Tyres, chains and bogie tracks
Tyre and track configuration affects both productivity and cost. Consider flotation, traction, rutting, machine width, tyre damage, track wear and fuel use.
Clark Tracks is one specialist forestry-track manufacturer represented in the Australian forestry supplier network through Randalls.
In wet-soil regions this is not an accessory decision. Flotation determines whether the machine works at all in a wet week, and rutting determines whether the operation stays compliant with its harvest plan.
Fire suppression
Forestry machines operate in highly combustible environments.
Potential ignition sources include exhaust, turbocharger, DPF, hydraulic oil, electrical faults, bearings and accumulated debris.
For high-utilisation forestry machinery, evaluate:
- automatic detection
- automatic suppression
- manual activation
- engine isolation
- hydraulic isolation
- daily debris cleaning
- service interval
Loss of a machine to fire can affect asset value, contract performance, insurance, production and operator safety — and in Australian summer conditions, it can affect a great deal more than the machine.
Operator protection
A general civil excavator should not automatically be assumed suitable for forest harvesting.
Forestry introduces risks from falling trees, branches, chain shot, timber penetration, rollover and steep ground.
Australian workplace guidance places significant emphasis on protective structures, appropriate machinery, operator competency and safe forestry systems. Tasmania's current Forest Safety Code covers mechanised felling, extraction, machinery, landings and transport, while NSW maintains an approved Safety in Forest Harvesting Code of Practice.
Confirm the applicable code for your state and the specific protective structures it expects before committing to a carrier, not after.
Support is a production input, not an after-sales consideration
In an interdependent fleet, a machine waiting on a part is not a service issue. It is lost production, and the loss extends to every machine that depends on it. A processor down for two days in a full-tree chain idles the feller buncher, the skidders and the loader as well, and all of them continue to accrue depreciation, finance and insurance while producing nothing.
That is why dealer support belongs in the machine comparison alongside price and specification, rather than being treated as a soft factor to weigh afterwards. The way to make it comparable is to convert it into expected downtime hours and multiply by your own hourly contribution. A support arrangement that saves three breakdown days a year is worth a specific, calculable amount, and frequently more than the price difference being argued over.
The questions that actually establish support
General assurances about service are not comparable between suppliers. These are:
- What parts are held in Australia, where, and for this exact configuration? Brand-level answers are not useful; a machine's specific configuration determines which parts matter.
- What is the guaranteed response time, in writing? A verbal commitment is not a commitment, and the difference between same-day and next-week support is the whole question.
- How many technicians are trained on this machine within reasonable travel of where you work? One is a risk; the answer "our technicians can all work on anything" usually means none are specialists.
- What is the loan or hire machine policy during extended repairs? And is it a policy or a goodwill practice?
- What diagnostic support exists remotely? For control-system faults, remote diagnosis can turn a technician visit into a phone call.
- Who else in your region runs this machine, and can you speak to them? Existing owners will describe the support arrangement more accurately than any supplier can.
The risks worth naming explicitly
Concentration risk. Capital concentrated in a small number of interdependent machines means a single failure stops production. It is managed through fleet balance, parts stock and support arrangements rather than eliminated, and it is the defining exposure of plantation harvesting.
Contract risk. Finance terms longer than the contract supporting the machine transfer the exposure into the future rather than removing it. The test is whether the business could carry the machine through an idle period — if not, the capital level is wrong regardless of how good the machine is.
Single-client risk. A fleet built around one network, estate or offtake agreement carries the full retender or renegotiation risk on its finance schedule. Diversification across client types is the control, and it has to be maintained before it is needed.
Specification risk. A machine configured unusually is harder to sell and harder to support. Where a specification choice is genuinely required by the work, that is a cost worth accepting knowingly; where it is a preference, it narrows the buyer pool at resale for no operational return.
Operator risk. Machine productivity varies substantially with operator skill, and in a small fleet the departure of an experienced operator is a production event. Training, redundancy and retention are part of the machine's economics even though they appear nowhere in its specification.
