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WALON A nyone driving over the Avonmouth bridge on the M5
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will see the massive car import site at Portbury; it is Britain's biggest, handling 250,000 vehicles a year with rows of cars awaiting onward movement stretching into the distance, Some of the complex belongs to car transporter giant Walon, part of the AutoLogic group; other sections are owned by manufacturers, such as Mitsubishi, and operated by Walon on their behalf.
What sets Walon apart from its competitors is an emphasis on added value stretching far beyond merely moving cars. It provides customers with technical support and transport services, each activity supporting the other. As the UK importer for Mitsubishi,Proton,Fiat and Toyota, among others. Walon is assured of traffic flow, but seeks to optimise profitability by providing blue-chip customers with an expanding range of one-shop-stop services.
For example, working on behalf of Vauxhall, Walon's on-site workshops prepare and deliver vans for BT and the Post Office.These vehicles have a range of liveries applied by transfer and are fitted with specialist internal and external racking before delivery to regional depots For other manufacturers Walon offers anything from road tax and pre-delivery inspections (PDIs) to preparing specialedition models for marketing campaigns.The company also fits accessories as diverse as headrests, tow bars, stereos and sat-nay, and converts 4x4s and hatchbacks into light CVs. Walon PDIs all the Alpha Romeos entering the UK; one small section at Port bury even retrims cloth seats in leather.
Walon aims to remove stages in the finished vehicle logistics chain between manufacturing and customer delivery", thus, according to contracts manager Simon Charles,"taking out cost and reducing lead times".
Tracking pre-delivery
Every car is harcoded; with its Own RF frequency and new software Walon can keep track of vehicles as they follow a complex pre-delivery route on what are effectively miniature production lines staffed by up to 1,500 people.This technology also provides real-time status information for customers. CM visited Portbury to view some of the more bespoke technical operation, such as preparing a Red Bull special edition of the Mitsubishi pickup.-Few companies can offer the range of technical support we do," says depot manager Ian Griffiths."We have a similar set-up at another site for BMW." Walon operates plainly painted multideck drawbar rigs: Dafs,Scanias and Volvos with bodywork from Lohr and Transporter Engineering. With the latest Nissan Micra unable to fit in the space once occupied by a Ford Scorpio, as well as an increasing number of big pickups and vans to carry, maximising payload isn't easy.
What helps fleet utilisation is Walon's network of 16 UK depots.Their strategic locations allow wagons to keep within WTD hours rules, minimising empty running and permitting a mixture of trampers and double-shifted drivers on four-on, four-off day-and-night work. Wages in this sector are traditionally higher than in the rest of haulage, typically £.450-500 a week.
To service less profitable areas and stop trucks disappearing into the West Country or Scotland only to run back unladen,Walon uses VMex, an internet-based,pan-European wideload allocation system. Outside contractors of any size can log on and, in minutes, find a load or backload anywhere in the UK.This takes the pressure off the Walon fleet which remains as a core backup.
During the biannual peaks in UK car registrations Wal on's size enables it to employ major rivals such as Grayson and ECM as subbies and bring in some of its own Benelux-based fleet for a few weeks.
The WTD has had an impactrequiring lateral thinking to make the most of capital assets—Walon has resorted to shared trucks, flexible shifts and night-time deliveries; it also uses rail wagons in partnership with STVA and EWS. Sending cars by rail doesn't work within a radius of 200km because of the cost of transshipping. However,over long distances a single trainload can equal 20 trucks and 40 truck-days.
Walon handles 1.8 million vehicle movements a year and the UK is parent company AutoLogic's biggest market. On the Continent Walon Benelux is moving eastwards out of France and Spain following the shift of auto manufacturing. Lithuania now has more car transporters per head of population than any other country in the world — and since most adult Lithuanians speak Russian, it serves as a perfect stepping stone for Russia.
Walon has its antecedents in Abbey Hill, which was bought first by Canadian-owned Crystal then Walon, from which current MD John Merry made a management buyout in19%,floating the company on the stock market in 1997. It runs 400 car transporters in the UK and holds a ground stock of 10,000 Carson a four-month turnaround. Divisions include First Fleet, specialising in ex-hire car refurbishment, and Enable, a prestige film and pre-production transportation enterprise selected as a business area for growth.
Underpinning these activities, technical service expansion remains the core strategy for the AutoLogic group as part of what it describes as "holistic process management".
Ian Griffiths concludes: "Consistent quality, lead time and service are now becoming more important to customers than lowest price." Which is management speak for 'you gets whats you pays for'. •