Shell-Mex and BP/Kenning Seacroft
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• A 3.5-acre site carrying a tanker repair workshop, owned by Shell-Mex and BP Ltd. and operated and staffed by the Kenning Motor Group Ltd., has just received the finishing touches of a £150,000 modernization and expansion programme. The centre is known as the Kenning Commercial Workshops and is situated at Seacroft. Leeds.
The facilities provided will enable over 1,000 of the Shell-Mex and BP midland and northern distribution fleets to undergo scheduled periodic overhaul as well as repairs to vehicles which have suffered serious accident damage.
In the main, the objectives of the modernization have been to provide a quicker turn-round for vehicles passing through the centre. And, when I visited the premises last week, the success of the organization was amply evident in that vehicles undergoing major overhauls were leaving the works at a rate of one for every working day of the year. that is 250 per annum.
One of the major items of reorganization at the centre has been the erection of a new paint shop. In the past spray-booths were contained in the main building and a continued cross-flow of vehicles, from .a prepara
tion area at one side of the works entrance to the booths on the other. caused considerable congestion and loss of productivity.
The new paint shop has a total floor area exceeding 10.000 sq. ft. and is divided into three sections; preparation and chassis painting, spraying and accelerated drying and a finishing area. For vehicles not requiring the full treatment, a clear corridor allows access right through the shop, by-passing the spray.
My first impression of the shops was that they had been laid down by practical experts There is ample entrance and manoeuvring space outside the buildings, a point which is 'often overlooked. And arrangements have been installed for burning off butane and propane gases from gas tankers requiring attention. This operation was formerly carried out only by refineries and was one which produced frustrating delays to the vehicle repair section.
A Kismet brake tester is used for checking the condition of vehicle brakes before and after overhaul, and the main workshops-nearly 27,000 sq. ft. in all—can accommodate 25 maximum-capacity vehicles at the same time.
After careful evaluation of shop floor prac
tice, a further nine, 10-ft long pits—augment ing a number of existing full-length pits— were constructed. These, it was felt, were much more suitable for working on tractive unit-semi-trailer combinations than the fulllength pits.
Carefully calculated stocks of spares. including ready built-up major assemblies, fill a stores section which runs the full lengtn of one side of the main building. But, because Kennings already have extensive facilities for fuel injection equipment overhaul in the area, none have been installed at Seacroft. To have done so would have been an expensive and unnecessary duplication.
The tie-up between Shell-Mex and BP Ltd. and the Kenning Group covers many spheres of operation and it goes back just on 70 years. And, although run by Kennings, the Seacroft centre's repair operations are largely based on extensive work-study programmes carried out at Shell's Fulham, London, repair centre, and will continue so.
• A total of 136 personnel are employed at Seacroft. the pattern of working hours for fitting staffs giving the depot a varying manpower strength which covers a 22hr. working day for six days each week.