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Boalloy gets close to customers

19th December 1996
Page 19
Page 19, 19th December 1996 — Boalloy gets close to customers
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Keywords : One, Iveco

by Steve Banner

• Boalloy has invested £1.5m in a 6,100tn2 custom-built plant at Avonmouth near Bristol capable of building up to 50 rigid or trailer bodies a month.

A few hundred metres away is Boalloy's nine-bay accident repair shop with a Schmitz franchise, in premises formerly occupied by Ryder.

The move is part of a policy of decentralising production to bring it closer to the customer. Managing director Gerry Brown says: "Almost all the expanding we have done in the last four years has been regional."

This has already resulted in the opening of a Llm factory in a former truck dealership at Belishill near Glasgow, turning out 40 bodies monthly. Brown may yet open another assembly site, on the eastern side of the country, but not before 1998. "Opening at Bel!shill has worked to our advantage because Scottish operators have responded to our commitment with loyalty to us," says sales and marketing director Jim Gibb. "We believe that if the formula can work in Scotland, it will work in the south west too."

Boalloy has invested close to am over the past four-and-ahalf years—L2.5m of which was spent in the past 12 months — and Brown stresses that it has all been generated from profits.

The company has sites close to the Leyland assembly plant in Lancashire and at the Iveco Ford plant at Langley in Berkshire, where it is building 14 bodies a week.

Although the last two ventures have involved Boalloy in building GRP box vans, Brown has no plans to make refrigerated box bodies. "We make temperaturecontrolled Insuliners, of course, but that's some

1 thing of a niche market," he observes. Boalloy's philosophy of separating manufacturing from repairs explains why these two activities have been located on dif

Some time ago all repair activities at the Congleton headquarters were relocated to Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Boalloy subsidiary M&G is now building 25 trailers a week, virtually all of which are fitted with Boalloy bodies, and output will soon rise to approaching 30 weekly, Gibb says. The factory has just been equipped with two new two-pack paint ovens plus a preparation bay.

Positive

"If the market stays as positive as we expect, we should be able to supply one-third of our needs from M&G, although some customers will always prefer other makes," Gibb states.

At present Boalloy is working on a six-to-eight week lead time on chassis, and a fourweek lead time on superstructures. "Overall, our order book and order intake are as strong as they have been at any time over the past two or three years," says Brown.

"I gather that some trailer manufacturers have been laying people off, but we're not suffering at all. I expect a good 1997 because the economy is doing so well."

lie's not surprised or concerned by Fruehauf's move into curtainsider bodies. "It was always expected, and I don't think we'll see any deterioration in our market share," he says. "More and more customers are looking for one-stop shopping, which is one reason why we acquired a chassis manufacturer."

Now with 700 employees country,,vide, Boalloy is considering rebaciging itself Tautliner, says Gibb, partly because it is more widely-recognised in Continental Europe.

Boalloy has a joint venture with Benelux bodybuilder Heering and is looking at opportunities in Scandinavia and Turkey.

So how far away is such a rebadging exercise? "Probably closer than we think," Gibb laughs.


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