United gets tough
Page 16
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• BET-owned United Transport Tankers has unveiled a tough new strategy to increase its share of the tanker market.
By early next year the eight MI' companies — Ancliff, Brechin, Bulwark, Consolidated Bulk Liquid, Hogg, Smith and Robinson, Stamp and Uni-Oils — will cease to trade under their own names and will come under the collective umbrella of urr.
U'1T also wants to streamline operations to reduce costs by around .1.5 million every year and to introduce an aggressive centralised marketing policy. A new gold and royal blue livery is being applied to UTT's 650 tanks and 450 tractive units.
At a London press conference this week, UTT's new managing director, Gary Watt, outlined UTTs cost cutting plans.
Six of its 18 depots are to close with the loss of around 100 of UTT's 600 workforce. No drivers are to go and the losses will occur among depot and head office staff Watt said.
The closures are to eliminate the duplication of two L11-1' depots in the same area, and already Brechin's Glasgow depot and Bulwark's Burtonon-Trent depot have shut.
The eight head offices will also close, with UTT's new head office taking over at either Chepstow or Bristol.
Watt is to tie up deals with one or two truck manufacturers — from a list of ERF, Seddon Atkinson and Volvo — for the complete provision of UTT's fleet in the future. There is to be a replacement programme of around 60 tractive units a year, probably with warranty clauses included to cover the vehicles for the first 320,000 to 480,000km (200,000 to 300,000 miles) of their life.
Already urr has bought eight ERF El0s, which are painted in the new livery.
"In the past UT'!' has not taken account of its purchasing clout," Watt says.
A management infonnation system, to bring about a "marked" increase in the productivity of vehicles, is also to be designed and introduced within about a year.
But Watt stresses that his aim is only to reduce costs to the optimum level, and not to the detriment of UTT in the long term. "We want to get the costs down to the squeak level, but not so that it's screaming," he said.
U'IT is set to take on a much more aggressive marketing profile, and a central stand-alone marketing fuction has been set up.