Since 1979, Shephard Transport Equipment (STE) has held its own in the field of transport engineering, specialising in the manufacturing of steel and aluminium tipping bodies and trailers.
For a large portion of this period, STE has also specified Hydreco Hydraulics’ hydraulic systems on its builds as a standard option for customers and fleets Australia-wide. However, being appointed the Queensland distributor for Hydreco Hydraulics in 2001 was a move which added value to the STE product for the unforeseeable future.
“We’ve been using Hydreco for many years in our manufacturing,” says STE Hydraulics Manager, Steve Erfurth. “We started to focus more on distributing hydraulics along with our other products, and it just grew from there.”
STE now supplies Hydreco’s systems to body builders, OEMs, truck dealers, crane distributors, truck part resellers and fleet operators all over Queensland.
“The long-term relationship with Hydreco, which is also Australian-engineered and designed, gave us the ability to work closely with Australian engineers to design a range of products to suit our specific conditions,” Steve says. “We can now supply complete hydraulic kits to suit each specific application, in conjunction with our tipping body kits that are cut to size.”
As Hydreco’s distributor, STE has gained a stronger product range with its unique offering in the market.
“We have the confidence of selling a quality product,” Steve says. “We’ve been able to work with Hydreco and give them forward orders on our specific hoist sizes that our customers need, and they’ve held them in stock. It gives us continuity and security of supply as well, which has been an issue in the last few years. That’s been a big advantage.”
In the last three years, STE has also worked in conjunction with Hydreco to develop additional hoist sizes and models to meet its needs.
According to Steve, Hydreco’s products, being manufactured to suit Australian conditions and transmissions specifically, are easier to install. He says they’re manufactured with some of the highest torque ratings – especially Hydreco’s Power Take Offs (PTO) with maximum width gears and heavy duty tapered roller bearings.
On top of that, Hydreco’s hoists are built with hard-chromes tubes. This prevents corrosion issues in the long-term, which can lead to a reduced operating life.
As a result, Steve says the major tipper body OEMs which STE supplies are a lot more confident, as they know they are receiving a product that they can depend on.
“Hydreco is a name that has been known and respected for decades in the Australian road transport market,” he says. “It adds value to their product because they’re getting trouble-free operating life out of it.
“We’ve had very little warranty issues. It’s just an easy company to do business with, so there’s good synergy there.”
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