Meet Marc!

Hailing from South West England, Marc recently relocated his young family to Warragul in order to work at Lely Center Gippsland in the heart of a thriving dairy community. In his previous role as a Lely robot technician in Devon, he worked on over 100 robots and now brings a wealth of knowledge to the Gippsland team.
“I provide technical support”, Marc explains. “I solve any problems that arise and offer improvements to customer systems. If I see that something can be done better on the machines, I recommend a different approach to people.

“I like dealing with farmers personally. And I like dealing with animals. You’re constantly thinking, It’s a different challenge almost every day.”

And what does Marc think of Gippsland, having hailed from England?

“It’s very similar scenery initially to look at, though the farming styles are different. I’ve found it good settling in. People are friendly, farmers are friendly. The only thing is the hot weather in the summer!”

Marc’s colleagues say he’s brought a “massive” amount to the team with his passion for robots. “He’s got an extremely good knowledge base on how robots run and how they should be running”, says Glen. “Everyone is learning from him.”

Marc is a little more humble about it, however. “It’s a team effort”, he says. “Collectively you pick away at challenges to achieve a better result for the farmer, through reliability of machines or higher milk yields, or even lower input costs. The achievement is helping the customer.”

Being so involved with both the technology and practicalities of farm life, we asked Marc where he sees the industry heading over the next few years.

“I think automation will continue accelerating due to reliability issues with manpower, and the sheer cost of labour. It’s a common thing you hear speaking to farmers. Being let down by milkers, the farmer having to stay home and do the milking even if they had something planned.
“It’s getting harder to get good labour and it’s extremely expensive. Robots offer a technical solution to both those problems. It’s future-proofing the industry in a way, because a lot of families don’t want to take the farms on, it’s seen as hard work. So I think ultimately everything will go the way of technology.” - Marc
Marc wants farmers to know that there’s a team of people at Lely invested in helping them achieve success, because their success is good for everybody.

“They’re not just dumped with a robot. There are lots of people in the industry who are passionate about looking after the machines and the welfare of the cows. In keeping the industry going.

“If there are any problems, there’s 24-hour call-out. We’ll answer it. There’s 30,000 or so of these robots out there working now, backed up by a world-renowned farming company with expertise in the field.”

Marc says they’ve got a well-rounded team in Gippsland. “Jordan has a really wide knowledge base in technical areas coming from industrial electrics. Glen’s knowledge of calf rearing and calf feeding machines is excellent. And they’re hard workers.”

When Marc’s not out on Gippsland farms you’ll find him enjoying family time, escaping the hot Aussie sun at the local pool or watching Netflix. “Don’t take life too seriously!” he tells us. 

Interested in robots?

Read about the Lockett Family's experience installing two robots on their small dairy farm, with little infrastructure change and a simple two-way grazing system.