_13 _I - Jj? H anson Transport is a 152year-old haulage operation
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based in Huddersfield and owned by millionaire Lord Hanson. It has a long-standing company policy that all assets should be bought outright.
This policy includes its vehicles: a year ago the company increased its fleet by 28 to 100 vehicles when it won a new contract. All of the vehicles are Volvos bought outright from Volvo distributor Crossroads Commercials, The new Volvos are all 12-tonne FL7 rigids.
They are Hanson's first Volvos. the rest of its fleet comprises ERFs Ivecos and Leyland Dafs.
The Volvos are all covered by [ye-year contract maintenance leals with Volvo Truck Finance. Hanson's Volvos are working on dedicated contract for the House ■ f Fraser.
This is Hanson Transport's secnd largest contract after ICI, for vhom it distributes a range of proucts. It also has eight other major ustomers. The House of Fraser deal covers home deliveries, which is why 12tonners were chosen. Until it won this contract it only delivered to House of Fraser customers in the Midlands.
The vehicles service 52 stores and each deliver to as many as 18 homes a day so they run up high mileages.
This obviously affects maintenance costs, says business development manager Mark Ellis.
Goods are delivered by House of Fraser suppliers to Hanson Transport depots in Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, and Newport in Wales.
Four vehicles at each of these depots are dedicated to the House of Fraser with another eight dedicated to the contract at Hanson's London depot.
It is because the Volvos are so widespread that contract maintenance was chosen as the best option. Hanson has a workshop at its Huddersfield headquarters, which is next to an ICI plant and services about 50 vehicles, but none of the House of Fraser vehicles are based there.
None of the other Hanson Transport depots have workshops because the low number of vehicles at each depot does not make the expenditure worthwhile.
Instead all of the vehicles at these depots, including the Volvos, are on contract maintenance deals with their respective manufacturers.
Ellis says that he picked this particular option for the reliability of the service he gets, but contract maintenance also allows him to predict his operating costs more accurately: 'You don't have to worry about any major problems," he says. "If there was an engine failure it would be covered under the deal."
Vehicles are routinely serviced every six weeks: "We like to overmaintain," says Ellis, "and the contract maintenance deal we have means that we can specify how often our vehicles are serviced."
Contract maintenance is not much more inconvenient than doing it in-house, he believes, particularly as there are Volvo maintenance sites within 10 miles of every Hanson Transport depot.