Garden products manufacturer Husqvarna Group is celebrating a landmark occasion for British manufacturing as it marks the production of its one millionth robotic lawnmower at its UK headquarters in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.
The milestone moment for the company is a testament to Husqvarna Group’s devotion to innovation in lawn mowing, and to the 130,000sq m Newton Aycliffe site which has been a manufacturing force for robotic mowing since 2006.
In 1995, the Husqvarna Group introduced the Solar Mower, which it says is the world’s first-ever robotic mower. Today the Husqvarna Group offers a range of robotic mowers in the Husqvarna, Gardena, McCulloch and Flymo brands.
Husqvarna Group chief executive and president Kai Wärn said: “Celebrating 1,000,000 environmentally friendly robotic mowers is a milestone for the Group. More than twenty years ago, we created the robotic mower market and have developed the market ever since. We naturally have a strong market leadership within this category while many of our competitors still are fairly new in the market. We see that in many countries the market for robotic mowers remains small, while others have grown substantially – meaning sizeable growth opportunities in this exciting segment remains. Our aim is to maintain our leadership position by providing the most reliable, safe and efficient products and solutions.”
Production of robotic mowers has been ongoing for 22 years and in 2006 its Newton Aycliffe factory began the manufacturing of its flagship product. In the height of the season it can see around 3,000 models produced per day.
It takes, on average, input from 72 staff to produce each robotic mower and the factory currently employs 1,154 people to produce machines which are exported worldwide. The main market for robotic mowers is still Western Europe but is growing globally by at least 20% each year, Husqvarna Group says.
