Advanced Turf Technology – Unplugged In Sheffield
It’s not very often that you get to find out how a product came into being – and when you do it’s an eye opener!
ATT’s revolutionary INFiNiSystem™ has been presented to the Press on one or more occasions during press briefings at shows like SALTEX and BTME, but the writer was amongst a small group that was invited by ATT’s Managing Director, John Coleman, to travel to Sheffield. Here we saw it in action and where it is made.
Tim Merrell giving a demonstration of the INFiNiSystem™.
In complete contrast, John’s background is firmly in greenkeeping from being an award winning Greenkeeper to consulting on courses. John found himself getting involved with renovation projects by being employed on behalf of a course to ensure the contractor was on target and often, once the contractor had completed the job, being retained to maintain the course.
All of his ‘ATT ideas’ have come from this experience. He has been influenced a lot by working with, and talking to, various Head Greenkeepers. For example, he found that every single course he worked on used different equipment and he thought it would be much easier to have one piece of equipment that would suit the needs of every course – hence the birth of the TMSystem™ for triplex greens mowers. From that it was a sensible step to develop it into a pedestrian unit, the INFiNiSystem™.
The ATT facility is based within the AET building in Sheffield. Whilst they draw heavily on the machinery and experience of AET they are experts in their own field. They employ some talented production designers, engineers and assembly staff. Operations Manager, Iain Sinclair, is one of the newest recruits and shares Johns’ background in greenkeeping.
It is not a simple process to get a concept through to production and out into the market – John admits he didn’t realise how much was involved and how long it would take – around 2 years. “First we had to conceptualise it,” he says, “then you have to do research; produce a design; make a prototype; put it through testing; work out what you need to sell it for; cover yourself with patents before you can even start to produce it in quantities and launch it in the marketplace. It helps to have some money coming in whilst you are testing it to be able to make the amends that are required!”
The first ATT product was the TMSystem™ for triplex greens mowers. Essentially the system replaces the cutting units and enables a range of maintenance activities to take place – like aeration, brushing, de-thatching, scarifying, top dressing, grooming and levelling. The ability to use an ATT cutting unit only came about after the influence of The Grass Group when it became the selling arm.
The cutting unit had come from the company’s’ second product, the INFiNiCut™, a pedestrian mower. “You can’t design a new mower,” says John, “but you can take one and improve on it. We quickly learnt that Greenkeepers didn’t like the idea of manually changing the cutting height so we invented something to make that easier – a patented Wrenchless height adjuster in 0.1mm/0.004” click increments.
“We initially came up with our own design for the gearbox but were contacted by Jaguar Landrover about a gearbox design of theirs that would give us the variable speed we were looking to achieve. We had some success with the product and had got about 80% through the design phase when the recession hit. We managed to survive that period on sales of the TMSystem™ and then, through the tie-up with The Grass Group, decided to resurrect the product.”
John worked closely with Tim Merrell of The Grass Group and between them they’d come up with the idea of using the existing TMSystem™ cassettes and creating a chassis system that would carry the equipment they already had. The INFiNiSystem™ was born – essentially a power unit to power the TMSystem™ cassettes. An infinite speed gearbox was even more important to drive the individual requirements of the cassettes but in the elapsed time the gearbox company had stopped making them! A huge sum of money had been invested at that point but it was back to the drawing board.
John again, “It would have been very easy to give up but the current product now exceeds the original one. Power is produced from a dual source to deliver drive to both the traction drive and a cassette’s DC brushless motor – either by a petrol engine via a 1.5kw generator, or a nominal 48V battery module. They can be quickly swapped, even on course, to suit the working environment. The hybrid configuration improves fuel efficiency, whilst the battery drive reduces noise – we were awarded The Quiet Mark in 2013. We like to think of the unit as a ‘system’ rather than a mower. That way it becomes whatever the client wants it to be!”
After years of developing this range of fine turf maintenance equipment John seems almost satisfied with where the products are today but …… his mantra is “whatever you do, do it well” and he will no doubt be continually improving the designs.
The second part of the trip was to see the products in action at the Dore & Totley Golf Club close to the factory. Here Tim Merrell takes up the narrative and describes how his team take to the road with trailers loaded with the ATT INFiNiSystem™. “We have standardised on the pedestrian model for demos because changing one cassette rather than three saves a lot of time – the principle being the same for triplex use anyhow.
“Whilst we carry all the SMART cassettes with us a typical demo will consist of using only three: We’ll start with the SMARTUltraGroomer because it’s something the client is unlikely to have seen before. This makes a huge difference to the surface and is an advancement on a verticutter – it’s just jaw dropping! Greens consistency is what you want – you don’t want greens changing from day to day so preventing a problem happening in the first place makes any issues much easier to deal with.
“This is a pro-active tool to prevent problems: like keeping puffiness in check – where shoot density increases leading to thatch; minimising poa ingression and reducing organic matter to reduce plant stress. Then we’ll fit the SMARTCut cassette and make a few passes. Lastly we bring the SMARTVibe vibration roller into play to truly level the surface. By that stage the client is hooked, especially when we use the battery power – with no noise the impact is unbelievable!”
Tim’s last word of “selling the sizzle … not the sausage” summed up the whole trip!