Forward view from Edbro
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by Ashley Taylor, AMIRTE, Assoc InstT
Seven brothers living in Bolton. Lanes, in the 1920-1930s made their mark on the road transport scene largely by development of tipping vehicles although the different companies with which they were associated had many other automotive interests, including goods and passenger bodywork and moving floors.
Their first names were Maurice, Miles, Harold, William, Frank, Stanley and Charles, and their surname was Edwards. They worked together, they built up businesses that competed relentlessly, by that means stimulating progress, finally they gave their name to Edbro Ltd., the company that now incorporates what were their various organizations. However, there are no members of the family currently involved. But Maurice Edwards, 93 years of age and the man who started it all, has lived to see the golden jubilee year of the main business and the coming into commission of Edbro's Lim Lever Street project.
The actual anniversary of the founding of Bromilow and Edwards Ltd., the original company, is due on July 22 but obviously things were moving well before that date and Maurice had produced the first British hydraulic tipping gear three years prior to the formation of the company. Many changes have taken place over the intervening period but Edbro Ltd. is still firmly rooted in Bolton.
Besides Lever Street. there are four other substantial plants in operation with a total floor space of 500,000 sq ft. In some cases the sites were originally occupied by Edwards Bros. (Tippers) Ltd., which merged with Bromilow and Edwards Ltd. in 1952, or Pilot Works Ltd., which was acquired in 1962, but most of the facilities have actually been fully developed since 1952.
Even many tipping gear users are apt to regard these products as something in the brute force category. At an earlier stage in road transport history there might have been an element of truth in the idea but Lever Street, with its research and development block, is a testimony of the new era to which the company is looking.
Tipping gears have travelled far since the simplicity of the early hydraulic designs and today's models have to be finished to mate with the dimensions on a great variety of chassis, not only British, but also Transatlantic, European, and even Japanese.
"While it is impossible to foresee what the next 50 years will bring, you can be sure that Edbro will be way out ahead in the hydraulic tipping-gear field. Our new ,E100,000 research and development facili ties will help us to sec to that," Mr. Eric W. Tonge, Edbro managing director, told me.
"Inevitably, with a limited home market, we shall have to look to overseas more and more for further expansion. We now export a third of our production, mainly to North America, the European Continent and Australasia, and this is increasing. In spite of tariff disadvantages, and a product which many people still mistakenly regard as an unsophisticated piece of engineering, our company's marketing techniques are such that we are able to beat local competition on its own ground.
"Although the British tipper operator doesn't always appreciate this—especially if he is waiting for delivery of a new gear—he, too, benefits enormously from export business. Generally, operating conditions overseas are more arduous than they are in Britain. In designing for these conditions we build into our tipping gears a degree of dependability that most home users will never need.
"Our designs, too, are usually ahead of British needs for the same reason. North America in particular leads in transport techniques and those building for this market are bound to be ahead.
"Two examples that come to mind are the cab controls for the tipping-gear power take-off and the large-capacity front-end gears. Both are now commonplace in the United Kingdom and elsewhere but they were originally designed by us for Canada.
"With our new facilities at Bolton, and our continuing awareness of world needs, we have every confidence in the future."
The Lever Street plant is already partially in use and will be fully engaged before the end of the year, with the productive facilities concentrated on front-end tipping gear production. The present headquarters at Quebec Street will then be devoted largely to bucket loading gear, underbody, dumper and high-lift gears.
Because of the urge to stimulate technical development and to satisfy the needs of new territories the research and development department is to have vastly increased space made available, running up to a total of 13,000 sq. ft. The staff is to be substantially increased and much new equipment is to be introduced. There will be undercover test space for four vehicles.
Provision is also being made to simulate a variety of operating conditions including such features as vibration and other effects of uneven surfaces. Trials will be carried out in extremes of heat up to 100deg C and in sub-zero temperatures down to minus 40deg C. Apart from a metallurgical laboratory there will be pump testing rigs, dynamometer rigs, electronic-flow meters, stro-. boscopes and similar items of equipment.
Recent additions to the company facilities include a fresh vehicle paint shop at the Manchester Road premises which accommodate the service department. The area of 5,000 sq. ft. covers a preparation shop, for three vehicles and four enclosed painting bays with an extraction plant that provides complete air changes every two minutes.
ALTHOUGH the same instrument can serve both purposes a clear distinction ought to be maintained between the functions of the tachograph as an aid to productivity and as a means of enforcing the law. The two items were clumsily linked together in Mrs. Barbara Castle's White Paper on freight transport. They should be disentangled before the confusion gets worse.
Every now and again a supposedly new technique is hailed as a breakthrough in transport. Not so long ago there began a container revolution which would cut costs and vastly improve productivity. The tachograph is next on the waiting list. Already there are signs of a formidable campaign to establish it as an indispensable tool for all operators.
Cautious opinion fails to be too much impressed. There have always been containers and an extension of their use was to be expected. Recorders have been used on commercial vehicles for many years. It is only the possibility of compulsion that has brought them again into the news.
