Wooldridge Group opts for its first fleet of JCB machines

Surrey-based Wooldridge Group has recently taken delivery of four new JCB 245 XR reduced tailswing machines as part of its ongoing fleet renewal programme. Founded in 1975, the group owns both demolition and groundworks businesses. It's the groundworks team that had added the new machines, as I discovered when I visited one onsite at a prestigious house building site near High Wycombe for Berkley Homes.

With all of the houses already sold, when I arrived on the site, the team were in the middle of finishing off plots, landscaping and digging out swales to support the stormwater management on the side of a curving road. As an added surprise, not only did they have the new JCB 245XR onsite, they had also fitted it with an Engcon tiltrotator, controlled through Leica Geosystems MC1 3D machine control.

Launched in 2021, the reduced tailswing 245XR has recently been upgraded to a Stage V compliant machine. The 245XR has been designed to meet the increasing demand for powerful compact machines with a smaller overall footprint. And with its tailswing radius of 1.72m, this model has 40% less than the 220X, allowing it to work safely against buildings and road barriers. It also boasts a short front swing giving it a working radius reduction of 1.6m, compared to the 220X.

With a track length of 3660mm and a ground clearance of 486mm, the 245XR is powered by the 4 stroke, 4 cylinder in-line, direct injection, turbocharged JCB DieselMAX 448 Stage V compliant engine. This delivers 129kW of power to the machine, which comes with a fully hydrostatic, two speed with auto shift track drive, allowing it to travel at a maximum speed of 5.7 km/h.

Having used machine control with Leica Geosystems for over five years, it's the first time the company has added not one, but two tiltrotator enabled machines to its fleet. For experienced operator Adrian Hudson, known as Aide onsite and now on his machine, the arrival of his own JCB 245XR followed on from a trial put together by the local Greenshields JCB dealer.

Having operated another OEM brand of equipment with some experience on the older JCB 220 model, Aide was so impressed with the machine that he advised Wooldridge Group Director Nobby Grimes to buy him one and add a further three to the fleet.

Talking to Aide onsite, he explained the reasons for recommending the machine: "The new 245XR is a totally different machine to the previous model. For starters, it's a much more compact machine that is ideal for working on the house building projects we undertake. Having operated other brands, there are always differences between makes and models, particularly when it comes to the cab. But even though the footprint of this machine is smaller, the cab is much bigger than you expect. And there is a lot of glass, making for great visibility and a lot of space to move around in."

The Engcon tiltrotator set up on his machine comes with its newly upgraded EC-Oil system. This allows powered attachments and buckets to be quickly changed from the safety and comfort of the cab by automatically connecting hydraulic services, in addition to electrical and greasing lines. The top hitch also allows the tilt-rotator to be easily removed if required.

The EC- Oil system also plays an important role in controlling the tiltrotator as it's used to integrate with the Leica Geosystems MC1 machine control. This allows Aide to control the tilt angle of the bucket according to the digital model created by the Wooldridge team, which is uploaded into the in-cab tablet over the GPS network. In practical terms, Aide maintains control of the rotation function, allowing him to manage the material in the bucket. Still, the system eliminates the need for him to constantly adjust the tilt angle.

To understand how this works, I spoke to Leica's Mike James, who explained the digital connections between the tilt-rotator and the machine guidance system, "There are two elements to linking our system with the tilt-rotator. The first is our own tilt sensor that we connect to the Engcon system using its control cable, linked to its EC-Oil block. This allows us to connect with the inbuilt rotation sensor that Engcon have placed in what they call the 'yellow heart' of the unit, protecting it from any damage.

"By connecting into the EC-Oil block, Aide can use the machine control functionality and together with our iXE CoPilot system, he never has to leave the cab no matter how many times he changes attachments."

Commenting on the new setup Aide said: "I have been using machine control for over five years now, and it's perfect for the jobs I do. Linking it with the tiltrotator in 3D is really next-level stuff. I have only been using the tiltrotator for a few weeks now, and it's very different to how you would normally perform tasks, as you don't need to move the machine continually. The tiltrotator itself does most of the work, and how you can move buckets around is a bit of a game-changer. I just couldn't complete the complex drainage designs using even a standard machine-controlled excavator on this particular job.

You also get different joysticks with the Engcon, which take some getting used to, but it's nice to customise them to the operations you do most as the joysticks are programmable. Being so busy onsite, you also really notice the reduction in the amount of fuel you are burning each shift. 

"The 245XR and tiltrotator combination is undoubtedly less thirsty. To be honest, I can't fault the 245XR. It's got the power, it's got everything you could ask for in a machine, and the new setup is excellent. All I do now is get to the machine in the morning, and no matter what task I have to do, I simply select it on the model, move into position and get digging. I can even add my own offsets using the Leica tablet, which gives me the control I need to get on with the work on what is a very fast-paced project.  

After spending some time with Aide, I was interested to find out more about why Wooldridge is making such significant investments in equipment and technology solutions, so I caught up with site manager Paul Bennett: "Since we made the move to 3D machine control about five years ago with Leica we haven't looked back, and our clients have really embraced our approach to delivering the earthworks onsite in this way. What's great about how we work now is that we can share our progress on 'as built' models as our operators are constantly taking readings using the machine's bucket to show what work they have done. This is fed into the model on an ongoing basis, and we can show how we are delivering a site plot by plot.

