It’s about 6,200 miles from Minneapolis to Seoul, South Korea. That’s how far Matt Quinnell traveled to participate in a special DEVELON project: gathering excavator operator feedback.
Matt’s family owns Advanced Wall Structures in Minnesota, a company specializing in boulder wall construction for residential communities. He purchased his first DEVELON crawler excavator in 2011, and his company has purchased 12 excavators since then from Lano Equipment. Matt is an advocate for the brand, regularly providing unbiased construction equipment feedback to other contractors.
With a dedicated following on Instagram, Matt regularly takes time to share pictures of his latest projects and respond to inquiries from his followers. He’s also an innovator when it comes to equipment: His company was one of the first in North America to adopt the use of tiltrotator excavator attachments.
After Matt returned from the DEVELON proving grounds in South Korea, I visited with him about his trip and got his take on participating in the excavator operator experience.
Operator Feedback Drives Future Products
Thomas: What was your overall impression of the program?
Matt: I was kind of flattered that I was the one who was chosen out of North America. There are a lot of good operators out there, especially from the United States. I was a little nervous about how I would stack up against other operators from around the world. In the end, my wife said, “You need to go,” so I did.
Thomas: What was the operator feedback program like?
Matt: At the DEVELON proving grounds in South Korea, there were operators from around the world — the United Kingdom, Finland and France to name a few. There was a translator there for the guys from France because they didn’t speak much English. If there was an issue with the machine, we used hand gestures to overcome communication deficiencies.
I was at the worksite Monday through Friday, from 7:30 a.m. until as late as 6 p.m. We had dinner with the DEVELON engineers every night until about 8 p.m. Then, the other operators and I would go out afterwards and we’d still be talking about the machines until midnight every night.
Thomas: How was the event productive from your point of view?
Matt: We were assigned to operating stations, testing out different aspects of the DEVELON equipment. We’d come together at lunch, and we’d share feedback among the operators and the engineers. The prototype machines were outfitted with new performance and safety features and future excavator innovations.
Feedback Implemented Within One Week
Thomas: What were the responses from the engineers when you provided feedback?
Matt: I’d test a machine function and write notes to give the engineers feedback. They really wanted to hear what I had to say — good or bad — and they wanted to get it right. I spend thousands of hours in excavators every year, so running the prototype DEVELON excavators was an awesome experience.
You could tell that the machines are early prototypes, but by Friday, those machines were really smooth. We were amazed that they were the same machines that we started the week with, just from the engineers making adjustments as we were out in the field testing them. So that was really neat to see how much progress could be made in a week, working face-to-face with the engineers that design these machines.
Thomas: You’ve relied on DEVELON excavators for more than a decade. You’ve seen several generations of our excavators. What has impressed you the most as the product has evolved?
Matt: The biggest change from my first machine, a DX180LC-3, to today are the factory integrations. I previously used aftermarket joysticks and a separate hydraulic setup. In my new DX235LCR-7, we retain the factory joysticks for use with a tiltrotator accessory and a rock grapple attachment to build boulder retaining walls.
And if I have an issue with a DEVELON machine, it’s a lot easier to diagnose what’s wrong because I can go into the telematics interface on my computer and, if there’s a fault code, I can see exactly what’s wrong.
Thomas: Are there any other noteworthy updates in your new -7 Series excavator?
Matt: I have the optional excavator around view monitor camera system installed in the DX235LCR-7. I have my cameras on all the time just with what I do. The job sites are busy, and I’m working next to other subcontractors, so it’s always good to have additional visibility to my surroundings.
We work along tree lines, and I’ll have my track right next to a house as I’m building walls, so an excavator with reduced tail swing is a must for what we do.
Learn more about how Matt Quinnell and Advanced Wall Structures have succeeded with DEVELON equipment in this article.
I spend thousands of hours in excavators every year, so running the prototype excavators was an awesome experience.”
By Thomas Lee, Product Strategy Manager
Thomas Lee is a product strategy manager at DEVELON. He has more than 13 years of experience working in the heavy equipment industry.
