BACKGROUND AUTO HYDRAULIC CONNECTION

While not discounting the undoubted success and safety of modern pin pick-up hitches, nor suggesting a short-term move to S-type couplers, it is time to look to the future. From Scandinavian buckets used with tilt-rotators, to increasingly sophisticated and powerful hydraulically-powered work tools, the average cost of excavator attachments will continue to rise at an alarming rate.

Particularly with hydraulic attachments, there is a strong business need to allow these to be easily shared among the excavator fleet to ensure their full utilisation. What cannot be allowed to happen is that the market fragments into slightly different ways to automatically make the hydraulic and other service connections within a quick coupler.

It would also be counter-productive for the construction and demolition sectors of the industry to agree on a different set of standards, which is one reason why there is, as yet, no universal standard. A good selection of construction-orientated Scandinavian tilt-rotator manufacturers are promoting the new Open-S standard. This may not suit the extensive existing user base in other sectors of the industry, particularly in demolition and recycling applications.

The time to think about a change is when it becomes clear that there will be a universal standard, which allows hydraulic attachments to be connected from the safety of the cab. They can be seamlessly shared between similar-sized excavators, helping to improve the productivity of the operators and getting the best return from the investment in more specialised attachments.