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RT A IL TO RE LIABILITY
Page 52
Page 53
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TIP Trailer Services has started buying trailers again. Sharon Clancy gets some tips on building them tough enough to survive in service.
The curtainsider sector can be a bit like the old Wild West at times: rough, tough, with only the strongest surviving. Purchase and leasing prices are pared to the bone and the temptation for trailer manufacturers is to cut down the specification to win the business.
We wanted to know how far you can go without compromising reliability and risking high in-service costs, so we paid a visit to TIP Trailer Services, one of the UK's biggest trailer leasing companies and part of the global GE Equipment Services group.
Until it started on the buying trail again in 2004,TIP had bought few new trailers for almost 10 years: parent GE Capital's acquisition of trailer leasing company CTR in 1994 doubled the size of TIP and swelled the fleet to a massive 23,000 units.
Since then,TIP has been merging the two businesses, and, in a major policy change, reducing the age of the fleet to a typical six years.The fleet now stands at around 11,000 in Europe. About 65% of the fleet comprises curtainsiders, with 10% boxvans and the rest a mix of skeletals and reefers. Chereau and Krone are the main suppliers for the reefers and skeletals. In the UK,SDC won TIP's latest order for curtainsiders.
The CFR acquisition and subsequent need to rationalise the fleet focusedTIP's attention on servicing costs and optimum disposal times. "It was an excellent opportunity to collect a vast amount of maintenance data about actual servicing costs for each trailer and the residual values being achieved in the market," says operations director Paul Beadle. The availability of this data has enabled TIP to make trailer investment decisions based on total cost of ownership.
By 2000, those figures had revealed that the typical eight to 10-year life of a curtainsider in a trailer rental fleet was too long.The optimum time for replacement, the figures were saying, was between five and six years old. So in 2000, TIP adopted the policy of replacing trailers after five or six years' life, depending mainly on mileage.
Service costs were not the only element in the equations,Beadle explains:"It's a competitive market and you don't compete if your rival is offering the customer a new trailer and you want to charge the same rate for an eight-yearold one."
The statistics showed that maintenance costs peaked in years five and six ."Sometimes that is because the trailer has a lot of mileage on the clock. Sometimes it is because trailer designs have moved on in the intervening period," Beadle explains. "We are now seeing the fruits of our policy with a number of fiveand six-year-old assets being defleeted and prepared for sale, effectively givingTIP a 'nearlv new' trailer sales operation."
The optimum spec Having decided on a fiveto six-year replacement policy TIP engineers set about devising the optimum curtainsider specification that would minimise in-service costs yet satisfy the majority of its customers.
The result is a standard curtainsider trailer specification, for both the leasing and shortterm rental fleets. Many of the specification details are designed to limit or reduce inservice damage.
In drawing up its spec,TIP had to decide which were essential components and which fell into the `nice-to-have-but-not-essential' category."If you are buying a trailer you might specify a component that makes life easier; but you won't necessarily pay extra for that on a trailer rental," says European sourcing manager Peter Sijs.-We are always re-evaluating the latest developments and will always make decisions based on cost versus benefit and health and safety impact.
TIP also consulted its customers and asked trailer builders for a basic curtainsider rental specification. "All the trailer builders appreciate that few trailers lead as hard a life as a curtainsidcr in a rental fleet, so there's no point skimping on robustness," says Sijs.
Eventually SDC won the business.
Cost vs benefit BPW drum-braked axles are the standard running gear. Like many trailer rental connpanies,TIP has switched back to having drum brakes on its trailers."We recognise the safety benefits of disc brakes, but on most contracts we do not know the type of tractor unit pulling the trailer.That can result in compatibility problems with excessive wear on the trailer brakes," says Sijs.
TIP's cost-benefit analysis revealed disc brakes were two to three times more expensive to maintain over the life of the trailer.
Despite its return to drums,TIP is adopting the latest EBS technology, choosing Haldex EBS+ with roll stability control for its latest trailers. "SDC now fits EBS as standard. It provides useful diagnostic data on trailer faults.Adding the roll stability function costs little, but gives operators and us greater peace of mind. Incorrect loading can cause instability and roll stability protects operators from some of the potential consequences of that,"says Sijs.
In another major specification shift,TIP has incorporated retread tyres in its fleet for the first time, appointing Bandag as its panEuropean supplier.This policy has a significant benefit to the environment, by retreading used tyres and using fewer resources.The tyre costbenefit analysis was completed by Sijs' sourcing team using data from across all TIP's European operations.This team constantly reviews the tyre cost and wear data that comes back from the field. New build trailers forTIP's fleet continue to be fitted with OEM tyres, and replaced with Bandag when they are needed.
TIP has invested extra capital in the spec where it thinks there will be an in-service benefit. Pocketed curtains, for example, are now standard, despite costing more than standard curtains. "Curtain and pelmet damage is a recurring expense on curtainsidcrs," says Beadle."In our experience, there is less wear and tear with pocketed curtains, so repair costs are lower."
Trailer landing legs (supplied by Jost) are now specified with compensating feet."We don't know what type of ground our trailers get parked on. Compensating feet cost more initially, but reduce the risk of damage."
Flush rear doors might seem a luxury, but TIP believes they are justified on servicing costs and because operators have more scope for advertising. Bars and hinges do rust on conventional doors, points out Doe, and there can be incompatibility between the metal door furniture and glass-reinforced polyester panels.
The floors are Keruing hardwood."Operators still prefer a hardwood floor.When we were disposing of 10-year-old curtainsiders, a hardwood floor made the trailer more attractive because it could be converted to a flatbed. Now that we have switched to a sixyear replacement policy there will be useful life left in the curtainsider as well, of course." •