Let Your Lei
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hind Know. III THE saying "Prevention is better than cure" is very often heard among maintenance engineers, whether
they be in transport or any other industry using mechanical appliances. The theme of the Amey Group maintenance system is largely channelled along these lines. thanks to the keenness and foresight of the group chairman, Mr. R. W. Amey From the information which I gleaned during
visit to the group's headquarters at Wootton, it wa immediately evident that this rapidly expanding busines has largely been successful because the basic requiremer of all employed in the group is "service to the customer' The majority of the schemes and systems operated by th section of the group concerned with vehicle maintenanceAmey's Engineering Ltd.are designed to provide all th necessary servicing, repairs, and renovations in the shortes possible time.
To cope with this system of operation it is obvious tha a company must be completely self-reliant, and to provid this necessity the stores organization is very large. Con trolled by stores manager John Hicks, the department i centred round the requirement to be able to suppl off the shelf practically any spare part which is require, during the day-to-day operation of a transport workshog Bearing in mind the delays in the supply of spare part from the vehicle manufacturers and the component factor it has been found necessary to hold stocks that will provid up to two months' supply of parts. The method of detet mining the type and amount of parts to be stocked is b having meetings of the top management at which pas experiences and future requirements can be expounded thus providing the information on which the holdings ar • based. Outlying depots collect their spares requirement from the central main stores at Wootton, and all al, purchasing is carried out from that office.
• Having a fleet numbering about 850 vehicles, of which 200 are truck-mixers of the Premix company, it will be appreciated that servicing represents a major part of the engineering group's activities. The method of selecting vehicles for service is by multiples of 3,000 miles. At the first 3,000 miles, oils are changed,. transmission units are topped up and manual greasing is carried out. At the second 3,000 miles, the first service is repeated with the addition of changed oil filters and cleaned air filters.
No vehicles in the Amey fleet are as yet equipped with automatic lubrication. The company is fortunate in that the majority of its operations allow for vehicles to be serviced on its own premises. Automatic lubrication has not yet been adopted, but this is not to say that it will not be at a later date. A great advantage found in the use of manual greasing is the attention paid to detail by the greasing staff. The men employed on this job are mostly "old hands with the group and appear to be extremely keen on doing a thorough job. They include fault finding in their duties, and this is worth its weight in gold in terms of prevention.
On predetermined schedules a fuel equipment specialist visits outlying depots, where he inspects and changes fuel filters and notes any faults in fuel systems. At monthly intervals a vehicle inspector (there are two of these empleyed by the company) visits each and every depot which has vehicles on its strength and an inspection, which lasts for about 30 minutes, is carried out on each vehicle. A report on the condition of those inspected is filled in in triplicate, one copy going to the central workshops of Amey's Engineering, one to the transport manager of the section to which the vehicle belongs, and one to the manager of the depot in which the vehicle is based. Remarks on this report which signify that a driver is either misusing or not giving the attention to a vehicle that is required to ensure its efficient operation, result in a loss of efficiency bonus to that driver.
With so much emphasis placed on prevention, the amount of unscheduled attention to which a vehicle needs to be subjected is cut to a minimum. This results in two immediate advantages: first, the operating unit is not left short of its vehicle complement; second, workshop pressure does not fluctuate to any great extent. Savings achieved from the first are immediately evident and the second produces hidden advantages, these being that, while requirements can be predetermined, it is possible for staff arrangements to be made accordingly. And, in fact, it has been possible to accommodate most of the work in a very simple, alternating shift system whereby fitters are required to work from 8 a.m. until 5.30 p.m. and 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. on consecutive days. this being changed weekly. Thus, a fitter knows that he will be late finishing Monday, Wednesday, Friday one week, and Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday the following week.
One of the greatest problems facing vehicle repair workshops is that of keeping good staff once they have been obtained. Being able to lay down fixed working hours goes a long way to solving this problem.
Carrying out a strict preventive policy and working on a system based on vehicle replacement after what could be said to be a reasonably short period, the Amey Group finds it unnecessary to operate a system of dock overhauling. The exceptions to this rule are the very large and expensive vehicles such as a machinery carrier and heavy haulage units; these are given a major overhaul after serving six to seven years. Disposal of this class of vehicle takes place at around 10 years' life, depending, of course, on the condition at that time.
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Fuel-injection equipment is overhauled as and when the need becomes apparent, injectors being serviced completely in the concern's own fuel-pump department. Phasing and calibrating of fuel pumps is also carried out in this department, but fuel pump repairs are contracted out. Merlin equipment is used for these purposes. Attention is also given to fuel pumps if at any time a vehicle is undergoing extensive repairs, such as an engine change or accident renovations.
Brake relining is carried out as and when required and the company prefers, from a cost point of view, to reline its own brake shoes. Here, again, the valuable knowledge acquired from the vehicle inspectors' reports maintains a high level of shop utility without the flooding through of a large number of similar types of job at the same time.
