French cont­rac­tor Jérôme Rigou­let has deve­lo­ped his busi­ness over the long term. He is also a cham­pions­hip-win­ning racing dri­ver in his spare time, and the winner’s choice of mac­hi­nery is Ponsse.

Jérôme Rigou­let is a fore­stry cont­rac­tor in Jura, Eas­tern France, close to Switzer­land. The name Jura means “moun­tain forest” in Gau­lish, an old lan­guage. 250,000 hec­ta­res of the area, 50% of its ter­ri­tory, is cove­red by forest.

This is Jérôme Rigou­let’s playground, where he har­vests 100,000 m³ of tim­ber a year with his PONSSE mac­hi­nes. The har­ves­ted tim­ber compri­ses almost exclusi­vely softwood, and 90% of it is “small wood”, as he calls it, with dia­me­ters of up to 50 cm. These con­di­tions have led Jérôme to choose the PONSSE Scor­pion Giant and its H8 head as his next piece of equip­ment.

A pio­nee­ring cont­rac­tor

Jérôme Rigou­let began his fore­stry career in the 1990s, star­ting with chain­saw fel­ling, hand plan­ting of tree seed­lings, and forestclea­ring in his fat­her’s fore­stry cont­rac­tor busi­ness. The time he spent as an appren­tice not only ins­pi­red him to set up his own busi­ness but also to bring more mec­ha­ni­sa­tion to the sites in his region.

So in 2001, Jérôme star­ted out with a second-hand forwar­der – with great success. Not neces­sa­rily because of the mac­hine, but rat­her thanks to his welco­ming approach and friendly atti­tude toward cus­to­mers. Six months later, he was able to buy his first new forwar­der, a new one this time, fol­lowed by a second and then a third, and at the same time hire two emplo­yees.

As the years went by, Jérôme was still dri­ving his forwar­der and orga­ni­sing the work­si­tes. As an enterpri­sing man, he seized the oppor­tu­nity to buy a har­ves­ter in 2007. Dri­ving this new mac­hine imme­dia­tely added an extra dimen­sion to his busi­ness. With 3 forwar­ders and 2 har­ves­ters, sup­por­ted by 5 emplo­yees, his com­pany really took off in 2011.

Now Jérôme is success­fully concent­ra­ting especially on the com­mercial side of his busi­ness, to make the most out of his cus­to­mers’ pulpwood and pal­let tim­ber. Yet anot­her win­ning bet.

“We still have the same cus­to­mers today, and we still work in the same way as before,” he says with satis­fac­tion. The com­pany works for all kinds of forest owners such as pri­vate indi­vi­duals, local aut­ho­ri­ties, the Mini­stry of Fore­stry (ONF), saw­mills, mana­gers of natu­ral areas and roads, and fore­stry ope­ra­tors.

More efficient and bet­ter moni­to­red work­si­tes with Ponsse

Jérôme’s com­pany has evol­ved even more since then. It now has just one forwar­der, but three more har­ves­ters have been acqui­red, and two lor­ries are used for trans­por­ting tim­ber.

Jérôme is not wor­king the mac­hi­nes as much now, as he is focusing on adding value to the tim­ber. He is still kee­ping busy though, as one must stay up to date with the deve­lop­ment of cus­to­mers and the mar­ket to deli­ver the best pro­ducts from the forest.

This work is sup­por­ted by Jérôme’s recently launc­hed part­ners­hip with Ponsse.

“I wan­ted to work with a major brand and be able to count on local high-qua­lity ser­vice,” he explains.

Ope­ra­tions soli­di­fied by Ponsse part­ners­hip

Ponsse was a natu­ral choice in the woo­ded ter­rain of Jura. The PONSSE Ergo har­ves­ter imme­dia­tely won Jérôme over with its relia­bi­lity, com­fort and speed. With Ponsse as his part­ner, the ent­repre­neur was clearly achie­ving a hig­her level of per­for­mance in har­ves­ting and trunk proces­sing. Thanks to the inc­rea­sed pro­duc­ti­vity, the com­pany has become much more res­pon­sive in the field.

With the added arri­val of the PONSSE Mana­ger sys­tem to help manage sites and equip­ment, the back office ope­ra­tions have a whole new dimen­sion.

“It’s a great tool to work with, and I couldn’t live wit­hout it,” Jérôme says.

The company’s two PONSSE Ergo har­ves­ters with H7 heads are equip­ped with the sys­tem. These mac­hi­nes will soon be replaced by two forthco­ming Ponsse Scor­pion Giant har­ves­ters with H8 heads. They, too, come with Ponsse Mana­ger func­tio­na­lity.

Jérôme is plan­ning to change his two har­ves­ters simul­ta­neously, so that his two dri­vers, Guil­laume and Yan­nick, can learn how to use the new mac­hi­nes toget­her and help each other to progress. The simul­ta­neous switch also greatly simpli­fies buil­ding up the stock of parts and con­su­mables.

“This is a regu­lar part of the work, because the mac­hi­nes need to withs­tand a wor­king rhythm of 1,800 h/year with a mini­mum of break time. This can only be achie­ved with regu­larly renewed equip­ment,” Jérôme explains.

“We’re mee­ting our dead­li­nes thanks to our new mac­hi­nes,” he says.

Jérôme knows that the new Ponsse Scor­pion Giant will soon give him even more sta­bi­lity when wor­king on slo­pes. He can also achieve more crane reach. The H8 har­ves­ter
head gives much grea­ter proces­sing speed and allows for even big­ger dia­me­ters. These are real pluses in the field, not to men­tion the harvester’s design and inte­rior, which have won over the dri­vers. What is more, the ease of ser­vice and main­te­nance is much apprecia­ted. The blend of per­for­mance and qua­lity is per­fectly sui­ted to the ter­rain of Jura.

A com­pe­ti­tor at heart

When star­ting his career as a fores­ter in his twen­ties, Jérôme Rigou­let also tried his hand at com­pe­ti­tive kar­ting. His talent was even spot­ted by an estee­med racing team. Howe­ver, the demands of eve­ry­day life kept Jérôme away from the circuits after he set up his com­pany.

A self-con­fes­sed mec­ha­nic and com­pe­ti­tion ent­husiast, Jérôme has always wan­ted to return to motor sports. He did finish first at a com­pe­ti­tion for forwar­ders at Fou­ge­rol­les a few years ago, but not­hing can replace the thrill of car racing.

Three years ago, Jérôme made his come­back on the tar­mac. Now dri­ving Mit­su­bishi Evo 5 and Evo 9 cars, the cont­rac­tor has launc­hed him­self into regio­nal and natio­nal ral­lies in the Coupe de France and Cham­pion­nat de France series. Embar­king on his third sea­son, he is the reig­ning French cham­pion in the A8 class. What bet­ter match for a cham­pion than Ponsse – the best forest mac­hine in the world!

As with his job as a fores­ter, Jérôme pre­pa­res for his ral­lies in the best pos­sible way by fine-tuning the mec­ha­nics and antici­pa­ting main­te­nance as much as pos­sible. But in the end, he knows that it is the dri­ver who makes the dif­fe­rence.