In a company, a warehouse, a production facility, handling is an operational aspect that may make the difference between an efficient business and an inefficient one.

If efficiency can also be affected by issues such as how the goods are arranged along the aisles, the choice of shelving and the way the staff members are organized, just think how it can be influenced by the type of machines used for handling.

The ideal would be to have a tailor-made machine for each situation! Utopian? Not at all!

We discussed this with Fernando Della Casa, Director of DEC, the Modena-based company that operates in the horizontal handling sector and which has its roots in a historic company already active in that field in the 50’s.

Over the past few years, DEC has specialized in electric tractors, which add to the proposal of professional scrubber-dryers.

The range of products is vast, precisely thanks to DEC’s characteristic ability to transform the requirements of each individual customer into a machine.

But since all they need to do is tow trailers of various sizes, does the range of electric tractors really have to be to be so large?
“his is actually a legitimate doubt for non-professionals –  explained Della Casa, who went on to say – but you need to go deeper into the matter as we’ve been doing for 25 years. Yes! We have been producing electric tractors for 25 years by tailoring them to our customers’ requirements and listening to their needs.

There are so many variables to consider in simple towing work before you can choose the most suitable machine. Characteristics the machine must have and which depend on the type of goods that have to be handled, but also on the available space. To name a few, these characteristics include towing and load capacity, speed, the ability to climb slopes, the space available for manoeuvring, the type of driving system, which will depend on the operations involved, the type of route to be covered, the autonomy of the machine and many other characteristics and performance parameters.

Having analysed all these aspects in all the situations our customers mention has led us to create a range which, to date, includes 20 basic models with towing capacities spanning 800 kg to 25 tons”.

DEC tractor models can be divided into 6 large families:

• Towing tractors
• 3-wheel ride-on tractors
• 4-wheel ride-on tractors
• Stand-on tractors
• Tractors with loading platform
• Customized tractors of various types

A broad variety of machines for a large number of different sectors.

The automotive industry is one of the areas with which DEC is majorly involved, having worked with several of Europe’s top players. But that’s not all. “We have also supplied a great number of vehicles to  hospitals  – explained the Director, – airports, the railway authorities, industries in general and to the  logistics sector.

There is an increasing tendency to differentiate vertical and horizontal goods handling from pure horizontal handling. This has created the need for specialized vehicles for the type of handling in question. It is a common trend that we’ve found in practically all the sectors in which we work. This only confirms how right we were to opt for customizing”.

Every DEC machine is manufactured by DEC. DEC’s applied know-how includes:

• AC drive and control systems,
• lithium batteries built into the machines,
• safety systems (proximity radar, speed control tailored to the workplace…),
• data logger with all functions activated and recorded with cloud,
• various electronic applications specifically designed for our customers

Each DEC machine is based on an idea: the customer request received by the sales team. Later on, the idea is turned into an executive project by the technical office staff. The executive project is used to create a prototype, which becomes a pre-production machine  and lastly a standard electric tractor, part of the DEC range.

“Our is a medium-sized company, – concluded Della Casa – and as such, we are always ready to listen to the requests of our customers. In actual fact, our size and flexible outlook have enabled us to create a niche market that the big players in the sector would find difficult to enter.

But this does not only depend on the medium size of our company. We are also able to stay ahead because we always keep a careful eye on all the technologies and innovation in the sector, always up to date and often actually at the forefront”.

Just out of curiosity: do you know what “Bullisti” are?

“Electric tractor drivers are known as “Bullisti” in a major car company here in Italy, the reason being that DEC’s best-selling tractor is called Bull. Just think how many of our machines work in that company, in production facilities located throughout Italy.”.

Source: TCEMagazine