CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH
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• "Safe driving isn't really about savings that you can measure in any obvious way. It's more of a philosophy — a state of mind, if you like." That is the verdict of John Evans, the national distribution manager of the Jeyes Group.
He should know. Safe driving is something the Thetford-based maker of household cleaning and hygiene products takes seriously. It has been a regular entrant to the Lorry Driver of the Year competition for many years (it sponsors the event in two categories), and its drivers seem to have come away just as regularly with prizes. This year they won two second places, one third and a fifth — and these were shared by just six drivers.
So when Evans entered the company this year in Bandag's Driving for Safety competition, it was not in a spirit of idle curiosity; he felt the company had a real chance of a placing. "It looked as though our record was up to the standards that the Bandag people were talking about, so I thought we'd have a go."
He was right. The company won the top award in its class — Retail Distribution. This is one of five categories in which entrants can elect to be judged (the others are trunking, construction, mixed operations and a special class for small fleets). With the award came a trophy, which is held for a year, and an engraved shield, which remains with the company permanently. Currently they are both on display among various other sporting and commercial trophies inside the company's reception area at Thetford.
DRIVING RECORD
The Bandag award is unusual in that companies do not have to compete for it in an active sense: they simply submit details of their organisation's driving record during the preceding year. In a way this is a more telling form of evaluation than a test of skill. It amounts to continuous assessment over a prolonged period, and in the course of it everybody is judged. There is no exemption for the heavy-booted or the ham-fisted.
"Initially we just had to fill in a form showing our total mileage for 1987 and the total number of drivers we had. Alongside that we had to show how many accidents we'd had per driver. From that they can work out the number of accidents per mile."
That is just the first step, however. Short-listed entrants are then visited by a representative from the Institute of Road Transport Engineers, and have to submit their maintenance records for scrutiny. Any operator's licence infringements or tachograph offences are taken into consideration. By the end of the exercise the company's whole fleet management system has come under the microscope.
It will come as no surprise, in view of all this, that safety ranks fairly high on the list of Jeyes' priorities. There are continuing efforts to press home its importance in every aspect of the production cycle; and transport is included as a key element in that cycle. The company safety committee, which meets every four weeks, includes union as well as management representatives.
Apart from that he says there are regular internal audits on plant and fork-lift trucks — while on the vehicle side the programmed maintenance work achieves the same result.
RESPONSIBLE
"You have to be realistic, though. Once the drivers get out there on the road, it's up to them how they drive their trucks. There's no one out there to check. It's down to them to be responsible people." What the company can do, he says, is foster the right general attitude; driving then becomes an extension to it. "Our drivers are a hard-working bunch, and that helps."
Jeyes also offers a financial reward in the form of a E50 bonus for any driver who puts in a year's accident-free driving. "We're quite strict about it — if the driver is involved in an accident where the insurers agree on a knock-for-knock settlement, the driver loses the bonus. The payment has got to be a real incentive."
Recent changes in the structure of the Jeyes organisation have probably helped by giving the staff a new sense of participation and commitment. Three-and-a-half years ago the company, now known as the Jeyes Group, was bought out by its management from Cadbury Schweppes; and more recently it has been floated on the Stock Exchange.
"There's been a lot of restructuring in that time, and some hard talking about ways of improving productivity. One of the results is that we have been able to increase the annual mileage our vehicles run from between 45,000 and 50,000 to around 70,000. The Bandag award gives evidence that we've achieved this without compromising our safety standards in any way," says Evans.
In fairness, the improvement was not due solely to the drivers' efforts, but alsc to an overhaul in the company's loadplanning system. "Of course in these day of bulk deliveries to supermarket warehouses we tend to make fewer, bigger drops: so the drivers spend less time offloading and more time on the road."
There is also some trunking to and from one of Jeyes' other two factories, al Cheltenham. Outside hauliers handle mos of the traffic from the third factory, at East Kilbride.
CONTRACT HIRE
Vehicle purchases are always discussed with the drivers themselves. Currently the fleet consists of five ERFs with 216kW (290hp) L10 Cummins engines an two Seddon Atkinsons with 216kW (290hp) 14-litre Cummins units. Most an provided on contract hire. "The big Cum mins is durable, but the 10-litre is more fuel-efficient. One driver has been gettini 29.7 litres/100Icm (9.5mpg) from his." That in itself says much for the care witt which the driver is treating the truck.
Entrants for the Bandag Award are no required to be Bandag customers: entrie: are considered strictly on their merits. Ir the case of Jeyes, however, John Evans had already been using Bandag reprocessing for many years when the award was made, and so has benefited from the £1,000 worth of Bandag products that form part of the prize.
"We normally buy premium tyres, reo once ourselves, Bandag them, demote front tyres to traction or trailer work, then recut them once again," says Evans At the moment, though, the company is carrying out validity trials on a newer Bandag system involving two guaranteed treatments per tyre. Evans favours the growing trend towards using special tyre treads for individual axles.
The Bandag sponsors emphasise that the competition is open to all-corners. Around 1,500 companies applied for entr forms this year, and approaching 1,000 actually competed. Placings are given to the top three in each category.
The award scheme has been running f three years. According to a Bandag spokesperson, no decision has yet been taken by the company on whether to cor tinue with the event this coming year. Safety-conscious operators like John Evans, who find it a valuable testimonial to good practice, will no doubt hope it does. So too will his drivers, who celebrated their own £1,000 reward at a dinner dance last week.
0 by Peter Rowlands.