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Logging company proactive in upgrading equipment

Winter 2011

Innovation has been standard operating procedure for Bill and Fred Hermann during the four decades that they have been involved in the West Coast logging industry. They have encouraged manufacturers to develop equipment that saves time and work and have been willing to be the first to "sign the order" for a new product that, even though it still may be in the prototype stage, shows promise.

From a 25-yard-capacity bucket for handling wood chips, to a wireless, remote-controlled, rear-steering trailer, to the Doosan brand of wheel loaders and excavators, the Hermann Brothers Logging and Construction Company has been at the forefront of selecting equipment to increase productivity.

"We are always looking for ways to improve or enhance something," says Bill Hermann, who with his brother Fred, owns the 42-year-old Port Angeles, Wash., company as well as a subsidiary called Evergreen Fibre. "When we identify a need, we contact an equipment manufacturer and say that we will help you design what we want, you build it, make it work and we will buy it."

In recent years the Hermann brothers have gone into the biomass business, supplying about 1.2 million pounds per day to area paper mills. They decided the key to a successful harvest was being able to get a truck to haul wood chips into the forest on the same roads used by logging trucks.

"When a logging truck hauls its trailer into the woods the trailer is steered by a mechanical device," Bill Hermann says. "Since a chip trailer doesn't have this type of system, it is very difficult to get into the woods and to turn around. We worked with a truck and a trailer manufacturer to come up with a solution. The result: a wireless, radio-controlled, rear-steering chip trailer pulled by a six-wheel-drive truck that can go anywhere a logging truck can go.

"Today we have four of these trailers and five of the trucks and they work very well," he continues. "Getting the wood chips from the mountaintop to the processing plant is what makes biomass harvesting work. We are the only ones that do it this way; it's the first time it has been tried in North America."

Another integral part of this business: five Doosan machines, purchased from Cascade Trader, Chehalis, Wash.

‘Trouble-free machines'
A trio of DX300LL log loaders are used in the logging operation, primarily to prepare materials for the biomass grinders and to feed brush into them. "They work out in the field and are easy to move from site to site every couple of days without a lot of extra permits," Bill Hermann says. "Our employees like operating them and they are trouble-free machines."

A Doosan DL500 wheel loader — equipped with a grapple — feeds logs into the debarker and the chipper, working 10 to 11 hours a day.

Another DL500 uses a bucket that demonstrates the ongoing innovation at Hermann Brothers. "Initially we attached a 12-yard bucket to load chips into a 70,000-pound-capacity truck," he says. "It took 12 to 14 minutes to load the 11 to 12 buckets necessary to fill a truck. We thought that was too long.

In addition to loading trucks, the DL500 cleans up around the yard, stacks chips in piles, delivers waste materials to the grinders and does several other jobs. "It's a smooth, well-balanced, fuel-efficient wheel loader that the operators really like," Bill Hermann says. "The agile DL500, which can maneuver just as easily as smaller wheel loaders, is a very good machine. It's only two years old and has more than 6,000 hours of use."

Mechanical age fits brothers perfectly
The Hermann brothers, both Vietnam-era Navy veterans, entered the logging business at the beginning of the mechanical age. Their niche was harvesting second growth timber and once they realized it was inefficient to pick up the smaller logs one at a time, they looked for ways to move beyond the traditional skidder to move cut trees out of the forest.

"That got us started being creative with machinery," Bill Hermann says. "We helped a manufacturer develop a log skidding grapple so we did not have to set chokers on all those small logs. We tested several new logging machines and got a license to modify a chain-type device for debarking logs, which has now become an industry standard."

He says because he and Fred have been involved in the equipment end of the logging industry for so long, they felt very comfortable in purchasing their first Doosan machine. "We can look at a product, see how it is put together and make a decision fairly easily," he says.

Take the case of the DL500 wheel loader.

"With the comparable model of a previous brand we owned for a long time, we had to replace the hinge pin every year," Hermann says. "It was 2.5 inches in diameter. The hinge pin on the DL500 is 3.5 inches. That's a significant difference. Doosan wheel loaders are not, by any stretch of the imagination, underbuilt. If anything, they are overbuilt."

Since adding the Doosan wheel loaders and excavators to his equipment lineup, Hermann has seen efficiency increase while lowering ownership and operating costs. "Of all the machines available, the Doosan brand is at the higher level of quality," he says.

Doosan parts guarantee impresses loader owner
The Doosan industry-leading 48-hour parts guarantee has been put to the test by Hermann Brothers Logging and Construction and passed convincingly, according to Bill Hermann, co-owner of the Port Angeles, Wash., company.

"One Friday afternoon we ordered a new wiring harness for one of our Doosan DL500 wheel loaders, hoping to get it by Tuesday," he says. "It arrived on our doorstep at 8 a.m. Monday. I was very impressed."

The guarantee: A machine debilitating part will be in the customer's hands within two business days or Doosan will pay for a replacement rental machine. Doosan parts are readily available from a facility in Suwanee, Ga., and two-day delivery is standard in almost every part of North America.