Tachograph benefits Tempting descriptions of the benefits of the tachograph may help to sell it to the operator or employer. The task is largely superfluous. For the most part he needs no conversion or at worst accepts the inevitable. The positive advantages in improving productivity are already known to him and also to his employees.
For the moment drivers and their trade unions are not interested in hearing what they have heard before. As far as their sometimes ambiguous objections can be summarized they are opposed to the fitting of tachographs for the purposes clearly indicated in the Transport Act.
Part VI is concerned with drivers' hours and their enforcement. Section 97(1) makes it an offence not to have on any vehicle to which it applies "equipment for recording information as to the use of the vehicle". The type or design of the equipment is to be approved by the Minister of Transport.
He would merely judge it on its suitability or otherwise for reinforcing the law. To be satisfactory the tachograph will have to record accurately speed, distance and time. This is not a long way removed from the requirements for the devices which the six States of the European Economic Community also plan to make obligatory. They will have to record driving time; hours of attendance at work; breaks and rests; vehicle speed; and distance travelled.
No instrument on the market can do more than this. What use is made of the information which it gathers is a different matter. The Minister is concerned only that the record should show whether the driver is keeping within the law. He might even object to an accumulation of other detail which obscured his main purpose.
Presumably the White Paper still gives a correct account of official policy. The compulsory fitting of tachographs is among the measures which it is said will streamline the work of enforcing observance of the law and increase the effectiveness of the exa miners. Increased productivity will be "the key factor," says the White Paper. Evidence of "real" progress towards this objective by both sides of the industry will be essential before drivers' hours are reduced.
There is no suggestion here that the tachographs themselves will be the means of increasing productivity. What was most in mind at the time of the White Paper and during the discussions which led up to the Transport Act was the difficulty in persuading drivers to accept schedules that took full advantage of the prevailing speed limits.
Revised schedules It wai never entirely forgotten that tachographs would promote adherence to the revised schedules. Drivers would be expected to do the same amount of work as before in a shorter period and in their turn would expect dertainly no loss in earnings. Bargains on this basis had not invariably been observed. Higher wages had been paid with no greater productivity. Cases of this kind might be comparatively rare but the tachograph should eliminate them completely.
Even this modest tentative has met opposition. Aecording to reports the trade unions have told the Minister that they will not agree to the compulsory fitting of tachographs and the Minister has postponed a decision which is all he needs to do for the time being. The first stage in the reduction in drivers' hours cannot be long delayed. It would be difficult if not impossible to fit all the vehibles with tachographs in time for the change.
No rational objection has been put forward. The description of the tachograph as "the spy in the cab" is effective but not relevant in the context. The driver cannot object. strongly when the intention is merely to show whether or not he is keeping within the law. Under a productivity agreement he owes his employer a fair day's work and the tachograph makes out his account for payment.
On this level the argument ought to be settled as the Minister and the employers wish. Recently new fuel has been added by the enthusiasm of those people who see the tachograph as a wonder-working nostrum for all the ills that afflict operators and as a worthy successor to the magic carpet and the explosive container. The effect could be the opposite to what is desired.
Strange things Whoever wishes to turn a fishy eye and a microscope on a tachograph chart may find strange things. He will see that the driver has been accelerating and braking far too frequently over a stretch of the route where he could have maintained a steady speed and thus been simultaneously kinder to the vehicle, the brakes and his employer's fuel bill. There may be fairly long and unexplained stops.
For part of the journey the driver may have taken a longer route than necessary. At another point there may be evidence of congestion which can be avoided next time with more careful planning. Part of the record may even show that for a short period the driver has used the vehicle for some purpose of his own.
Many other claims have been made for the tachograph. It is said to encourage steady driving and therefore safe driving; to point the way to substantial savings in equipment and fuel; to show where delays are taking place and therefore speed up productivity. Where these promises are fulfilled the operator must be delighted.
The good, conscientious driver should also be pleased that he is helped to look after his vehicle and to get more use out of it. He may expect to gain financially. Many drivers will react in this way. They have not presented a problem in any case. It is possibly a small minority—but by no means all of them bad or unscrupulous drivers —who have opposed tachographs from the beginning.
Manifold advantages
One cannot help feeling that their suspicion would be increased by the triumphant catalogues now being made of the manifold advantages of the tachograph. Speed, distance and time are just the beginning. Once the instrument is installed every move the driver makes will be on record and not merely every move outside the law.
Information about what has happened abroad may not be as reassuring as is supposed. It is known, for example, that tachographs have been accepted in Western Germany since 1952 and that the reason here was pressure from drivers and the unions. If anything it was the employers who did not want the instruments. This could possibly mean only that conditions in Germany are totally different from those in Britain and that Mrs. Castle was on a more than usual wild goose chase when she went to see Herr Laber and returned in triumph with her little black box.
It is perfectly proper to state the advantages of the tachographs. They should not be emphasized too much at the present juncture. The change in the working day is for the benefit of the driver and he ought to accept in return that a more exact record should be kept of how he spends that day.