COMMUNITY | Off Road Riding Club

At MMT, the community in which we operate is very important to us, and as such we like to support these communities where possible.

As we had touched upon in our last issue of MMT News, this support is exemplified in supporting local baseball clubs, to corporate entities such as the Chamber of Commerce and various other well known and established organisations.

To continue this philosophy of supporting those extending beyond our immediate business network, we are heavily involved in the Off Road Riding Club of WA. This club which is attended by over 200 kids, provides the opportunity for those aged between 4 to under 23 yrs to get together and ride motorbikes.

“Offroad Riding Events are the perfect way for riders aged 4 - U/23 years to enjoy the sport of off road motorcycle riding in a fun, safe and friendly environment”.

Now while riding bikes are fun, the purpose of the club is provide much more than just that. The club provides a forum to bring parents and kids together through riding together, it provides and fun outlet through which families can spending time together and achieve something together, kids get to test themselves, and learn that their own ability is greater than they first thought. Importantly the club teaches kids resilience, if you come off, just dust yourself off, get back on and just keep on riding.

Garry Spouge, Managing Director of MMT says, ”as with all of the sponsorships we get involved in, its good to see young people challenging themselves, learning and getting better. Bike Riding is a great way to do this. You see some young kids start off and struggle with their bikes, to grow and come out of their shell a short time later. It’s what the club is all about.”

All club events are held on private property within 1-2 hours drive from Perth, usually on country farms. This allows everyone the opportunity to make a great family weekend of it by camping overnight.

Garry feels this is an important part of what makes this club and sponsorship work so well, ”This club provides a whole lot of benefits not only for the kids, but the parents and the family unit as well. It’s something we’re sure to stay involved with for a long time yet.”

PRODUCTS | Seat Customisation for greater productivity

Over the years we’ve seen plenty of improvements being made to earthmoving machinery, be that advances in guidance systems, to telemetry, diagnostics, through to the refinement of cab ergonomics and seat comfort for the operator.

As the cabs in the machines within our industry change, so does our approach and our thinking. We are always on the lookout for how we can apply our expertise to make the operator experience that little bit more comfortable. We continue to get many requests for customisation to existing product for many of the units we supply to the mining, construction, transport and trucking industries.

Take for instance the Hitachi Seat. The Hitachi range of excavators have been a staple in the mining and construction industry for many years, from ex-1900s to ex-5500s with thousands of these units having been sold worldwide.

One of the great features of these machines is the ability of the operator controls to be ‘seat mounted’. This capability helps increase operator productivity, in addition to mitigating fatigue and injury. So this got us thinking, in keeping with our Safety First Philosophy, why don’t we design our own seat specifically to capitalise on this capability.

Based on the ISRI 6830/880 pod seat, we came up with the MMT “Hitachi seat”. This unit can accommodate the mounting of the Hitachi Excavator controls directly onto the seat mount, which allows for a clear floor space in the cab allowing not only plenty of operator legroom, but better entry and exit capability.

This seat-mounted control configuration has been stated as being ergonomically superior to locate critical machine functions at the operator's fingertips. The integration of the operator interface with improved ergonomic design into the machine controls has evolved substantially over the past decade, and MMT is happy to play its part in ensuring this continued development.

Once we had this unit made, we didn't stop there, we have now gone on to put together a similar seat for Komatsu Wheel Loaders as these models also had the ability for the ‘seat mounting’ of the operator controls.

Based on the ISRI 6830/880 pod seat, the MMT “Komatsu seat” was designed in a similar vein to the Hitachi model, that being with the mounting of the Wheel Loader controls directly on the seat mount. Another feature that we incorporated for ease of maintenance was an adaptor plate that bolts onto a riser and back to the original hole centres. This allows quicker replacement of the seats - just those 4 bolts.

Both these seats have helped increase operator productivity, in addition to mitigating fatigue and injury.

Grant Van Elyswk, Sales Manager of MMT, says these new products are just the start of what we can offer our customers. ”There are so many developments happening in and around our industry that we see it as our duty to try to figure out how we can play our part in customising what we offer for an even better customer outcome.”

“So far we’ve had really good feedback on both of these products, and as always, if anyone has any other ideas as to how we can make a product better, we’re always happy to listen.”