McHale Plant Sales of Birdhill, Co. Tipperary has been recognised by Komatsu Forest through the presentation of a major award to the company by the Swedish-based forestry division of the Japanese construction giant.
The Dealer of the Year trophy was presented to the Irish importer by the Komatsu forestry equipment division in acknowledgement of what the company’s managing director, Dr. Jurgen Munz, said is “successful cooperation, loyalty, and best knowledge on the forest machine sector”.
He also congratulated McHale Plant Sales on the contribution the company has made towards the marketing and sale of their timber harvesting equipment in Ireland, both north and south.
Komatsu machines
There are two major categories of machine produced by Komatsu Forest. The first are timber harvesters, which are used within the forest to fell trees, strip the trunks of excess bark and branches, and then cut them into lengths ready for processing.
The second is a companion unit which takes the form of an all-terrain, articulated forwarder, which is used to transport the cut lengths from the forest worksite to drop point accessible to normal road going trucks.
From here, the logs can then be taken to a railhead, sawmill or factory for processing into finished timber-based products for buildings or paper manufacture.
Pan European award
The presentation to McHale was made at a pan-European distributor conference held near Frankfurt and attended by distributors from all markets in which Komatsu forestry equipment is sold.
These included those from Europe’s most heavily forested countries where timber harvesting is a mainstream industry.
Present to represent McHale Plant Sales at the event and to accept the award were sales director, Denis McGrath, business development director, Darragh O’Driscoll, and aftersales director, Anthony Ryan.
Company chair, Michael McHale, has described receiving the award as an honour, saying “it recognises the work done by the company in securing a prominent market position for Komatsu forestry equipment in the seven years since being appointed to the role”.
McHale and Komatsu have enjoyed working together for over 40 years on the construction equipment side and this the award sits alongside another major international honour bestowed on them just weeks ago by Finnish stone crusher manufacturer, Metso, whose equipment they also represent.