Benefits of Earthmoving Equipment v/s Manual Labour
Given to the robust industrialisation, Earthmoving Equipment (EE) market is bound to grow. As per the Persistence Market Research’s Report— Earth Moving Equipment Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2017-2025, the global earthmoving equipment will witness 6.7% CAGR (in terms of volume) between 2017 and 2025 and is expected to grow 1.6x (in terms of volume) by 2025. Particularly, Backhoe Loaders (BHLs) is set to witness a CAGR of 7.3% during the forecast period.
In tune with the global market, India is also expected to witness huge growth of EE on the back of rapid urbanisation, increased construction and mining activities and growing infrastructure development. Particularly, mini excavators, crawlers, BHLs and compact loaders are expected to see major demand in India. This is because there are clear advantages of using such EE over manual labour and low-end technology for construction applications. We list down these benefits for you…
1. Leads to quality improvement- Reliability and quality of construction are one of the most important parameters for judging efficiency of any construction company or its work. This could be easily enhanced by using EE as against manual labour. Through EE usage, the work can be completed with minimal quality defects, thereby, reducing the claims arising from poor workmanship. Since today, many construction contracts in India include a defects liability clause; it is to the construction companies’ advantage to increase their usage of EE for construction activities. For example, the BHLs from Mahindra Construction Equipment (MCE) have the Banana Boom with 7 per cent more reach as compared to others. This longer travel ensures precise digging in congested or near the wall digging applications, thus, leading to less defects and greater productivity at all times.
2. Ensures project efficiency: By employing EE, you can ensure that many of the limitations associated with the manual labour like physical limits, socio-economic conditions and attendance issues and other problems such as weather conditions, health risks etc., that hamper the project’s efficiency and its completion on time are eliminated. Also, EE increases the speed and accuracy as against the manual labour. Particularly joystick operated effortless power controls that come in BHLs of companies like MCE can minimise fatigue, thus, allowing operators to work for long hours. Thus, usage of EE can reduce a project’s completion time significantly.
3. Helps in cost savings and achieving profitability- Increased productivity through EE ultimately translate into higher profitability and help avoid defect-related claims and delay penalties. In addition, using EE can significantly reduce the cost of large-scale projects. It also makes it easier for the companies to complete their projects within budget at a reduced overall cost. This is due to the fact that EE are highly versatile and can be put to many uses as against manual labour which might have expertise in doing one task only. Like BHLs can do a variety of tasks like moving dirt, backfill, digging trenches, crushing, lifting, grabbing objects, small demolitions, laying pipes, asphalt breaking, paving roads etc., when used with different attachments. So, after performing one task quickly, it can be used to carry out other activity. In fact, you can choose MCE’s backhoe as it is 6-in-1 bucket on the loader and can perform many tasks.
Profitability of a construction business is also determined by the usage of technologically-advanced EE that improves productivity. Again, you can look at the MCE’s BHL as it posses the REMOTECARE feature which makes it possible to get business information like daily vehicle usage or health reports and other updates through SMS on mobile phones.
4. Ensures safety of workers: Any construction site is the locus of multiple high-risk activities. There are obvious safety concerns associated with workers operating on the ground, particularly within confined spaces when heavy materials are being moved around. Using the EE for handling the material and moving the workers far away from the danger zone can help mitigate or even prevent many of these risks.
In a nutshell
When it comes to construction activities, EE seem to be a clear winner over manual labour. Any why not? There are clear benefits of using the construction and EE over manual labour and traditional methods. These include improved quality, timeliness, better project financials and safety. So, isn’t earth-moving equipment better than manual labour? Realising this fact, more and more companies in India are opting for renting or purchasing EE aggressively and the market in India alone is expected to see as much as a 25% growth.