Tana Australia is doubling down on service excellence and strategic expansion under new leadership.
In the high-stakes environment of a modern landfill or resource recovery centre, time is not just money – it is health, hygiene, and compliance.
When a critical machine stops, the entire operation grinds to a halt, creating a chain of risks that quickly moves beyond a simple production delay. The challenge for equipment suppliers is not just delivering high-quality machinery but ensuring that downtime is minimised to near zero.
It’s this mandate driving the renewed focus and expansion plan for Tana Australia under its new Country and Sales Director, Al Garcia.
Al, who took the helm in July, brings a wealth of experience from a different, yet equally demanding, heavy industry: mining. He spent years in that sector, even founding his own family manufacturing business, which was built entirely on solving core industry problems: a crippling lack of reliable service and durable products.
“Whenever I visited a site, I always found out their pinch points, their problems, their issues,” Al says.
“Overwhelmingly, everyone was saying, ‘you know, getting service and support or a product that lasts is almost impossible’.”
That singular focus on resolving customer pain points is the engine driving his transition to the waste and recycling sector.
Al’s attraction to Tana was twofold: he had long held the Tana product in high regard from his earlier work selling heavy equipment, and he saw a rare opportunity to start with a “clean slate” backed by the full support of the factory.
He views the Australian and New Zealand market as ripe for expansion, provided the core customer promise, minimising machine downtime, is guaranteed.
In the 24/7 world of waste management, a broken piece of equipment has profound consequences that quickly cascade across the operation.
“These machines are a critical piece of equipment,” Al says. “I mean, downtime, you’ve got to minimise it to basically zero. If a machine stops, the waste doesn’t stop; the waste keeps coming in.
“It creates a lot of downstream issues, both from a hygienic, production, and maintenance point of view.”
He says the industry needs a partner, not just a supplier. It’s this ethos that has Tana moving away from simple equipment sales to become an indispensable service and support network.
While Tana Australia is a small business, Garcia sees that as an asset, noting room for growth, particularly in maximising revenue from the service and spare parts division. This will be the main area of focus, underpinned by a comprehensive, proactive review of all existing customer sites, especially those in remote locations.
The new service model is built on two pillars: parts proximity and speed of response.
“With our remote customers, my vision is that we’ll have spare parts containers on their site,” Garcia says, detailing a plan to ensure critical components are already in place, mitigating the delays associated with freight to remote Australian locations.
Tana is also developing strategic partnerships with local service providers across the country. These local mechanics will be trained specifically on Tana’s unique equipment, giving customers access to specialised expertise far faster than Tana could provide from its central base.
“This means that if an issue occurs, there will be someone qualified and prepared to attend site within a matter of hours, rather than days,” Al says.
This strategic focus is also fuelling geographic expansion. Tana is actively working to appoint a new distributor in New Zealand to offer better, localised support to customers across the Tasman. Similarly, the company is looking to grow its presence in Western Australia to ensure customers on that side of the country receive better service.
Al’s service focus is backed by Tana’s core product offering, which he contends is unique in the market.
Tana’s engineering approach is to design machines that are purpose-built for the extreme stresses of waste handling, rather than adapting construction or earthmoving equipment. The company’s shredders and landfill compactors represent their technological advantage.
“Tana shredders are a very unique piece of equipment. There’s nothing that really comes close to them from any competitor,” Al says. “If you look at all the off-road tyres that have been shredded anywhere, they’re all done by Tana because nothing else can handle it.”
This capability is essential as Australian waste streams become more complex and require processing of increasingly resilient materials.
Similarly, the Tana landfill compactors hold a significant market position.
“Our landfill compactors are, once again, the only purpose-built machine on the market,” Al says. This purpose-built design gives the compactors a unique set of features in terms of durability, compaction density, and tip maintenance.
The immediate goals of maximising service revenue, establishing a fast-response network, and expanding geographically are all precursors to a larger vision. Having purchased the GCM Enviro business in May 2025, Tana has made its commitment to the Asia Pacific region clear, with factory support ready to back Al’s plans.
“I think number one, we could most certainly propel the level of expertise that we have within the business and be a very, very niche provider of products,” Al says. “With our speciality, I can see Tana becoming the leading supplier of the equipment that we represent in the country.”
For more information, visit: www.tana.com.au
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