A risk register for a machinery business
Most contractors carry these risks and few write them down. Writing them down is what turns them from anxieties into things with controls attached.
| Risk | How it shows up | Practical control |
|---|---|---|
| Concentration | One failure stops several machines | Fleet balance; on-site critical spares; support in writing |
| Contract term | Finance longer than the contract supporting it | Match capital to what the business could carry idle |
| Single client | Retender or renegotiation ends most revenue | Maintain prequalification across client types |
| Utilisation | Hours below the level the capital needs | Underwrite hours before purchase; hire where uncertain |
| Specification | Unusual configuration, thin support and resale | Accept knowingly where the work requires it; otherwise standard |
| Operator | Departure of an experienced operator cuts production | Training depth; more than one capable operator per machine |
| Seasonality | Revenue concentrated in windows that can be deferred | Second campaign or a different region; carrier that earns elsewhere |
| Fire | Machine loss and liability in hot, dry conditions | Suppression, housekeeping, hot-work discipline, seasonal protocols |
| Ground damage | Rectification cost or contract breach | Running gear specified to the estate's requirement |
| Parts lead time | Days of production waiting on a component | Stock critical wear items; confirm what is held in-country |
Reviewed once a year against the actual fleet, this takes an hour and changes purchasing decisions. The column that matters is the third one — a risk with no control beside it is a risk you have decided to carry, and that should be a decision rather than an oversight.
Maintenance strategy is a commercial choice
There are three ways to maintain a machine, and the difference between them is where the downtime falls rather than how much money is spent.
Run to failure. Cheapest per intervention and most expensive per hour of production, because every stoppage is unplanned and lands in productive time. Defensible only on non-critical items with no downstream dependency.
Scheduled preventive. Servicing at intervals, ideally performed outside productive hours. Costs more in parts and labour than run-to-failure and far less in lost production. This is the baseline for any machine with dependents.
Condition-based. Intervening on evidence — oil analysis, temperature and pressure trends, wear measurement — rather than on a fixed interval. Higher overhead in monitoring, and the best fit for expensive components with long lead times, because it converts an unplanned failure into a planned replacement scheduled around the work.
Operators are part of the risk picture
Machine productivity varies more between operators than between comparable machines, which makes operator capability a commercial variable rather than a personnel matter.
Three consequences worth planning for:
Redundancy. A single experienced operator on a critical machine is a single point of failure with legs. Where one person's absence stops a machine, that is the same risk as a component with no spare.
The learning curve is a real cost. A new operator, or an experienced operator on an unfamiliar platform, takes time to reach a productivity plateau. That belongs in the first year's production assumptions rather than being discovered in them.
Technique shows up in consumables. Tooth cost per hectare, chain cost per cubic metre and fuel per tonne all respond to how the machine is worked. Tracking those per unit of output makes a training need visible as a number rather than an impression.
What insurance does and does not cover
Insurance replaces the asset. It does not replace the production, the contract position or the client relationship lost while the asset is being replaced.
Business interruption cover addresses part of that gap, and it is worth understanding precisely what triggers it, what waiting period applies and how the loss is calculated before relying on it — those details differ enough between policies that a general assumption is unsafe.
The practical protections against downtime remain unglamorous and within your control: critical wear parts held on site, scheduled maintenance actually performed on schedule, a support arrangement with something in writing behind it, operator depth, and a fleet balanced so that one failure does not stop everything.
What to hold on site
On-site spares are the cheapest downtime insurance available, and the list is shorter than most contractors expect because it is governed by two questions rather than by cost.
What stops the machine if it fails? and how long would it take to get here?
Anything scoring badly on both belongs on the shelf. In practice that usually means:
- Wear items consumed predictably — chains, bars, teeth, tool holders, blades
- Filters and fluids for a full service interval
- Hoses in the sizes and fittings the machine actually uses, plus crimping access
- Belts, and any single component known to be a common failure on the platform
- Electrical items with long lead times — sensors, harness sections, control components where a dealer confirms these are slow
The list is worth building with the dealer rather than from a catalogue, because they know which items go slow. Ask directly: what do you not hold locally, and what has the longest lead time on this machine? The answer is the shopping list.
Against a machine whose stoppage costs a day of contribution across several machines, a few thousand dollars of shelf stock is not an inventory decision. It is the same calculation as any other availability purchase.
Review the holding once a year against what actually failed. Wear items you never touched can come off the shelf, and anything that stopped a machine while you waited for it should go on — that list is more accurate after twelve months of operation than any estimate made at purchase.