Single, multiple and spiral flexible hoses, in standard and special version, with operation pressures and use temperatures depending on application typologies. They are the thermoplastic hoses by the Italian company Zec Spa.
Believing in the future of extruded thermoplastic material products. This is the genial intuition of Eugenio Zantelli, who in the distant 1961 creates Zec, the company of which he is still president in charge. Since the early phases, Zec has stood out as a national level company and has ranked among European leaders, specializing in the sector of the plastic material extrusion; besides, it was the first Italian enterprise that started in-house thorough researches and studies for the implementation of a complete range of thermoplastic polymer flexible hoses at low, medium, high and very high pressure for the transport of fluids in the hydraulic or pneumatic sectors.
Broad range for all applications
«Year by year, explains Dino Zantelli, General Manager of Zec, in our Colorno headquarters (Parma, Italy), we have optimized flexible hoses for hydraulics and pneumatics, starting from textile braid hoses, adding Kevlar and steel braid hoses, then hoses in hybrid mixed Kevlar-steel solutions, until the present, covering a broad range of flexible hoses and reaching even 1200 bars of operation. Besides that, we produce also flexible PTFE hoses with stainless steel braid.»
Thanks to the know-how gained in time, today Zec relies on a very wide, standard and special range of linear, single, multiple and spiral hoses, with technical specifications that allow choosing from 2 to 40 mm of internal diameter, working pressures from 5 to 1,280 bars and use temperatures included between – 200°C and +260°C depending on the typologies, with the target of satisfying the more and more frequent and complex problems dictated by industrial automation. Zec products are mainly used in the hydraulic and pneumatic industry but, in time, the company has succeeded in achieving successful results also in the sectors of cold water, paints and solvents, lubrication, polyurethane foaming, refrigeration, chemical, food and gas industry, in full compliance with international regulations. It is worth underlining that Zec has chosen the productive diversification course also to contrast strategically the economic crisis troubles in 2009, thus increasing domestic but especially export sales.
Top-level quality
The manufacturing of these hoses is accomplished with the use of innovative highly reliable design and production technologies, carefully selecting raw materials as well as of a severe quality control system of the production process, executed making use of sophisticated electronic equipment permitting to maintain a high quality standard in time, thus assuring utmost reliability and total product traceability. Thanks to the constant commitment and the unceasing research to improve the hose quality, the company managed to obtain the Quality System certification in conformity with the UNI EN ISO 9001-2008 regulation and, besides, the will of reaching higher and higher quality standards through the adoption of the most updated and sophisticated technology, allows Zec to implement special and customized items to solve the new constant technological issues submitted by increasingly qualified customers. Carrying out the production in full compliance with the main international SAE, EN and ISO regulations, Zec thermoplastic hoses meet the world technological requirements granting the best quality and reliability, hand in hand with a constant export growth towards the totality of continents. «We hugely invest in Research and Development – underlines Zantelli – because we strongly believe in the product innovation, we are constantly in search of more and more performing raw materials to satisfy the demands of our customers and of their market at best, and we rely on the know-how that characterizes our design office».
Close to customers
Productive departments and logistics are planned in the slightest details: only in this way, Zec can grant at any time, for the entire product range constituted by over 2500 items, a fast order fulfilment, to assure a complete and very efficient service to its customers. The innovative internal system, always keeping pace with the continuous technological evolution, represents one of the most important components that share in the quality and the service that Zec always grants to its customers. Thanks to the constant and continuous financial investments, Zec can attain today forefront technology and productive capacity, able to solve whatever problem even in the most critical times, moreover accomplishing in short times the design and production of customized products that meets customers’ requirements, too.
Only quality ingredients
Zec provisions its raw materials by purchasing them directly from primary world businesses. They start from the polymer, material in grains with which they produce the low-pressure pneumatic hose and the internal high-pressure hose cores. Then they buy yarns, which can be textile, of polyester and aramid fibre type, besides high toughness steel wires. To grant the highest qualitative expression of the product since its origins, the company immediately carries out an attentive selection of suppliers and of the raw materials used. The latter are produced by leader companies of international fame, able to offer the best technological service in whatever time or situation. These companies constantly grant the best quality thanks to the certification of their Quality System according to the regulations in force. Apart from that, the raw materials entering Zec factory are anyway verified and tested, before the production starting, with the use of the most sophisticated and cutting-edge control tools, in compliance with the severe Quality System procedures.
Productive phases
The creation of hoses occurs through several machining phases. They start from the extrusion, basic phase accomplished by apposite productive lines, then passing to the braiding of reinforcement fibres that can be with simple, double and multiple braid (3-4 braids), executed with special braiding lines, using polyester fibre, aramid fibre and high toughness steel.
Finally, they carry out the final product coating, generally in anti-abrasion polyurethane, performed by apposite extrusion lines. Zec relies on a staff composed by 90 collaborators, distributed in two productive units and the new logistic pole taking up overall 15,000 m², integrated in a context of over 80,000 m² of uncovered area.
Quality worth exporting
Over these years, Zec not only has widened the production programme enlarging and completing the product range but it has added fittings and accessories needed by the hose sector, which has allowed it to stand out on a world scale, directly supplying both the plants of primary businesses (OEM), and networks of resellers. The range completion has been very important and helpful for the company, and the product quality has been acknowledged worldwide, to the extent that Zec exports its products especially abroad, in over 70 Countries, with the 62% export share. «The best strategy to reap relevant results – ends Zantelli – consists in being always aware of the changes that may influence the market. For this reason, in the future Zec will go on investing for the improvement of the productive cycle and for a constant research targeted to the development of new cutting-edge products from the qualitative point of view».
You can find Zec Spa online www.zecspa.com
