Champion driver on study tour
Page 26
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• At the end of a visit to Germany on the Michelin European Study Award, LDoY champion Lloyd Richards commented: "We learned a lot of useful tips from them, but on the other hand there are some things we do far better, so both countries have something to gain from the other."
Accompanied by his administrative manager, Fred Haynes, from Heavy Transport Ltd, St Austell, Mr Richards visited the Woerth plant of Daimler-Benz, the headquarters of Michelin at Karlsruhe, where five factories employ 8000 people, and a private transport operator Fischer Spedition, also at Karlsruhe.
This company explained that they were shortly joining with three other hauliers to offer a rationalized collection and delivery service, based on a new computer-controlled warehouse capable of dealing with 3000 movements a day. Closed-circuit TV will provide security viewing as well as load monitoring.
The new group will employ 400 people. Fischer Spedition themselves have 120 vehicles, 30 standardized container units and 15 skeletals — all, not surprisingly, tyred by Michelin.
At an informal meeting, Lloyd Richards talked with the president of the German Association of Professional Lorry Drivers, and the local area chairman, Herr Schnerr, presented him with a crest of the association and a lapel badge — only the second to be presented to a non-German.
While in Germany, the champion was given a preview of a 16-minute colour film of the 1972 LDoY Finals, commissioned by Michelin and soon to be generally available.