By Dwight Hughes Jr.
The American nursery industry has historically been crippled with labor and mechanization issues. Traditionally, we have recognized the seasonality of our businesses, the outside work required in all kinds of weather and often great amounts of physical energy needed to accomplish our tasks.

Because of these challenges, three or four generations of nursery operators before us have accepted a low-skill, low-paid and often migrant work force. Coupled to the labor issue is mechanization. Because there are relatively few nursery firms, many of them unique with few standard products, equipment designers and manufacturers shy away from our limited market.

The biggest expense and biggest shortage in our industry is the "people energy" to produce, install, maintain and market our crops. National unemployment is at record low levels and additional pressure from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has significantly affected many nursery firms.

Leadership in our country's major business enterprises has attacked these obstacles head on. Fortune 500 companies in America today are focusing on downsizing the required number of people to accomplish their goals and investing in sophisticated equipment to increase worker productivity.

Where do we stand?

In the past few decades, young green-industry entrepreneurs have challenged tradition and attitudes. Many aggressive, forward-thinking companies have created research and development departments to assist in making workers at all levels more productive with less time and physical labor requirements. In addition, our cottage industry of mom-and-pop firms has matured into a professional and significant service-linked industry.

We are important and necessary in creating environmentally friendly residential and commercial neighborhoods. This influx of market demand for our products and services has also increased the number of firms practicing horticulture in America, thus increasing demand for equipment. This growth has attracted and interested many short-line and major equipment designers and builders to become involved with the green industry.

Wheel of Success

On a personal level, I have created a business plan based on the Wheel of Success that I published in a book in 1996, "Systems for Success: Strategies for Maximum Efficiency in Landscape Installation and Nursery Production."

I share it with you because it has enabled us to perform at twice the national average in terms of worker production efficiencies, all based on time and equipment management.

I compare our business to a large wheel with six spokes. The hub is time management. We've scrutinized every step of our operation to eliminate wasted time and wasted steps. We've also invested in equipment that reduces the labor needed for each task we perform.

The first and most important spoke is employees. Labor is the key to any business. Motivated, interested, trained, skilled people are the energy that propels a company.

The second spoke represents management's decisions on money and resources. Capital expenditures, debt load, salaries and wages, used equipment vs. new, and homemade vs. purchased are all are examples of the complex choices that lead to success or failure. With experience, leaders should develop the ability to invest wisely.

The third spoke is quality products. Many Americans still respect and will pay for quality and the green industry offers several levels. There's almost no substitute for quality in a service-oriented landscape company. People who pay for landscape services generally expect quality green and hard goods as part of the total package.

Machinery and equipment constitute the fourth spoke. If you recruit and train a high-quality work force and then give them respectable equipment to work with, expect a synergistic outcome. Our company usually produces twice as much revenue per employee as the typical company I see in the green industry. We do this by giving good people good equipment. Neither can perform at championship levels without the other.

The fifth spoke is markets. Niche marketing is a key to success in the green industry and cultivation of customers is an art. In an industry that sells service, a satisfied customer is your best bridge to new business. Our company treats clients as we would like to be treated with high standards of honesty and integrity. Our customers financed all of our dreams because they believed in our systems.

The sixth spoke is the fuel that starts our engine every day -- a pleasant work environment and a good benefits package. People who feel comfortable and needed do better work. Employees require financial security to feel comfortable. Profit sharing, retirement income and an insurance package are benefits commonly offered by American companies, but are sometimes lacking at nursery companies. If your employees don't think your company cares about their security, how can you expect them to perform at a high level for eight or 10 hours a day?

The wheel that holds all these spokes together is labeled success. It rolls on and on if the hub is secure and the spokes remain strong and unbroken.

New-idea programs?

At the national level, a couple of very significant programs have helped nursery personnel enrich their companies. First of all, the Wholesale Nursery Growers of America (a division of the American Nursery & Landscape Association) has banded together to share information twice a year at new-idea sessions. For the past 15 years, professional nurserymen from all across the United States and Canada have explained new tools, devices and concepts at these sessions.

These ideas have advanced our industry thinking and stimulated hundreds of thought processes. Many ideas have been further developed by manufacturing companies and introduced to our industry as patented equipment. Other simple ideas have been duplicated and copied at firms across the country.

This seek-and-share attitude borrowed from the International Plant Propagators Society has truly had enormous and lasting benefits for the American nursery community. The WNGA board of directors has elevated the program by publishing compilations of the presentations and offering videos of the sessions. The written form and film package makes the presentations available to member firms inexpensively.

New developments

The second national program of interest was started just three years ago by the Horticultural Research Institute, the research arm of ANLA. The board of trustees carefully analyzed major national labor trends in the nursery industry and shifted a portion of their efforts and resources to helping with mechanization research.

After considerable debate and counsel, it was decided to focus on the issue of containerization of plants. Sixty percent of all nursery products are in containers. The goal is to study and develop container-handling systems from the wholesale production nursery all the way to the consumer's patio.

The first step in revolutionizing this process has already been taken. HRI has a joint venture with the National Robotics Engineering Consortium in Pittsburgh in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University. Funding for the project is coming from three major sources: HRI, USDA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The NASA money is from an earmarked fund titled Technology Transfer, which means our industry is interfacing with space-age initiatives and using their experience to help us on Earth become more proficient, professional and profitable.

The USDA money appears in the Agricultural Research Service budget. Washington bureaucrats are sensitive to our needs of relieving labor pressures from all fronts and are pleased to participate in the joint project to bring technology into the hands of the average nursery workers across the country. The first machine is scheduled to debut in the fall of 2000. Stay tuned.

Looking to the future

The ANLA Management Clinic, held each February in Louisville, Ky., has incredible opportunities for studying labor issues by attending outstanding seminars and networking with key leadership of the green industry. Several specialty tours have occurred in the United States and Europe to promote labor saving and mechanization. These programs have had a positive influence on our industry and are sponsored by ANLA.

As you can see, we are advancing and maturing as an industry. We understand the synergistic outcome of joining people and women and machines. Our national trade association and research endowment have both taken the lead to promote a private/public partnership to benefit the entire industry with automation. You can play a significant and very important role by understanding the importance of integrating sound business principles with horticulture knowledge and supporting the national movement of Mechanization 2000, sponsored by ANLA.

Dwight Hughes Jr. is owner of Dwight Hughes Nursery, 5205 Nursery Road, Cedar Rapids, IA 52404; (319) 396-7038; fax (319) 396-9139.

© 2000 Branch-Smith Publishing