Pushing innovation
21 May 2018Autec, founded in 1986, says it is the first Italian producer of remote controls for lifting applications. Three decades later, the company employees 200 employees worldwide and has established subsidiaries in Spain, Germany, South Korea, China, Brazil and USA.
Despite the strong international footprint, all the radio remote controls are designed and produced in its 6,400sqm manufacturing plant, in Caldogno, Italy.
Autec’s production process follows the lean manufacturing concept in order to save time, movements, and waste of material.
The components used in the remote controls are subject to specific functional tests throughout the production processes. Specific features of every complete control system are displayed on-screen, logged, and verified.
Since the beginning the company focused on safety and reliability, through third party product verifications and complete testing of all the components. Safety certifications, issued by European bodies like TÜV, guarantee an independent verification of the products throughout their life cycle. Autec is also certified ISO 9001.
Over the past few years, the company has released a number of new products, including the SK4 and DYNAMIC+ that meet the demands of the crane industry and of various other applications.
The SK4 belt-portable unit, features an ergonomic casing with a belt that fits along the side of the user’s waist, a bi-directional radio communication with an extended working range and four LEDs for data feedback. A data logger records RC operations.
The DYNAMIC+ is suitable for hydraulic machinery. It is composed of three different transmitters (DJS, DJR & DJM) that can be combined with Autec’s new CRD receiver. The receiver offers customisable cabling with the choice of M12 circular connectors, a ten-pin reduced plug or even a cable gland. CRD provides up to 12 analog and 64 digital outputs (available via CANopen interface), two STOP outputs, two UMFS outputs, two CAN outputs and four programmable MOSFET outputs.
“DYNAMIC+ differs from the Dynamic Series in that it offers dual-band radio and all of the remote controls come with multiple HMI interfaces for diverse applications,” said Antonio Silvestri, managing director at Autec. Other new products, include handheld and joystick remote controls with color displays, the LK Neo (with 1.8in color display) and FJM (with 4.3in color display) and the FJB transmitting unit.
Silvestri said: “As technology changes and improves, customer needs and demands change alongside of them. Our products evolved according to the market demands and now propose remote control solutions with high customization, data feedback with colour displays, dual band and bi-directional radio communication, CANopen, Profibus, ProfiNet, EtherCat, EtherNet IP and serial interfaces for the control and communication of data.”
The Autec wireless control systems have radio approvals in all continents for usage in the main international markets.
Autec has a strong global international sales and service network. It recently increased its international presence in terms of competence and service, investing resources to follow all major markets. Remote controls for mobile applications are widespread in Europe, China and North America, while Autec products for industrial lifting and automation are well established also in Japan and South Africa.
“Autec offers big, medium size or small portable solutions as well as compact or complex base stations, but customers today are asking for more. They want more in ways of customization, visualization on displays for diagnostics or sensors and ‘data recording’. We will continue to extend the number of field bus interfaces as well. Autec will continue to invest in technologies that are conducive to better data management of control systems,” said Silvestri.
