Your blogger has just arrived back from Castelfranco in Northern Italy, home of Global Garden Products (G.G.P.), Europe’s largest garden machinery manufacturer and one of the five biggest producers of lawnmowers in the world. G.G.P. is the company behind Mountfield, one the UK’s best known garden machinery brands, as well as Stiga, Castel Garden and Alpina. Mountfield lawnmowers (who invited us) are Britain’s best selling petrol brand and on our visit we were able to test drive some of their latest models as well being given a guided tour of G.G.P.’s two factories in the area and their Research and Development centre.
Some quick facts and figures to give you an idea of the size of the enterprise: G.G.P. manufactured 1.5 million walk-behind lawnmowers last year (with well over 100,000 Mountfield lawnmowers finding their way into the UK market alone) and some 120,000 ride-on mowers and tractors (an estimated 39% of the total European market). During the high season G.G.P. employs up to 1000 people in its two Italian factories with a further 500 in Sweden and Slovakia where it also has manufacturing bases.
During our trip we were first taken to G.G.P.’s lawnmower factory in Castelfranco Veneto (not far from Venice). The factory building was huge, covering some 35,000 square metres. The guided tour enabled us to observe every stage of the manufacturing process from the initial pressing of the lawnmowers’ decks on large steel presses through to the paint-shop in which hundreds of mowers hung in line waiting to be automatically spray painted and finally the production lines on which up to 18 models are assembled at any given time.
The ride-on tractor factory nearby in Campigo was even more impressive with a series of five production lines resembling those found in car plants with the machines being assembled from the chassis upwards. Up to 800 ride-on mowers are produced in a single day at this one location with more than 1000 components making up each product.
During our visit to G.G.P.’s Research and Development centre we were able to observe state of the art Computer Assisted Design programmes being employed to develop the latest lawnmower and garden machinery products. New releases for this year include a range of quiet petrol lawnmower from Mountfield which is fantastic news if you live in a residential area and have been put off in the past from using a petrol mower because of concerns over disturbing the neighbours.
These new Mountfield quiet petrol lawnmowers are about to go into production and will be available from MowDIRECT very soon! The G.G.P. R&D department also contained a series of test bays and we were able to observe first hand the various tests under which the manufacturer’s engines, lawnmowers and other garden machines were put under before coming to market.
On behalf of MowDIRECT your blogger would like to take this opportunity to thank G.G.P. for their hospitality and the rewarding experience provided to us on this trip.
