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'MUCKS
How do you conjure up a tanker from a curtainsided trailer? Securicor Omega Logistics certainly knows the secret, because some of its vehicles are fulfilling both roles in a contract for chipboard manufacturer Egger.
Subcontracting might seem the best solution when a small number of bulkliquid movements need to be added to a specialist dry freight operation. For an ownaccount operator keen to keep the business in-house, this might not be an option—but neither is the prospect of adding a tanker or two and accepting the inevitable cost of empty mileage and low utilisation levels.
Faced with such choices, Scottish chipboard manufacturer Egger came up with a canny solution that increased its fleet utilisation levels—without needing to invest in tankers.
Egger signed a five-year contract distribution deal with Securicor Omega Logistics earlier this year. The agreement, which began in April. committed the logistics specialist to deliver about 30 loads of finished chipboard products a day to customers around the UK, from the Barony plant at Auchinleck in Strathclyde.
Straightforward solution
The plan was to use nine tractors and associated curtainsided trailers as a straightforward solution to the outbound chipboard movements. The complication was the need to accommodate a comparatively lower number of inward movements of bulk liquid resin; an essential raw material in the production process.
The novel solution was to convert a curtainsided trailer into a tanker—for some of the time.
Dunlop manufactures heavy-duty reusable bags that can be used as bulk liquid containers. The bags were originally developed to hold fuel reserves for naval vessels on long voyages—the fuel was piped aboard from a bag towed behind the ship. When empty it was hauled up and stowed
away for the next trip. This principle has since been extended into other applications, with haulage being one of the more recent beneficiaries. Quite simply, Egger wanted to ship the resin to the Barony plant in similar bags, but carried inside its trailers.
"The customer advised us of the availability of these large re-usable bags and it was our job to make the idea work," says Gordon McNinch, Securicor Omega Logistics general manager for Scotland and Ireland.
Adapting the principle to suit the transport solution needed careful planning to meet health & safety regulations.
WNinch says that the 18,500-litre bags could not be installed on any c-urtainsider. There were several other operational difficulties to consider.
Duggie Evans, Securicor Omega Logistics' regional fleet engineer, says that although the bags were designed specifically for the job, the three trailers had to be built to suit the purpose. "There are heavy-duty side raves and the cross-members on the trailers are 300mm all the way through," he says. "They had to be built for the job because if you had an ordinary trailer with ordinary raves the bag would tear them away from the cross-bearer. They had to withstand the stresses involved when the volume of liquid inside the bag is subjected to the forces generated by a vehicle in motion."
And once the bags and trailers were delivered, there were other practical problems to consider before installation could be completed.
Evans says: "Our first idea was to load the bag at the front, so that the weight would be directed away from the pin on the tractive unit That is because the unladen weight of the bag is about 200kg. "When it's empty you roll it up like a big Swiss roll and it takes up about a metre of space," he adds. "If you lose that space at the rear of the trailer it throws the weight forward. As it turned out, the lengths of the chipboard sections were such that stowing the bags at the rear of the trailers was a much more acceptable and practical option anyway"
Pumping connection Each bag costs about £6,000. They unfold from a cabinet and a valve at the base of it sits in a hole the size of a football that has been cut through the trailer floor. A pipe runs from here to the rear of the trailer, where the pumping connection is mounted.
When the bag is full it's secured firmly by 13 straps and ratchets on each side. This gives it the appearance of an over-sized caterpillar in a straitjacket. When the driver tips the load, the air-ride suspension at the rear is lowered to help with pumping-out
a by Steve McQueen DRIVER PERSPECTIVE
• Tom Sim is one of three regular drivers on the resin job. The load is non-hazardous and the drivers require only the usual basic protection of hard hat protective glasses. boots and gloves.
Before the new trailers were delivered, one of similar design was hired for drivers to use for training before the contract's start date. The surge effect caused by weight transference in liquid loads is restricted thanks to the number of straps, so there are few handling problems to deal with.
Sim says: "It drives well on bends, roundabouts and junctions, but there is a slopping about feeling when you are pulling away or stopping the vehicle. It is easily controlled you know what to expect" Loading the resin can take about 90 mmr but it is a relatively simple process. Unload easy, too. Sim takes only a few minutes t up the bag.
If anything, he says, the chipboard is likely to provide drivers with problems. always likely to move about a little, so have to take more care with the chipboa the outward journeys than with the res the return trips."
TRANSPORT MANAGER VIEW
• Robert McCracken, Securicor Omega LoO transport manager at Barony. says the ha trailers have proved winners both in terms of utilisation levels and from an operat viewpoint A typical round-trip leaves Barony for Hoi Humberside, on a Sunday evening, having loaded on the previous Friday afternoon. delivered at 07:00hrs on Monday. From the travels to Peterlee, Sunderland, and reloads resin. This would then be brought into Bare the Monday afternoon, pumped out, bag st and the trailer reloaded with chipboard. Ti three round trips a week is normal. The alter' collection point for resin is at Mould. This toll chipboard drop at Runcorn, in Cheshire.
McNinch says: "The beauty of the thing our point of view is the saving in cost. th supplied a tanker to job, there was a prospect that we be bringing stuff with nothing goini other way. Now we the flexibility of bri the raw material ii takin; the lini product out"