Culture and diversity Building a strong team and reliable equipment at Hunterwood Technologies
By Karen Sample and Janet Morley Robust and reliable describes Hunterwood Technologies Inc.’s hay compressing equipment and the quality end products that come from those machines. Started in 1994 as hay exporting was growing, the company recognized an opportunity for improved hay press designs to allow the industry to meet increased demands for compact, uniform and easy-to-handle compressed bales. The first Hunterwood press became known as the robust and reliable one, and that set the tone for all Hunterwood products that have been built ever since. Hunterwood presses can be found on five continents. The majority of hay exporters are located in the U.S., Australia and various countries in Europe and North Africa. Those exporters typically ship their end products to China, Korea, Japan, and Middle Eastern countries. Jeff Conley has been CEO at Hunterwood for three and a half years and has, in his words, “the honour of leading the team” of 60 employees at three locations. All assembly takes place in the Cochrane, Alberta plant. The Calgary location houses a machine shop, and the newest location, Ellensburg, Washington, has inventory and service. Although Conley says that hay presses are relatively simple machines, the level of technology built in by Hunterwood is amazing. Today’s Hunterwood presses have 100-200 sensors at various points in the compressing and finishing process and offer customers access to an incredible amount of data and even the ability to benchmark productivity versus other similar installations worldwide. Each Hunterwood hay press is customized, starting with the basics: How is the hay harvested? In North America, most hay is baled, whereas in Europe, hay entering the press is often loose due
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Implement Success | Fall/Winter 2023
to different drying processes. As Hunterwood discusses design for a press with a client, the way hay is handled is taken into account and customizations are made. “We have a can-do attitude, a lot of innovation, and some great skilled trades,” Conley says. You put that all together, and you come up with some very cool equipment.” From start to finish, including engineering, customizations, procurement and manufacturing, building a press from initial consultation to shipping takes approximately six months. The Hunterwood development process starts with a discussion to understand the client’s objectives. From there, a proposal for a custom solution is drafted. Once an agreement is reached, the design is turned over to the Hunterwood engineering team to determine which aspects of the build need to be customized, modified or designed from scratch. Customizations run from the layout of the machine to fit in the customer’s building to the nature of the output product – bundled together with straps, wrapped with plastic, or other configurations.
I really value the opportunity to network with and learn from other leaders in our industry. Typically, Hunterwood would have three or four presses at various manufacturing stages at any given time, plus some smaller projects. Smaller projects may entail making auxiliary equipment for existing presses, such as twine pullers and big bale de-stackers. Says Conley, “It’s a lot of different things that increase the level of automation in the press to allow customers to do more.” Ultimately, the customization and the accumulation of many nuances and tweaks over the years have built the Hunterwood reputation for having the best bale presses in the business. Those countless subtle
improvements also make Hunterwood machines very difficult to copy. Once the build is ready to go, Hunterwood sends a team to install and commission the press, which can take several weeks to complete. “We have an excellent service team, and they’re willing to jump in the truck or on a plane,” Conley says. “We will do whatever is needed to get the job done,” he adds.
A lot of people really do care about what difference the company is making and the opportunity to contribute to improving global nutrition. Hunterwood has also developed an excellent IoT system called Hunterwood Online. Each machine has hundreds of sensors that collect data. Through the online portal, both the customer and Hunterwood technicians can access this information. This allows them to work with the customer to diagnose and often resolve issues remotely. Additionally, Conley says the company is developing a partnership with a European company to provide on-the-ground service to European customers.
Robust and Reliable In the press world, Hunterwood is well-known as a top manufacturer and that comes back to keeping the product and service robust and reliable. “The appearance of the bales that come out of the machines is very good and is often requested by the end customers. Secondly, the machines are very reliable and very automated. That becomes a big factor as well,” says Conley. In an effort to continue growing its reputation for machines that work well and produce top-grade compressed hay for export, Hunterwood has recently taken a step back to find out what else can be done to support its customers with highquality end production. High moisture content can be an issue with large bales. That lowers quality and can even ruin the end product, whether that hay stays in its original bale or gets compressed for shipping. Hunterwood has recently partnered with another AMC member, Chinook Hay Dryers, to enable a ‘bale to boat’ complete service offering, which will help their customers get top dollar for export hay because it has been perfectly dried and compressed.
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