Growing Eltec in New Zealand .... and Australia

TO MAKE A SUCCESS OF ELTEC IN THIS market will require good back-up and support. That’s a given, says Jonny Edwards, of joint Eltec distributor, Shaw’s Wire Ropes. The Cambridgebased company is already well advanced in setting up a sales and service network ahead of the arrival of the first customer machines.

“Because we deal with loggers all day long we’ll promote it under the Shaw’s umbrella, it won’t be a stand-alone operation,” he says.

“Service will mostly be handled in house – we have three good mechanics on board already, one in Cambridge, one in Rotorua and one in Gisborne – Steven (Stokes) will look after Northland.

“We’ll progress into other areas as the need arises. Baby steps first. We’re making sure we’ve got all the back-up right and parts in store – a few parts are here already and more on order, but a lot of stuff we can source locally anyway, from the engine, to pumps etc.”

Australia is also on the radar, after Eltec appointed Shaw’s and Steven Stokes joint distributors for that market and a Victorian company is in line to handle sales and service.

Eltec says it plans to expand its production facility in Quebec to support the additional sales from New Zealand and Australia.

Currently it is shipping out one new machine per month to our market, but this will rise to meet demand in the future.

Anticipation is also building for the release of the first levelling cabs, which have been under development by Eltec for the past three years.

“We’ve seen the levelling table and the engineering is top notch,” says Steven.

“It uses heavier gauge steel, bigger rams and the design is awesome. It’s really going to turn heads when it comes in, the way they’ve routed the hoses and it’s got a lot more ground clearance than anything else. When you look under the machine everything is flush and it has good central greasing points.”

The first leveller is expected to arrive in early 2019 and one of the targets is to produce a 38-tonne levelling machine to go on a winch assist system.

Meanwhile, the first customer Eltec has just landed in New Zealand, bound for Waikato’s Fast Harvesting. It’s a 277 loader with a grapple, large lift rams and a similar cab and 400 mm riser to the Stokes Logging 417 and will be used for loading and shovelling.