Husqvarna unveils new R&D center

CHARLOTTE N.C. – Husqvarna invited Lawn & Landscape, and other media outlets to its Research and Development center just outside of Charlotte recently to give media members a tour, and a chance to try out some of the company's newest products.

The R&D Center focuses on walk-behind, ride-on and handheld products, and all aspects of product engineering, including both new product development and existing product support.  

Products include riding mowers, zero-turn mowers, walk behind lawn mowers, tillers, snow throwers, trimmers, blowers, chainsaws and hedge trimmers that are built at multiple plants across the world.

Both gas and electric products are addressed at the facility.

"Our new R&D facility allows us to test all elements – design, physical build and usage testing – to ensure the utmost integrity of our commercial products in an effort to provide the best product we can to professionals," said Jim Parello, marketing manager at Husqvarna.

"Commercial landscaping and landscapers are and will continue to be a major focus for our company."

The building is big enough to house almost 200 people and features 32,000 square feet of lab test space and approixmatley 100,000 square feet in office space. Husqvarna will look to recruit talent from the area by working with the 36 colleges and universities in North Carolina.

The core teams working out of the building include: industrial design, advanced purchasing, manufacturing engineering, CAD rendering, prototyping and analysis, testing, product design and certification testing. The newer products media members were able to use included, zero-turn mowers, chainsaws, tractors and trimmers.

In the field, we raced through obstacle courses using tractors and zero-turn-mowers (and all lived to tell about it) and it gave media members a feel for what landscapers do on a daily basis. Although, we hope you weren't popping wheelies like one writer did.