DRAWBAR
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Using a drawbar outfit with swop bodies, a Leeds manufacturer of putty and sealants has eliminated the need to establish a depot in southern England while maintaining deliveries to customers
by Johnny Johnson CHOOSING the right type of vehicle for a particular job can solve distribution probiems and In some cases can eliminate the need, for quite large investment In other directions.
One company which has proved this theory is Valiance and Co (Morley) Ltd, Leeds, manufacturers of putty and other sealants. Increasing business in the South West and South East could have made it necessary for this company to establish a depot to service these areas.
, By acquiring a drawbar trailer outfit with swap bodies and setting it on a "merry-goround" operation between Leeds, Bristol and London, however, the company has satisfactorily solved the problem of ensuring that their products are delivered regularly to their customers.
Formerly, Vallances trunked freight of their own manufacture separately to the South West and the South East and the trunking vehicle also undertook a multiple drop distribution operation at each end.
The result was the vehicle could be -away from the factory for two or three days which could become three to four days in the holiday season.
As a result, the continuing production of putty and associated products in a factory with limited storage space caused problems of holding the next loads till the vehicles returned. Moreover, the amount of business being done in the areas concerned tended to increase the time that the vehicles were engaged on the terminal distribution despite any adverse traffic conditions About 12 months ago. Vallances began to consider the possibility of establishing storage space, possibly by acquiring a depot, somewhere in the region of, say, Newbury so that the product could be distributed east and west with little difficulty.
However, the costs of providing such a depot with the attendant extra investment in staff and equipment were, to say the least, somewhat daunt ing and a feasible economic alternative was sought.
This seemed to lie in the acquisition of a drawbar .outfit together with a number of swap bodies and a feasibility study proved that the cost of this was within acceptable limits while providing a satisfactory incidence of delivery to the company's customers.
This last was very important because the marketing of products of this nature involving a large number of trade and DIY outlets is highly competitive.
Because the operation would be fairly remote from the factory. involving distribution by vehicles based in Bristol and London serviced by the draw bar outfit at regular intervals, Vallances thought that contract hire with maintenance would be the best solution. In this way, the company could be reasonably assured that the vehicles would be properly used and that the maintenance would be carried out in the prescribed manner.
The vehicles have been contract hired from Transfleet Ltd, Morley depot, and that company materially assisted Vallances in establishing acceptable transfer points in London and Bristol.
The drivers are, however, employed by Vallances mainly because they wished to retain control over the type of staff representing them to customers. They rightly take the view that the drivers are, after all, the main point of contact between the manufacturer and the customer.
The merry-go-round operation began in March and is proving quite advantageous.
The company operates a fleet of six vehicles based in Leeds, one based in London, one in Bristol, and the Volvo F86 drawbar outfit.
The vehicles in Leeds deal with the distribution throughout the North and Midlands. Some of these units can accept swap bodies of which the company has 10 in all. The drawbar leaves Leeds on Sunday night and travels to Bristol where it drops a loaded body for the Bristol vehicle to pick up for distribution of the load in the South West. After taking on the empty body dropped by the Bristol vehicle, it travels to London on Monday swapping a loaded for an empty body here too. It returns to Leeds with the empties on Tuesday arriving there in the early afternoon. On Wednesday, it begins to repeat the operation thus achieving two round trips a week.
As the driver becomes more familiar with the routine and the routes, it is felt that three trips a week might be feasible especially as the relative drivers do not need to actually rendezvous in order to swap bodies. There is no reason why the bodies should not be left standing alone until picked up.
The critical part of the operation is, of course, the reliability of the drawbar outfit. However, contingency plans have been worked out in the event of this being unavailable for some reason.
Even so, Vallances are in a better situation than with their original operation: Farsightedly, they have arranged that some of the vehicles based in Leeds are able to accept swap bodies. In that case, if the drawbar outfit is out of service there is no reason why two of the Leeds-based vehicles cannot be used to transport swap bodies to Bristol and Leeds.
But there is no reason either why they should go all the way. Arrangements could be made to meet the Bristol and London. based vehicles at some halfway Motorway Service area, where bodies can be exchanged and the vehicles return to their .respective bases.
In this way, Vallances have saved the cost of a depot while maintaining the regularity of deliveries and assuring the availability of their product.