CMME meets Amilcare Merlo, the inventor of the telehandler
Sometimes all it takes to transform your life is a piece of paper and a pencil. And so it has proved for Amilcare Merlo.
Three decades ago the likeable Italian found himself at a restaurant table preparing to draw what was to become the most important picture of his career. He had been an exhibition in Ireland and had seen something that was playing on his mind.
He describes the moment he invented the telescopic handler in finer detail. “We were at this exhibition and I saw this picture of a very old, a dinosaur of a machine. But it had this long boom…”
Sketching the future
The long boom pre-occupied him that night at the restaurant. Euromat (now Intermat) was coming and Merlo needed a new machine, but how to make that boom?
Sitting down with a member of his team, the dinner service was set aside and he began to sketch out what would become one of the last great construction machines. Necessity really can be mother of invention.
The next day the sketch was passed onto the design department and the new machine began to come to life.
However time was against him and his team. Euromat was barely two months away and this was an age before computers, before CAD.
He explains, “We didn’t have technological tools, no informatics but we worked very quickly. The machine had to be totally Merlo. We didn’t have time to go to another company.”
Spurred on by the need to make the event, production of a prototype began in earnest. Soon the design team passed on more detailed designs and it began to take shape.
In those early days, Merlo knew they were working on something entirely knew for the industry. He had worked extensively in the past with rough train forklifts but had been frustrated by the limits in terms of height.
“The main point was the extension of the boom. To that point people could only lift vertically and the main idea was to [be able to] move,” he moves his hands upwards and diagonally, mimicking the action of a telehandler.
“We realised that forklifts were not the right vehicle for construction. The innovation of the machine was the machine. The long boom profile was the big difference we gave to the market.”
He adds: “We knew it was a different way to work, but frankly we didn’t realise it would be such a revolution (in machinery design).”
Despite the rapid turnaround and being determined to make the exhibition there was one seemingly minor detail that wasn’t ready.
“The mudguard had to be made of wood,” he laughs. “Because of the short amount of time for the exhibition.”
A carpenter was quickly asked for to make the mudguards for the machine. They were promptly painted and the machine was ready, just in time, for Paris.
“Today it would be impossible to do but back then it was okay.”
TAKING IT TO THE SHOW
With the machine safely on show, the world’s first telescopic handler could make its debut. Although it didn’t take long for the strange new machine to start attracting attention and so did its equally odd-looking mudguards.
Andrea Bedosti, commercial director for Merlo, interjects: “At first nobody noticed, but after the first one did, everybody was coming over to knock on the wood. Everyone was coming back, checking the machine, knocking the wood, laughing and then going away.”
Bedosti add: “Nobody joking at the time probably thought 30 years down the line the machine would prove to be so popular.”
While explaining that the prototype was capable of lifting 13t at 6m, Amilcare Merlo recalls the debut fondly.
“At the beginning, the first hours of the exhibition, people were looking at it as if saying, what is this new animal? But afterwards we met all the dealers and we explained why we were doing it.”
Putting the boom on the other side to the cab and engine, so the boom could be moved while retaining complete visibility, may have look strange to passers-by then, but as the main patent it meant that the Italian manufacturer was the only company able to use it for ten years.
The telehandler has been instrumental in the success of his company, Merlo describes the invention of the machine as “good luck”.
Beside the telehandler, Merlo is producing a range of machines with construction and agricultrual applications and continues to innovate and today produces rough terrain concrete mixers, small tracked carriers (a multi-purpose smooth carrier), and MPR access platforms that
can travel at speeds of up to 40km/hour on public roads. It is a particularly impressive piece of adaptable equipment that, Bedosti explains, has three modes of operation.
“Again it was something that wasn’t existing in the market. The platforms that Mr Merlo has developed are platforms that can go on roads, don’t have stabilisers, and you can drive at 1km/hour when you are working from the top. Basically it is three machines.
INnOVATIVE IN ALL SENSES
“We are a company that is innovative in all senses of the expression,” Merlo says proudly. “Innovative in technology, in the way we manufacture and are always thinking of tomorrow.”
In the three decades since that first debut of the telehandler, Merlo has guided the company to become a major force in the European market. Aware that Merlo needs to continue to find new markets rather than rely on its reputation, he and his team were in Dubai to finalise a distribution deal with Volvo dealer Famco.
He explains that it is not the first time Merlo is in the UAE but it is the company’s biggest step into the Middle East market.
“Dubai is a crossing point. It’s not our first time, today is important for me personally, as it is the first time that I get to visit Al Futtaim.”
While it his first time at the Al Futtaim offices, his company has been working with the distributor since 2007. Bedosti jokes, “when the Pope visits Cuba you know something is moving and today we bring our pope!”
Merlo adds: “It’s an important market for sure. We have been watching this area for 10 or 15 years but when we met Al Futtaim (in Italy), we realised that something is common with the way of thinking. We share a similar point of view. It’s important.”
“A marriage doesn’t happen overnight, it must be consolidated over time. We are here now because our marriage is more and more… interesting. We want to reach another milestone.”
While his dealer is among the most prominent players in the Gulf, Merlo insists that he is more concerned with being content in their partnership. “The person is important as they manage the aftersales service. If we don’t have a good understanding, the rest is does not matter.”
Merlo describes his company as “not fixed to the ground. We are always looking for growth.”
INternational recognition
This is reflected in an impressive recent resume including being recognised by the French government for its innovation with Amilcare Merlo being appointed Officer of the French Republic Légion d’Honneur for his Achievements in the Agricultural Sector.
The award was presented by the president of the French Senate at the presidential residence of Rambouillet. Typically given to contributors form within French industry, winning it as an Italian manufacturer is a significant achievement.
A typically modest Merlo says: “It was presented to a person but it was not for me. It was for the product for the company. It’s important as it recognises the innovation of the machine.
“One man does not realise nothing. It took a team to make the machine. There was not just one man behind this machine.”
The Australian government too has recognised the company’s worked in the area of safety using the Merlo Load Management System, a load limiting system that includes an automatic tool recognition for enhanced performance and peace of mind, to set new safety standards for equipment.
The system employs a novel Digital Rating Chart which shows the current rating chart, including the position of the load in real time, as well coloured band regions which adapt to the current lift load.
Audible alarms from the inbuilt speakers give positive feedback to the operator as limits are being approached or exceeded as well as when configuration changes occur such as the stabiliser position changing or a new attachment automatically being selected. The company hopes that its adoption and standardisation in Australia will lead to it being introduced as part of health and safety regulation elsewhere in the world. It’s yet another Merlo patent that could give it an essential advantage in what is now a crowded market.
While he is reticent to reveal too much about what Merlo has up its sleeve, he stresses the company is determined to maintain an edge at the frontline of technological development. He is however prepare to make one enigmatic statement “I think machines in four or five year will be completely different.”
Merlo then offers some advise for wannabe inventors.
“When you have an idea you must patent it,” says Merlo, and then grins, “personally, I have one patent. My name.”