While Wacker Neuson is commemorating its 50th anniversary in Canada, the company is celebrating more than the half-century milestone.
In June, Wacker Neuson invited its clients to its headquarters in Mississauga, a relatively new base for the company.
Last year, Wacker Neuson moved into a 34,000 square-foot facility, nearly triple the size of its previous home.
“We wanted to be able to showcase the increased warehousing capacity in the GTA,” said Troy Murphy, Managing Director of Wacker Neuson Canada.
The new floor space was acquired to facilitate growth of the company’s utility products. As well, Wacker Neuson now imports compact equipment directly to Toronto, rather than Michigan.
“We needed more space to warehouse locally for immediate demand,” Murphy said, noting the new building will also help accommodate the company’s future growth in Canada. “That’s what justified a threefold expansion in footprint.”
Wacker Neuson’s Mississauga headquarters, which is the main distribution hub for east of Manitoba, also recently hosted the company’s first Canadian contracted dealers meeting.
New technology for Wacker Neuson
The open house served as an opportunity to showcase new features in the company’s equipment roster. M-Drive, for example, is available on the WL34 and WL38 wheel loaders. The skid steer-inspired technology allows the operator to manually set RPM, eliminating the need to work both the throttle and inch-brake.
The drive system is designed for applications with highly repetitive tasks and fast cycle times. “We’ve introduced a system that will allow you to run the machine at full throttle all the time but still move the loader slowly,” Murphy said. “M-Drive essentially takes a wheel loader and turns it into a mechanism of control that is more similar to a skid steer.”
Alongside the M-Drive, customers were able to test drive the 5055e, an electric all-wheel steer loader. The zero-emission loader creates new opportunities for the vehicle class, as it allows operators to work inside buildings, tunnels and where noise restrictions are in place. The machine is a concept that was introduced at Conexpo, but Wacker Neuson is evaluating marketplace acceptance for the 5055e in Canada.
The battery that powers the electric wheel loader provides four hours of continuous use, depending on the workload, which Murphy explained equals a typical workday.
“When you look at the average duty cycle of any loader on a jobsite, they don’t run continuously 99 per cent of the time,” Murphy said. “They run for 20 minutes and they’re off for 20 minutes. So, four hours of continuous run time in an eight or 10-hour workday is a lot.”
