Resource management, time and consistency were all factors that needed tackling at Calderdale Council, and the Turf Tank One has addressed them all.
Senior Technical Officer Samantha Ward had retirements in her line marking team, which meant losing over 60 years of experience.
Temporarily, Samantha utilised members of the gardening group to mark out the running tracks and football, rugby and rounders pitches needed in the borough, but she was always looking for a solution.
"I thought there must be a better way to utilise resources that didn't involve additional recruitment and the time it takes to provide full training," Samantha explained.
“Our line marking team were impressed by the time that Turf Tank would save and the way you could plot the pitches. We knew from there that our gardeners could focus more on their traditional jobs whilst people like me who are technically minded could work with the Turf Tank robot."
Redistributing resources had an immediate positive impact on the team, with timesaving and line accuracy next in line. Savile Park is one of the Council's busiest pitches, with athletics, football and rounders all hosted at the site. Previously it took staff an entire day to line a 400m running track, whereas now it takes less than two hours.
"Savile Park, is a multiple-game site, and it's much easier to mark out now. Once we set a template on the Turf Tank, we can pretty much set up each sport, football, running tracks, rugby, and rounders, and let it go.
"Every time it goes out, it's in the right space, and it's accurate.
"Our time is precious, and the running track we've
marked out today now takes just under two hours with one person and the Turf
Tank, so we have pretty much smashed the time in terms of the full day.
Because of that, the Turf Tank has recovered a lot of time for our staff to do
other things on the sports pitches and around the borough.
"We have also saved time with initial marking of football pitches, probably a week and a half every time we mark out, which is invaluable time.”
