Argo Tractors, the parent company of the McCormick and Landini tractor brands, has announced significant investments in its spare parts and logistics management operations in San Martino, Rio.
The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the use of remote management for spare parts and customer support, however, the company states that it was prepared for this, with Argo Tractors having computerised its logistics process back in 2000 and closing some European warehouses to centralise everything at the Rio site.
This reportedly allowed customer services to be optimised, in partnership with a third party IT developer who produced a bespoke operating system to not only manage spare parts but also the production logistics across the Argo group.
“To achieve these results,” explained Giorgio Guaitoli, parts director at Argo Tractors. “We have carried out major investments in the automation and digitisation of our warehouse, which currently occupies an area of 40,000m², with 8 packaging lines, capable of handling deliveries to over 100 countries, processing 800,000 order lines per year.
“We are committed to guaranteeing deliveries to all our European dealers in less than 24 hours, with same-day shipping to all our non-European dealers. The combination of know-how and cutting-edge solutions for automated warehouse management is the key element that allows us to minimise delivery times and assure the constant availability and swift retrieval of any spare part to all our customers.”
Facing its most complex challenge in the form of the global pandemic, Mr Guaitoli said that lockdown accelerated a process already in the pipeline.
“This has led us to optimise the way we respond to requests for remote support and the supply of spare parts which, in order to make us competitive and strategic, must be timely and highly professional. Our warehouse is the core asset of our support and spare parts service: our highly specialised and courteous personnel are always at the service of customers even in the most demanding moments, such as the global pandemic. 100 employees are at work, 60 working in the goods picking and shipping area, and 40 in the sales, administration, technical and logistic areas. And, to support the team, we have created a digital catalogue, Argo Parts, which allows our dealers to order 100,000 products directly online and always in stock, an assortment that is completed by the over 11 million catalogued items.”