IVECO lifts Tadano service fleet

Tadano is one of the country’s largest importers and distributors of high-quality lifting equipment, providing the mining, construction, and civil engineering industries with a wide range of products including all terrain, rough terrain, aerial work platforms, city, loader, lattice boom crawler, telescopic crawler, and truck cranes.

A major component of the company’s aftersales offering is product support and maintenance – given the size of the machines and logistical implications of moving them for servicing, this work is undertaken on customer sites by a dedicated team of Tadano technicians and their support vehicles.

Traditionally these support vehicles were utilities, but the recent acquisition of four IVECO Dailys – three 50C vans and a 50C cab chassis – has seen the company break the mould, according to Tadano Oceania Project Manager – Customer service, Michael Kobilke.

Michael has worked in the industry for over 35 years both in Australia and abroad; he also has experience as both a crane equipment OEM and as a user of cranes in private companies. Additionally, he began in the industry as a field service technician, so has a thorough idea of what works best in terms of support vehicles.

“One of the main reasons we opted for IVECO Daily was for the additional space and carrying capacity the models provided,” Michael said.

“The vans are 12 cubic metres in volume and have a lot of room for storage and racking as well as for a work bench – the dimensions of the Daily allow technicians up to about a height of 6ft 2in (188cm) to stand up straight in the back to do any work they may need to, and a GVM of 4495kg in both van and the cab chassis provides significantly more payload than standard utility vehicles.

“A braked towing capacity of 3500kg also provides the scope to tow a service trailer containing oils and lubricants, compressors, oil pumps and waste oil tanks – everything we need to conduct a full on-site service.”

Michael said that the company was also keen to transition to vans for the added security they provided. Requirements for the IVECO Daily cab chassis where a little bit different though, as this one will exclusively service mining customers in the WA Pilbara and better suits that application.

“Van service vehicles are more common in Europe and we wanted to mirror that here – given the spare parts, specialist tools and consumables we carry, it made more sense to opt for a secure, enclosed environment,” he said.

“The vans are also equipped with inverters, which allow technicians to power a range of sensitive equipment including computer systems. Other accessories include extra interior and exterior lighting to make working after dark easier and safer.”

Tadano Cranes’ new Dailys are all equipped with IVECO’s Euro 6 180hp/430Nm engine, which is coupled to an eight-speed full automatic. Michael said that opting for the full automatic was an easy choice.

“Increasingly a lot of the younger drivers don’t have a manual license or regularly drive traditional manuals, so we wanted to provide them with a comfortable and stress-free driving environment which the auto does,” he said.

“The IVECO Daily has a car-like interior and driving characteristics – you can travel long distances in them and not get tired as you would in a light-duty cab-over truck. Safety is a major consideration for us as a company so minimising fatigue while also providing technicians with a full suite of active and passive safety equipment such as four airbags, Advanced Emergency Braking System and ESP9 (IVECO’s suite of stability technologies) was important.”

The new IVECO Dailys are expected to travel up to 45,000km per year across a range of conditions. While the cab chassis will be based in the Pilbara, the vans will be located in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland respectively.

“This new vehicle investment is a major pillar to the growth strategies of Tadano Oceania – the importance of being customer focused allows us to target areas where we can make improvements on our customer experience touchpoints along with providing a safe and efficient workspace for our team,” said Michael.

The vehicles were purchased from IVECO dealership, Adtrans Truck Centre in Melbourne.