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VIEW TO A CHILL
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York Bodybuilders, under the leadership of its new boss Mike Tweddle, has emerged from a group shake-up ready for growth — and ready to build all its rigid reefers under one roof.
• York's bodybuilding arm, under its new boss Mike Tweddle, is to begin building its rigid reefers — based on the successful York Thermostar semi-trailer body — at its Clay Cross, Chesterfield plant. Up to 300 rigid reefers will be built there over the next two years (CM 6-12 July).
Tweddle, formerly managing director of York subsidiary Abel Demountables, now heads a bigger bodybuilding division which includes Abels, and York's bodybuilding plants at Rushden, Northamptonshire, and Clay Cross.
He plans to standardise the model range and increase the use of computeraided design in a bid to win the British Standard BS5750. Although customers will still be able to specify certain designs, he says he wants to move away from the image of "drawings on the back of a cigarette packet".
The company is taking part in Commercial Motor and Leyland Daf's Run nerthon by building an aluminiumframed timber dropsider which went into action for a fortnight this month with an east of England agricultural haulier.
Alan Rimmington, York group's technical services director, has been brought in to set up a computer system to come up with standard designs for most of the models which will be offered to customers. So far, standard-design curtainsiders and box vans are available.
While the division aims to win BS5750 by next year, Tweddle dismisses any suggestions of a race between leading bodybuilders to win the mark. "BS5750 is a piece of paper which will be nice to have," he says, "but I'm more interested in getting our own quality right. A lot of companies going for it still have production and quality problems."
SHAKE-UP
Part of the reason for the organisational shake-up at York is to streamline the running of what is a sprawling transport engineering group. York Transport Engineering has eight bases, all of which carry out some bodybuilding and repairs.
These outlets, at Glasgow, Darlington, Leeds, Warrington, Cannock, Avonmouth, Dagenham and Watford, will now become satellite service operations, says Tweddle, with as much bodybuilding as possible carried out at Rushden and Clay Cross.
This will guarantee quality and be cheaper, he says: "Instead of one body being made in each place, we can do eight in Rushden. Large orders can be placed centrally." It will also mean that standards will be constant. "If a product carries the York badge we want it to have the same quality, wherever it is produced," he explains.
Rushden and Clay Cross will make kits of some designs and send them for assembly at YTE depots. Many customers prefer their bodies to come from their local York factory, says Tweddle — it means they can maintain a link with the local manager for later service checks.
York Bodybuilders currently makes aluminium box vans, GRP vans, dropsiders, beavertails, lutons and platforms. The biggest selling products so far this year have been curtainsiders. "The trend is away from GRP and aluminium boxes," says Peter Wallinger, operations manager at Rushden.
The company also produces crewcabs at Chesterfield. This year the division has sold 7,000 bodies. It is aiming to make 1,200 by next year. No new product lines, other than the Themostar rigid, are planned, however. A new production line is being set up at Clay Cross to make the Thermostar. The semi-trailer version is produced at York's Stanley, County Durham plant, but no spare capacity was available there. The semi-trailer reefer was launched in 1986 and, says Tweddle, has done well in the market.
There has always been a market for rigid reefers, but so far York Bodybuilding has not exploited it, other than to build a handful of refrigerated bodies. The 200-300 it will build over the next two years will include versions from 7.5 to 17 tonnes, "It will be a matter of giving it the right image," says Tweddle. He doubts whether York's salesmen, who sell the group's whole range of products, will have trouble "with the York name behind it".
York is one of five bodybuilders taking part in Runnerthon. The others are Besco, Boalloy, Penman and BradeLeigh. Like Brade-Leigh, York is contributing a dropsider, but its timbersided version works out cheaper than its competitor's all-aluminium model, says Wallinger.
DROPS1DE
The body, on a Leyland Daf Roadrunner, has been fitted with a Lucas 1200 crane fitted to the nearside front; it was built within a week at Rushden. Wallinger says the dropside design, with crane, is particularly suited to agricultural work.
Tweddle plans to boost the division's turnover to £5 million. It employs 30 staff at Rushden, 35 at Chesterfield and 45 at Abel. Tweddle aims to increase this to about 150 in total, York Bodybuilding comprised only the Rushden factory before last month's reorganisation.
Other York subsidiaries include the dry freight trailer arm, York Trailers; Italian manufacturer, Piacenza; Titan, in France and tipper builder Neville Charrold. Despite the shake-up, old names such as Charrold and Abel will be retained to preserve customer loyalty.
Canadian-born group York was bought by its management from Bunzl last year. Following the reorganisation, Terry Whyman will head YTE's eight companies with Malcolm Johns in charge of York Bodybuilding's Chesterfield plant.
Tweddle can draw on substantial York research and design back-up in his bid to create a bigger market for his new rigid reefer and other York Bodybuilders products. But he stresses that the emphasis will be on fine-tuning existing lines rather than coming up with new ones. "It's not that easy to come up with a completely new product," he says.