Malaysian Company Looks to Champion Motor Graders to Build Growing Infrastructure

Over half a million workers in Malaysia rely on the palm oil trade for their livelihood. To help their industry compete on the world stage, the nation’s largest plantation owner has been building up a large fleet of Champion Compact Motor Graders.

Bryan Abernathy, executive vice president of Champion Motor Graders, has visited the Malaysian palm plantations several times to help his customer to ensure efficient movement of the palm crop from the field to the market. “They are working vast acreages here, and maintaining vehicle access is a major challenge in these rainforest conditions. After trying various types of other equipment, they have really come to recognize the unique qualities of our C70 C Series Graders.”

A Staple for Food and Fuel
Palm nuts are to south Asia what corn is to America. Oil is extracted from both the pulp of the nut and from its kernel. The oil serves a host of uses, from cooking and food products to nutritional supplements, to soaps and cosmetics to the production of biofuels. Champion’s customer, Sime Darby Plantation Sdn Bhd, is a vertically integrated palm producer involved in every aspect of palm oil production from seed stock to research and development. A leader in establishing new standards to protect the region’s rainforest, Sime Darby is also the world’s largest producer of certified sustainable palm oil, with more than 800,000 acres under cultivation.

The challenge for Champion and the plantation managers is to maximize the productivity of every acre. Abernathy explains that, “There is no automated technology for the actual palm harvest; it’s very labor intensive. Where we can help is by maintaining better roads to transport the nuts off the plantation with a minimal footprint.”

The Right Tool for the Job
Clusters of watermelon-sized palm nuts are hand cut from the trees, up to 25 ft tall, with a long-handled sickle. The nuts are then separated from the clusters and loaded into tractor-drawn wagons in loads of up to 10 tons each. However, the pathways used by the tractors require continuous maintenance. Heavy rain turns the roads to mud, bogging down the heavily laden wagons. Then the intense heat of the tropical sun bakes the road into deep hardened ruts. A rough ride in the wagons can take a costly toll in bruising and damage to the palm harvest.

“In the past, palm plantations have tried to maintain their roads by attaching belly blades to the tractors or by pulling a box blade. But the road conditions are very tough for equipment that isn’t designed for the job. Regardless of the location, our graders are engineered for earthmoving applications, with the power and geometry to push and cut heavy loads.”

Sime Darby ran extensive studies to compare the performance of its various existing equipment to the Champion Grader. The analysis required weeks of field testing to justify investment in the Champion Grader. Justification for the grader was hard because they already had other equipment such as tractors that were dual purpose. “It was a hard sale,” Abernathy admits, “because the grader would only have this single purpose on the plantation. But the need was evident: they were into a routine of ‘pull the wagon today; grade the road tomorrow.’ After a few weeks, they had the documentation to verify that our motor grader would pay for itself.”

Improving Productivity
The Champion C70 C Graders purchased in Malaysia are hydrostatically driven tandem-axle machines weighing 13,000 lbs and powered by a 110-hp Cummins engine. The plantation operators discovered Champion through the heavy equipment division of the Sime Darby Group, Tractors Malaysia. Tractors Malaysia is the Champion master distributor for Southeast Asia and also the sole Caterpillar dealer throughout much of the region.

“The C70 C really is the right choice for their application,” says Abernathy. “It’s our most basic machine, with ample power yet simple to maintain. As a compact grader, it cuts a narrower path than a full size unit and it turns in a tighter radius, so it takes less of the acreage out of production. That means the plantation gets a higher yield per acre, and less rainforest is diverted to meet market demand.”

To maintain the rutted roads, the C70 C Graders are also fitted with ripper attachments. The graders first pass over with the ripper to break up the baked mud and rocks. Then, with the second pass, they use the 10-ft moldboard to grade and finish. Ripping quickly prepares the road for a smooth finish and also saves wear and tear on the cutting edges of the moldboards. Although the procedure requires two passes, the Champion Graders have proven to be more efficient and more versatile than previous methods. More than a dozen C70 C machines in service now and more are planned for additional palm plantations. Sime Darby alone manages almost 150 palm estates and each one requires road maintenance equipment.

Champion builds the C70 C units in its facility in Charlotte, N.C., then ships them knocked-down for final assembly in Malaysia. Abernathy and his engineering team have been working closely with Tractors Malaysia to oversee the project, as well as providing operator and maintenance training for plantation staff, while engineers from Tractors Malaysia have been to Charlotte to see first-hand what it takes to build and assemble a Champion Grader.