Mecalac, bringing game-changing innovations to North America

A desire to innovate and offer new solutions brought the Mecalac group to the North American market — a market eager for Mecalac’s problem-solving innovations.

Advertisement

A meeting with Alexandre and Henri Marchetta, CEO and Chairman of the MECALAC Group respectively, to talk about the company’s growing presence in North America and the new products on view at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2020.

Can you talk about Mecalac as a whole and how the company has evolved? What is your vision for the future?

HENRI MARCHETTA:

Since 1974, Mecalac, a family-owned company, has maintained its key values of customer focus, responsibility, teamwork and sustainability. We have strived to build and maintain strong relationships with everyone we deal with: suppliers, distributors, buyers, users, collaborators and many more. Keeping those relationships as an essential part of our business model has allowed us to grow internationally, and now in the North American market.

We design our equipment with the customer at the center of every decision, and we’re limited only by our imagination. Today, we offer excavators, loaders, backhoe loaders, compaction rollers, site dumpers and other specialized equipment around the world. We continue to develop innovations that set new standards for product performance and solve challenges operators face daily. As we move forward, we will persist in differentiating our approach for each country we enter to best serve individual customer needs. We continue to be entrepreneurs — true to our vision and values — who constantly push the limits of what’s possible.

You’ve had great success in Europe over the last 45 years. What brings you to North America, and why is now the right time?

ALEXANDRE MARCHETTA:

Though we formally entered the North American market only three years ago, we have had North American distributors interested in our solutions for at least a decade before that. However, our relationship-based philosophy means we only enter a market when we have the right support in place and have identified partners who share our values and are excited about our products. It wasn’t until 2016 that we found the right distributor partners to make our North American debut. These partners believe in the Mecalac approach and share our vision for reshaping the way contractors work. Like us, they have a passion for finding new solutions and servicing customer needs in a way few companies do.

Our initial dealer partnership was with Lorusso Heavy Equipment near Boston. They believed the North American market was ready for the innovations the Mecalac product offers, not only for work in urban areas but also for a variety of other applications. The best partnerships are built on a win/win approach. For our rapidly-growing dealer network, Mecalac offers a new dynamic, a point of differentiation and potentially new market segments and applications.

As a result, our dealers vigorously promote our products and advocate their unique capabilities with passion.

International companies often enter the market only to soon disappear. How long will be you be here? What will make you stay or leave North America?

AM:

“How long will you be here?” was the most common question we received when we introduced ourselves to this market at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2017. We know some companies enter a market just to test it out, and then quickly pull up stakes when they don’t get the immediate returns they seek. That’s not who we are. We take the time to do our homework in order to understand the market needs, sales potential and the right channel strategy. When we enter a market, we’re here to stay. Stability for employees, suppliers, dealers and customers is critically important to us. Integrity and stability are some of the most sought-after qualities in a supplier, but unfortunately can be difficult to find. We take great pride in the fact that we deal honestly with people and that we’re always there to support them. We can look any of our partners in the eye and know we’ve dealt with them fairly and transparently.

We’re here at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2020 in Las Vegas. What are you showcasing at your booth? What markets do your products reach?

AM:

Our customers often tell us they come to shows to see what Mecalac will bring this year because they know we are always bringing game-changing solutions for everyday jobsite challenges. We are proud to demonstrate the versatile range of new-to-North America MWR wheeled excavators in our booth, in addition to showcasing the updated MCR series of crawler skid excavators and the AS700 and AS900 swing loaders, as well as site dumpers. This equipment, along with the rest of our product line, is capable of boosting productivity and reducing additional equipment needs in any number of applications.

The machines’ benefits are apparent on all job sites, including in applications where space management is key, such as around high-traffic areas and urban environments. We build our excavators with cabs that give operators a better view of their surroundings and greater mobility to operate safely in all environments. The equipment is also multifunctional. In many cases, one Mecalac machine can replace as many as four pieces of more traditional equipment. All of our equipment follows our core product values of safety, ease-of-use, efficiency and sustainability.

Please talk about how you design your products. How do you think about the user during research and development?

AM:

From the beginning, listening to our customers has been an essential part of our business model. And by customers, we mean the people actually using our products. We work closely with our dealers to make sure the end users are happy. Our commitment to relationships extends through the entire channel, so we are involved every step of the way.

As a result, we develop equipment with an end-user-first mentality. Our close relationship with our distributors allows us to hear about the frustrations of operators, pointing us to areas where innovation can solve real-world problems. Our team throws out any preconceived perceptions or design biases to look at problems from a creative perspective. We don’t accept the idea that ‘this is the way everyone else does it so it must be right’, or limiting ourselves by worrying about cost ahead of ingenuity. That’s when real innovation happens. Initially, our innovation focused solely on the performance of the machines. However, we have now seen opportunity to improve the operator experience with a wide variety of upgrades. Ease-of-use design features such as the ability to fill the tank like you would a car or better sight lines are incorporated into all of the equipment, improving ergonomics. Mecalac is also the only manufacturer to offer a quick coupler as standard. The coupler — which took years of engineering creativity to develop — is deceptively simple and eliminates the risk of dropping an attachment.

Safety features are another significant focus. Our customers are constantly worried about onsite injuries and Workmen’s Comp claims, so we seek out solutions to address those issues. We design our excavators, site dumpers and the rest of our product lines with direct and safe access to the cab, reducing the risk of injury while entering or exiting the equipment. This is especially important because studies show about half of all jobsite injuries occur when stepping in or out of the cab.

Innovation is a key driver for our product development. It’s in our DNA to create game-changing equipment. If there is no innovation and if it doesn’t serve the user better, we won’t do it. We strive to use the information gathered from end-users to create multifunctional products that allow our operators to get more work done with fewer pieces of equipment. For us, the secret to successful innovation is to address the question no one has asked and that users take for granted. It was conventional wisdom that crawler excavators are slow or wheeled excavators are unstable — we changed that. Our swing loaders are an example of innovative efficiency. The machines can load and then pivot the loader bucket 90 degrees on either side to dump the material — with no loss in stability — while staying in their own footprint. To load a truck, for example, a Mecalac swing loader requires only half as much space as a conventional loader. The ability to pivot the bucket instead of repositioning the swing loader reduces movement to a bare minimum and improves efficiency. We strive for simplicity in design. Perfection is reached when there is nothing left to take away — not when there is no room left to add.

Finally, sustainability is extremely important to us. We are proud of our work developing several hybrid and fully-electric machines. They are quieter, less polluting and more comfortable — with no compromise in performance. The equipment also takes up less space on the job site, in addition to featuring a style that integrates into cities and is therefore more attractive to the eye. We design our products knowing there is a human inside.