On this project, everything's already been sold, so there is a big push to move onto the next phase. It's why we have taken another step to improve our productivity with two of the JCB 245XR's fitted with tiltrotators, as it's so much quicker to do even the most complex of swales and attenuation tanks.

When so much is going on, we must support our operators like Aide and keep the site progressing safely. This is why we have also adopted the use of 3D machine control enabled exclusion zones which mean the machine will not be able to dig where utilities have been put in place, for example. It's all very clever stuff, and we are taking full advantage of it to support and guide Aide and our other operators."   

With the new JCB 245XR being a 'category buster' project for JCB, I was keen to find out more about the machine. So after my visit, I caught up with Dave Pegg, JCB's National Sales Manager for Excavators. He has been with the company for many years, being part of the team putting the 'wish list' together and developing the new model.

Talking to our dealers and customers over the last five years, we recognised the big shift in the market to reduced tail swing machines and, therefore, the need to have a new machine that featured all of the key features operators and owners wanted. The 'wish list' was significant as we analysed machines on the market to look at how we could incorporate the best elements of different machines into one 25 tonne machine that serves the key 20-22 tonne market category. To be honest, there are a lot of good machines in this category, so we had to bold with the design and capabilities of this machine.

With the house building boom, in particular, increasing demand for this class size, we set about developing the 245 XR to be a best-in-class machine. Like all design, it starts with making a machine that has safety built into its DNA from the factory.

Of course, there are design challenges when moving to a reduced tail swing machine as they often have less stability and smoothness in operation because of the counterweights. This is why we challenged our designers to make this machine exactly the same performance-wise as the more traditional excavators, and I think, ultimately, that's what we've achieved.

With the 245XR, we have a very capable reduced tail swing machine that has a full-size cab with a lot of glass and a camera system for greater visibility. On the right-hand side of the machine underneath the boom, we have reduced the distance that this side of the machine sticks out. To do this, we've pulled that right back and put the cab slightly further forward. This gives the operator much better visibility whilst not encroaching on the reverse swing.

So effectively, the front swing matches the rear swing. This means the operator knows that if the rear of the machine clears a truck that is leaving behind him the front will as well.

The 245 XR comes with offsite cameras and rear cameras as standard. So effectively. Operators have got the blindside, and the rear side camera supported visibility built into the machine.

The new access steps and handrail make machine access that much easier, and we have also included a double sleeved boxing ring and green seatbelt beacon as standard.

From a daily maintenance perspective, we looked at all of the key access points to support everything being at ground level. There were numerous iterations to make doors a little bigger and position key components to make them easier to clean. For example, we put the filters and fuel pumps in an easier place to get to.

And the in-built touch screen can access information from our sophisticated diagnostics to give the operator alerts and key information on machine health and low oil levels, for example. This, in turn, actually reduces the need to climb on the machine as much.

We initially launched the 245 XR as a tier four final machine in January 2021, selling out our full allocation for the UK in just a few months. Since then, we have upgraded the machine to Stage V, and demand it's already proving to be a real success. Critically the machine is also 'HVO ready', so customers can use these biofuels with the JCB DieselMAX engine performance efficiency.

New full-size cab has wins over operators.

With space and comfort being a key selling point, particularly for operators who spend 8-10 hours a day in a machine like this, the full-size cab was a must. This has arguably made the most impact on the end-users, and we know through machine trials will new conquest customers like Wooldridge that it's actually securing machine sales and fleet sale, in their case for four machines.

Interestingly, the hydraulic performance of machines in this class is now more important than ever, particularly as we are rapidly seeing them used with tiltrotators like the Engcon units Wooldridge has fitted. The growth in this segment of the market will be significant in the coming years, with upwards of 10% of machines in this class using these units.

This is now much more common, and when you combine this with 3D machine control, in this case from Leica Geosystems, you can maximise both fuel efficiency and productivity. And this was another key consideration for us when designing the 245 XR and moving forward with future models.

With this technology tending to be retrofitted by our dealers or machine control specialists, in 2022, we will be moving forward with both Leica Geosystems and Topcon to offer a factory fit 'machine control ready' version of the machine. This option will come with a full warranty straight from the factory, simplifying the adoption of this technology with greater peace of mind for our customers.

This is all part of the industry's journey to reduce fuel consumption, which is significantly more important with the changes from Red to White diesel dramatically increasing fuel costs from April this year.

It's also why we have worked hard to improve the overall performance of our hydraulics in the 245 XR. In the machine, we have the latest generation pumps and valve blocks. These blocks have much larger spools, and because of this, there is less resistance. We also took around 20% of the bends and corners out of the hydraulic system, putting larger return lines into the tank, which again reduces resistance.

This approach has also reduced the overall heat generation in the hydraulic system, making it even more efficient. And we believe from our tests comparing this new system to our previous range that we gain between a 10% and 15% improvement in fuel. This is achieved by simply updating those hydraulic elements carried over onto the X series and the XR. With increased hydraulic power used by attachments like tiltrotators, we think these efficiency gains we deliver even more to customers using this combination.

Equally, using tiltrotators, you get around 10% less movement in the machine to perform the same job. So, all of a sudden, you are saving even more fuel, especially if the tiltrotator is controlled by 2D or 3D machine control."

Dave concluded: "With the positive operator feedback and amount of orders we are taking for the 245 XR, I think we're definitely going to grow our sales volumes and market share with this machine."

There is no doubt that this new machine and the tiltrotator machine control combination is a winner for Wooldridge. Like Dave, I think we will see a continued increase in this approach, particularly for housebuilding contractors.