CAREFUL PLANNING Simplifies Workshop Routine
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HIGHLY organized operation, as practised by the Metal Agencies Co., Ltd., Bristol, demands a maintenance system which will ensure maximum vehicle availability. As described last week, the company have 96 goods vehicles and 101 cars, and regular delivery services are operated throughout the West Country.
The most impressive feature of the garage and maintenance shop is an enormous glazed wall admitting abundant daylight. Along the wall Tuns a workbench and a sunken area. The height of the bench is such that it is possible to work at it comfortably when standing on a duckboard. It is not thought advisable for fitters to have to stand on the concrete floor.
Sunken Area
Similar forethought went into the construction of the four pits leading off the sunken area. These are 4 ft. 9 in. deep, sufficient for comfort when working under cars but necessitating a duckboard or box for the operative to stand on when attending to a lorry. If the pit had been made lower for convenient height for work on a lorry, uncomfortable bending would have been entailed in giving attention to smaller vehicles.
One pit is used solely for lubricdtion and is equipped with a. number of dispensers determined as being necessary for the various grades of lubricant likely to be required, and a telescopic waste-oil collector. This drains away to a sump, together with a sink located elsewhere in the garage, and the waste .oil is disposed of at a nominal sum.
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Except one pit which measures 2 ft. across, the others are wide enough for lorries. The narrow pit is to give access to the underparts of works trucks.
The usual range of static equip
ment is disposed against a wall adjoining the big window. A Beres ford washer operates hose lines fixed outside. Men come in on Sundays to wash vehicles. Portable equipinent includes a Weaver crane and special. work-benches of M.A.C. uesign. These have a pair of wheels which may be let down in a manner similar to the fork-support of a motorcycle, so that the bench, which has a cabinet for a range of tools,
may be moved to the job.
The garage is heated by hot water circulating from the works automatic oil-fired boilers. The water passes through matrices and air is impelled downwards by electric fans. Maintenance work proceeds according to a schedule tied in with the operational plan, and a Graphdex chart is used.
Each vehicle is allotted a line and a green disc is added for every 1,000 miles run. Various symbols indicate jobs performed, mileometer readings and other information, including whether the Excise licence covers the full year or only a quarter. If a vehicle is to be sold, only a quarterly licence is taken out.
Each vehicle's documents are kept in a separate file. Suppliers of spares are asked to send duplicate accounts so that one 'copy can he passed to the M.A.C. accounts department and the other retained in the transport section's files.
The maintenance schedule provides for each vehicle to be docked ftor a full day every four weeks, when a 2,000-mile or 10,000-mi1e service is performed. Should, however, a driver report a defect to either steering or brakes on his daily journey sheet, his vehicle is attended to at once. Drivers are responsible for tyre inflation. Tyre life appears to vary according to districts in which vehicles operate. Covers are retreaded by manufacturers and retread life approximates to twothirds that of a new tyre.
£10 Insurance .Excess Drivers also have to report every accident, even if only minor. This has proved effective in reducing the number of dents and scratches -suffered, and the incidence of accidents of all kinds was recently worked out at one every 18,000 miles. A £10 excess is carried on insurance,
Work is performed in the garage on alternate Sundays upon vehicles which cannot be brought in during the week. Spare cylinder heads are kept for fitting to Commer QX engines at 50,000-mile intervals. also
spare gearboxes to replace units at 100,000 miles. When stripped at this mileage it is normally found that only new bearings are required, the teeth still being in good condition. Spare front-axle assemblies are also held, as it is quicker to replace an axle than to change king pins and re-bush
in situ.
Repainting is done by brush, as, paint adhesion, particularly to 1.Nood, is found to be better by this method than by spray, which is also more wasteful. A particularly nteresting method is followed for refuelling. Formerly, dispensers with extensible arms were used, but there is now a refuelling lane with dispensers arranged on each side. The pumps to one side are master-metered to the slave nozzles on the other. Pumping rate is 20 g.p.m., or 10 g.p.m. through each hose.
In. practice, a driver pulls up between two pumps and inserts the
slave nozzle in the off-side tank while the pump attendant notes the delivery on his sheet. The attendant then fills the near-side tank: the driver finishes sooner and is back in his cab ready to drive off when the attendant withdraws the nozzle. Delays at the filling points have been eliminated.
A colour code is applied for fuel supply: blue for oil fuel, green for premium-grade petrol (used for some cars) and red for commercial grade. This code applies from the tags of fuel-record documents to the painting of delivery nozzles and filler caps.
Operating costs are meticulously recorded and an annual analysis is drawn up containing all the information the directors require—number of loads carried, journeys and calls made, mileage and expenses under different headings. Each group company is charged accordingly as a matter of internal accountancy.
Daily records of running costs are entered on squared sheets providing for 31 entries. These sheets are attached to cards which show column headings—fuel, oil, repairs, tyres and incidentals—and on which the registration number of the vehicle can be written.
Accurate Figures
In order to cost new routes, the company worked out time-andmileage figures on accumulated data. Repair costs were assessed over three years. Depreciation is reckoned at 25 per cent. For a petrol 5-7-tonner, the figures came to 7s. IN. an hour and 8d. a mile, plus 15s. nightly subsistence if entailed. In practice these figures proved extremely accurate and they are also held to be much lower than the probable cost of hired transport.
A feature I noted on my visit was the generous road width on the company's site. There was ample space for \manceuvring outside the loading bay. •M.A.C. had no congestion problem.