Here to stay

Coley, the superintendent of landscape operations at Georgia Southern University, says he dove into autonomous mowing for a variety of reasons. Perhaps chief among them? Robots will always be available to complete the work, and you don’t have to pay out extra health insurance or taxes on equipment over employees.

Just like the labor pinch that exists in commercial landscaping, Maurice Coley’s been feeling the squeeze, too.

“The thing doesn’t call out sick,” he says. “It works every day, all day. I’ve never had a sick robot.”

Coley joined fellow panelists Marion Delano and Robyn Schmitz at the Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference this year in Atlanta. The three landscapers talked during a session called “All Things Autonomous,” which covered the reasons they invested in robotic mowing, the benefits and the things they wish were different. The labor shortage was just one of lots of reasons the trio bought into autonomous mowing, but it was an important one that’s opened up lots of opportunities to repurpose the employees on staff.

“The mower allowed us to take one person, do something else…and that’s where the mower can allow us to mow more frequently, more often and more consistently,” Coley says.

Plus, beyond that, the robot’s consistent availability is a huge plus. Schmitz says weather rainouts can prevent a crew from taking on more work, but the autonomous mowers can handle those jobs at really any time.

Find your reason

The panelists cautioned landscapers against diving into autonomous mowing without knowing the purpose. Schmitz, the owner and CEO at High Prairie Outdoors in Mission, Kansas, says her company hasn’t had hiring issues. Still, they also wanted to empower their staff to grow into more enriching ventures.

Mowing crews are entry-level positions, and Schmitz says she wants her employees to climb the company’s career ladder faster. Having robots handle this work empowers them to do so, she says, all while saving the company money.

“Our fine gardening team is still doing that fine gardening while those mowers are going without that extra person on those mowers. That is literally thousands of dollars a season of just extra revenue without that extra person attributed to that crew.”

“Rain days can really disrupt a production schedule. Even from a viability, scheduling revenue perspective, those robots can get out there sooner with no to less damage and take care of that client in a more effective way,” Schmitz says. “The end consumer is happier, so win-win for us.”

Meanwhile at Level Green Landscaping, Delano, the company’s director of technology and marketing, says his crews are really excited by the team’s investment in the technology. And on the sales team, there’s a ton of interest as a way of reeling in and sealing deals with interested clients. He’s found it’s great for Level Green’s team culture.

“As an early adopter, you can champion that and set yourself apart,” Delano says. “It’s cool and it’s exciting to be on the cutting edge.”

Try, try again

That’s not to suggest there haven’t been growing pains. Even today, Delano says robotic mowing still isn’t where it needs to be.

Three years ago, Level Green started testing automowers, which are the smaller, Roomba-style mowers. He acknowledges technology has advanced a lot since then, but the process was frustrating. They had to send managers out into the field to reset them often. They proved quite high maintenance.

Then, two years ago, Level Green worked with a larger commercial mower that wasn’t quite ready to go to market. “A lot of this was our fault — we were kind of relying on them at that point,” Delano says, adding that they needed to have gone in with a stronger plan. When you put autonomous mowers on a site, he says you need to re-strategize how you plan the jobs to make it economically viable. The person in charge of the robotic mowers shouldn’t just be sitting there babysitting the machines; otherwise, you’re paying double for the mower.

This year, they have two mowers and they’re happy with what they’ve seen so far, Delano says.

“We realize that this is the future. We want is to maximize our employees, to maximize the human qualities that make them really special, and that’s their human creativity and the thinking that they have,” Delano says, adding a strong word of warning. “It’s very easy for things to go off the rails in terms of not actually gaining productivity with this mower.”

Schmitz says they had some trials where the mowers became expensive paperweights because the machines weren’t ready for larger jobs, meaning her team had to go mow lawns conventionally anyway. But the High Prairie Outdoors team continued testing new models of autonomous mowers.

“Some might go, ‘Well, why did you keep trying?’ Well because, maybe we didn’t find the right mower and right mower partner,” Schmitz says. She adds that they found a company more willing to partner up and talk through issues on anything from blade angles to mowing cool-season grasses more consistently. “We’re pretty darn happy today,” she says.

Coley says the university purchased a 72-inch commercial mower and the support was great right off the bat. They were the first university in Georgia to invest in this tech, which proved quite exciting, even amidst a few minor challenges like shadowing from tree lines or a satellite glitch. “Within one year, we saw the return on investment, we went and got a second one,” Coley says. Now they’ve got three mowers.

Widespread adoption

Schmitz says the reason the panelists are still considered early adopters is that there’s human nature at play: some folks are change-averse, some are always adapting, and the vast majority lies somewhere in the middle.

Early robotic mowers were a struggle for most anybody who tried them, and she feels many gave up before they experienced the plusses that these new machines have. It can also be intimidating to implement the new technology, even amidst harsh labor conditions.

“I believe a lot of the reason adoption hasn’t occurred is because we need to find ways to make it approachable for contractors,” she says. “A lot of the adoption issue is people simply aren’t sure.”

Still, she believes it’s vital for landscapers to invest in technology like this because it’ll attract some of the brightest young minds to the industry. “Rock star” employees will see robotic mowers out in the field and want to jump into the industry. Coley agrees, adding that landscapers are too often behind the curve in terms of technology adoption.

“When anything is new, we kind of discount it,” he says. “You’ve got to have that innovative, creative mindset to keep up with technology.”

Delano says even the large-scale mowers can only cut about 10% of the turf in the Level Green portfolio. On the commercial side, that’s why he feels there’s not a huge uptake in robotic mowing. The machines have adapted though.

“Just imagine that change next year and the years forward,” he says.

Schmitz says the process of adding robotic mowing is a tedious one, but she clarifies that it’s one she thinks is absolutely necessary for companies looking ahead to the future.

“Is it an adjustment? Yes. But when you get to the other side of that adjustment, you’re more reliable, less interruptions in service for the consumer, and quite frankly, it’s more financially viable because you’re pulling more revenue with less people,” she says. “And in this day and age, are we not all here to find ways to work smarter?”