An Australian innovation about to enter world markets automates the hazardous, costly and never-ending task of slashing roadside grass around millions of poles, fences, safety barriers and signposts lining highways and byways
Instead of whole teams of roadside workers laboriously manually trimming vegetation around the multitude of safety fence poles and advisory signs involved, the new SlasherTeck innovation uses one man on a tractor to do the job in a fraction of the time.
It is also environmentally har
monious because it drastically reduces the need for chemical spraying of grass and instead delivers a recyclable mulch.
“Not only does this make roadside work safer, but also cuts out a huge part of the hazard for passing traffic that currently has to suddenly slow down for men at work,” says SlasherTeck spokesman Nathan Boyle.
“The job is done much sooner and the hazard is removed much quicker.”
The patented secret of the SlasherTeck innovation is a rotating triple-bladed mulching unit that can slash around posts. The strong and durable unit, incorporating a single slot to accommodate posts of different sizes, works by being located with a post at its centre and then rotated completely around the post using a hydraulically driven motor and 12 mulching blades.
“The slasher cuts the rest of the verge as per normal, then once it approaches a post, the operator engages the post-slashing process, which rotates the blades a full 180 degrees in approximately 10 seconds,” Boyle explains.
The clever cutter, linked with the recently patented Slasher Operation and Asset Management System (SOAMS) has the ability to remember the work it has done, using GPS and cloud-based technology, so that when the grass grows back it knows where the posts are on a particular stretch of road and can repeat the job it did previously. This asset management programme saves further time and cost and further enhances road safety.
The SlasherTeck consortium – including New Holland Tractors and McConnel Equipment – has conducted extensive trials to ensure the concept works before stepping out into national and world markets.
SlasherTeck products seamlessly integrate with their own asset management system, SOAMS (Slasher Operation and Asset Management System), a GPS-based operation and asset management system that has been designed to accumulate valuable data from each maintenance run.
SOAMS uses a combination of the slasher location, point of engagement, some additional hardware and a custom-built, cloud-based app to provide a work-as-executed profile and asset location, type and condition data set.
SlasherTeck boasts several key components:
Reach arm mower head: For long strips of roadside barriers, SlasherTeck has a reach arm mower head that attaches onto a reach arm to clear vegetation around and underneath the barriers, which can stretch for kilometres at a time. The cutting width is 900mm and the slasher head has three sets of cutting and mulching blades that are driven by high quality hydraulic motors.
Front-mounted slasher: The front-mounted slasher is the workhorse of the line-up, comprising two models with cutting widths of 1200mm and 1800mm. This slasher is primarily used for the majority of accessible applications with the ability to clear the vegetation around posts in the same pass. This slasher has three sets of cutting and mulching blades that are driven by high quality hydraulic motors.
Side-shift tilt hitch: This unit maximises the effectiveness of the front-mounted slasher. It is positioned between the tractor and the front-mounted slasher and allows the slasher to be shifted up to 900mm to the off-side and rotates up to a 15-degree angle to meet the ground profile.