A unit reconditioning service is operated within the workshops and one part of this service provides reconditioned transmission units, steering boxes, tipping gear pumps and auxiliary drive equipment. The other part is concerned with reconditioned engines of all classes, these being both for vehicles and plant. Once again the operation of these departments is geared to provide " off the shelf" almost any requirement with which the vehicle shop may present them. It has been generally found that units reconditioned in reasonably leisurely conditions, and not under pressure of requirement, prove to be much more satisfactory once put into service.
All the operations are under the direct supervision of the vehicle repair shop manager, Mr. John Sansome, who was originally a fitter with the company. His responsibilities also include the bodybuilding and paint shops.
Tyre costs can be a frightening figure to the transport operator, and the efforts of the Amey Group to reduce this necessary overhead include the setting up of a tyre department which is contraled by a tyre manager, who has three assistants. His department's duties include regular visits to all the outside depots, where tyre inspections are minutely carried out and advice on the care and maintenance of equipment is given. It is claimed that this system is having the required effect on tyre costs and has therefore been a successful innovation.
The group has at the moment nine workshops operating in outlying depots and it is the eventual intention that this number will be extended. Most of these outside shops have their own fitter or fitters, but in some cases it has been found either unnecessary, or impossible, to provide staff. Where this situation arises fitters are sent either from the central workshops, or from an adjacent depot, and it will be seen that in nearly all cases a vehicle can be got under cover when being worked on. Depot litters are responsible for carrying out all running repairs and, on some occasions, undertake jobs of a more serious nature. By and large most of the more serious repairs are returned to the central workshops. In the case of a vehicle being Smashed up and rendered immovable by normal recovery methods, a machinery carrier is used to return it to the works. The gap created in an operating unit's complement is filled either by spare capacity of nearby depots or by hiring from contractors. No spare vehicles are operated by the group.
It is significant that in the event of a vehicle being rendered unsafe by a defect which is spotted during a service period, the 'engineering department has the absolute last word on whether or not such a vehicle can be used. Although not carried to ridiculous limits, this system is largely abided by. It is a well-known fact that some defects can safely run for a short period without necessarily being dangerous; it is also recognized that some other defects render a machine immediately inoperable.. The dividing line is sometimes very thin, and unless a transport manager is very conversant with engineering matters it is sometimes difficult for him to appreciate the need for a vehicle to be stopped. It is at these times that the necessity for the engineer's authority to be recognized is at its greatest.. Arney's engineers have this authority.
Many of the amenities that are provided for all and sundry employed within the Amey .Group have their effect on decreasing the amount of attention that a vehicle will require during its lifetime. I have entitled this article " Let Your Left. Hand Know . . ." and although I have heard on numerous occasions that this is just what you should not do, the very effective results obtained by the mana.gement in this case rather go to prove that this heading is correct. By keeping everyone in the company informed of the various goings on in each department (this is done through a weekly newsletter and by the issue twice yearly of a very well produced glossy house magazine), the achievements of the group in the past few years have been possible. And in no small manner does the knowledge of company policy assist the transport department in carrying out effective and comprehensive maintenance schedules, if only that drivers know what is going on and so do not misconstrue the company's intentions with regard to directives issued to them. Labour troubles, it is claimed, are
unknown within the group, which I think adds a bit more weight to my argument.
A simple but very effective costing system is applied to the repair and maintenance sections of Amey's Engineering Ltd. When a vehicle arrives at the central repair depot fpr repairs or service, an order is raised setting out the attention that the vehicle is to receive. A copy of this order is forwarded to the transport manager of the section to which the vehicle belongs and to the vehicle repair shop manager. If the work entailed is extensive, the transport manager will call for an estimate of cost from the repair shop. When this is receixed he will decide, by having consultation with the manager of the depot at which the vehicle is based, whether it will be an economical proposition to carry out the work listed. By checking up on the vehicle history and the expected life, a decision as to the extent of work carried out--as against the disposal of the vehicle—will be made, and this information is then passed on to the repair shop.
Avoids Duplication At. this stage the costing office has raised a costing envelope carrying the details of the vehicle and thework to be carried out. Ali invoices and requisitions to the stores are placed inside this envelope until such lime as the copy of the repairs-required sheet from the workshop is sent into the cost office. The significance of the arrival of this sheet is that the job is completed, and at that point costing is completed also. Figures are then issued to the operating depot where they are attached to the vehicle running costs, so enabling the depot manager to extract: the cost per mile for each individual unit under his control.
This operation is carried out only at the operating depot, and the records kept at the central depot apply only to the overall costs. A simple reference to the depot records give access to the cost-per-mile figures and a tedious duplication is avoided.
It is from these figures that top-level management meetings are able to reach a decision on the type and class of vehicle which shall be produceerand purchased for certain types of operation, and it is also from these records that the measure of efficiency of the vehicle repair shops is obtained.
A point which forcibly struck me while visiting the Arney headquarters was the number of long-serving personnel in all grades to whom I was introduced, and the feeling that the keenness of the chairman with regard to providing service to the customer, whilst at the same time operating a safe and efficient fleet of road vehicles economically, was indeed achieved by letting his left hand know what his right hand was doing.