FULL STORY: It’s part of wool industry’s bright future
ARGUABLY the world’s most innovative shearing shed is just outside Dubbo and, after almost two centuries of doing things the same way, this shed is a shining light for an industry that looks set to take a massive jump ahead, not only in work-flow and productivity, but also in worker health and sheep welfare.
Dubbo locals have been at the centre of this innovation. For 18 months, shearing contractor Hilton Barrett and Schuster Consulting Group have been through a rigorous process to create an innovative shearing shed design, thanks to funding from Australian Wool Innovation (AWI).
Hundreds of people turned up to check out the new shed last weekend, despite being in the midst of the worst drought in Australia’s history since European settlement.
AWI staff were present in force. The organisation is funded by levies on the national sheep flock and they were happy this project had hit such a positive note amongst graziers, shearers and wool handlers.
AWI project coordinator for Woolgrower Services, Henry Ridge, said the concept for a new way of doing things was initiated in June 2017 during a workshop in Dubbo with shearing and wool harvesting stakeholders.
“One of the short term strategies that came out of that workshop was that people are going to be building new sheds, so we needed to get the best information out there and let people know what options and ideas are out there,” Mr Ridge told Dubbo Photo News.
“Things are good in the wool and sheep industry at the moment so with the infrastructure that’s going up that’s great, and we’re looking to improve not only conditions for our workforce but also for the livestock as well, that is, the welfare of the sheep.”
Hilton Barrett has held many shearing records over the years and was the driving force to change the way sheds are built – he says it was a struggle until a mate told him to ask AWI if they could help.
“The worst part about the whole thing was that I tried for two years to get the major companies that build shearing sheds to change the way they design and build their sheds,” Mr Barrett said, adding that the work flow in traditional sheds didn’t work for everybody.
“AWI jumped on it and funded the research and development which gives us what we’ve got today,” Mr Barrett said.
He’s pleased AWI posted the shed design and reasonings onto their website so the information is open source for the entire industry.
“We don’t stand to gain anything out of this except the fact that we know we’ve got a product that’s free to everybody,” he said.
He says the open source concept gives everyone in the industry the opportunity to get set up and ready to get the workers back ` into the industry that will be needed when the sheep numbers go back up.
“We’re going to need to be able to shear them and right now we’re going to struggle unless people do something with their infrastructure.”
Henry Ridge said the repetitive nature of shearing in the old sheds makes for much unnecessary awkward human movement, a factor which can cause severe negative impacts on health and wellbeing over the course of months and years. AWI is pleased many of these new design elements can be adapted to existing sheds in upgrades.
“It all starts with injuries, and we want to look after that around the catching pen and the chute. The chute here is large and it’s recessed, that’s on purpose; it’s quite an easy release for the sheep and the catching pen is a steep slope and the shearers love it,” Mr Ridge explained.
“I think the straight drag is the most important part about this design, along with the wider chute,” he continued.
Because there’s no twisting around the corners, Mr Ridge believes the design will also help reduce long-term problems for shearers such as knees, hips and backs.
“We’re doing some work with the University of Melbourne around motion capture and muscle fatigue and so look forward to seeing the results of that,” he said.
GETTING the design right has been a mammoth task. Dubbo expert Peter Schuster was brought on board to ensure nothing was missed during an incredibly comprehensive consultation with industry.
“We created a research program, we identified some key sheds within the Central West and identified a team of experts including woolgrowers, wool handlers, shearers and wool classers, and contractors,” Mr Schuster said. Opinions were gathered from all those groups.
“We went around to these sheds, we identified the key features of all of them, we then drafted a design for a shed and sent it to 500 industry people a around the country. 150 of them responded, we incorporated their suggestions then we went to building prototypes. We built four prototypes, refining the design each time until we came to actually doing the design for the main shed,” he explained.
“What we now have is a modular based shed; this one is six stands but being modular it could be anything from one to six, and what people now have is a fit-out with structural integrity so it doesn’t need to be engineered based on the shed. A producer could buy any shed that they want to off the shelf, and they then have the fitout to the size they want and away they go,” he said.
Mr Schuster said factors that appear small and could have been easily overlooked can actually make a huge difference.
He listed many other elements such as the straight drag, the slope on the catching pen, the fact that the sum of the catching pen and the forcing pen equals the sum of the laneway pen as key to the success of the design. “Within that you have one run in the catching pen and the force yard, and you have another run in the laneway pen, so from an efficiency perspective, if your presser is pressing your wool and then penning up, they pen up and they know they’ve got a full run of sheep there ready to go,” Mr Schuster explained.
HILTON BARRETT said all the work during the past 18 months adds up to an industry under stress now having some light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to recruiting and retaining a workforce, especially those who pick up the shears.
“It’s going to get tougher and tougher to keep staff, to get them into the industry, and when we get them in it’ll be tougher to keep them,” Mr Barrett said.
“If we can get more and more of these sheds around, we can help people to work for longer, especially the shearers. You know, you can train a rouseabout in a fortnight but it takes years to train a shearer. They’re going to try robots, they’re going to try whatever they like, but no-one’s going to replace a human for shearing a sheep.”
Henry Ridge said it’s a project that no single grower would have had the resources to take on and he’s proud AWI played its part.
He emphasised the important role played by all the people involved in the consultation process. As well as some of the best shearers and wool handlers in the world, they also included feedback from some beginners. The range of people included during development means everyone in the industry should be able to relate to the new design, Mr Ridge said.
“That’s the big thing about adoption, if it’s not for you, you might not look at it, but because we’ve had a range of people involved in it, hopefully we can see people relate to it and look to the future, which is crucial,” he said, adding it’s a huge morale boost to his staff to see so many people show up to embrace the long-awaited innovations in this new shed.
“It’s great and it’s a credit to everyone involved in the project.
“It’s a great moment to be able to get to the end of this and have this many people who are interested in the results,” he said, referring to the large turn-out at the new Dubbo shed last weekend.
“It’s very promising. It’s a great outcome,” he said.
They’re going to try robots, they’re going to try whatever they like, but noone’s going to replace a human for shearing a sheep... – Hilton Barrett