 4300 and 6300 series drum chippers are available in double or triple grouser tracked options. Powered by a Caterpillar engine, Peterson drum chippers boast high torque for high volume production. Chip accelerators enable faster load times with more chips in each truck.

The 4300B drum chipper can easily handle material from logs up to 26" (61 cm) in diameter, to brush and small feedstock.

The chipper utilizes a 36"diameter by40" wide (91 by102 cm) drum with wear resistant AR450 wear surfaces on the drum pockets and shell.

A sloped feed deck makes feeding the chipper easier. The optional material sizing grate and chip accelerator ensures tight chip packing and fully loaded chip vans. All models come standard with an end-load spout; the 4310B and 6310B are available with an optional top-load spout. The discharge system can either add load density or propel chips significantly farther from the machine for in-woods and clearing operations.

The grate system provides ultra-consistent chip sizing; twigs and small stems are easily fractured through an inno-

vative system. Easy access knives on all drum chipper models have a patented safety latch system which prevents the drum from moving during knife changes. Anvils are made from AR400, for long life and accurate chip sizing. Visit

The Tigercat LX830E is a powerful and stable leveling feller-buncher with a compact tail swing and a high performance closed loop track drive system, well suited to steep slope thinning and final felling applications.

The updated E-series cab includes a new parallel action air ride seat with integrated heating and cooling. The reclining seat is fully adjustable with seat angle and seat extension adjustment. The wider seat cushion and lumbar support provide operator comfort all day long.

HVAC controls feature a new infinitely variable fan speed control, adjusted on the control panel or the machine control system touchscreen, adding to operator comfort. Multiple convenient storage locations with nets have been added to the cab to keep items secure.

A redesigned engine enclosure provides improved roof access for clearing debris. A boom slider also reduces debris build-up in hard-to-reach areas.

A hot shutdown feature has been added. This allows the turbo to sufficiently cool before stopping the engine, improving turbo life. A larger, spring-assisted pump cover allows for easier service access to the hydraulic pump area. Hydraulic enhancements include quicker anti-stall response, consistent anti-cavitation flow and improved heat rejection. Visit tigercat.com

Timber HARVESTING

& FOREST OPERATIONS