LEAVE WELL ALONE
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66 0 not fiddle around with things until attention is
required." This is how Mr. W, H. Banot, chief engineer of the Kearley and Tonge organization, expressed his thoughts when I asked him to describe the method he used in keeping his 942-unit fleet in good condition. To bear out the sense in this line of thinking I was shown records of a Leyland Hippo which first went Into service in the winter of 1946-7 and has covered nearly 477,000 miles with a repair cost of 2d. per 'mile.
Maintaining a mixed fleet of vehicles, ranging from 15 cwt. to 20 tons gross vehicle weight, can present so many different problems that the staff employed on the job must grow up with it to appreciate the difficulties and be capable of coping with the problems. The senior staff of the organization's transport fleet are very well qualified in this respect: Mr. G. Gable, the transport manager, has already received his gold watch for 40 years' service, and Mr. Banot has one year to go.
On the 'hop floor most of the fitters, painters and bodybuilders are men who started work with the company as boys straight from school, and who have, except for time away in the forces, been there ever since. Moving out into the garage—which must be one of the few left where most of the fleet is under cover at night—one can see the same long-service faces who started as van boys, were trained to drive by four picked men in the fleet and who have become drivers in their own right. .
Of prime importance in the operation of any large fleet is the ability to provide continuity of service. To achieve
n",6 this the Kearley and Tonge fleet is organized as two separate units, The first is known as the committed fleet, which at all times must be at full strength and on call to the warehouse management. Remaining vehicles are utilized on day-to-day requirements and units are taken from this remainder to make up the strength of the committed fleet should any of its number be out of action. Also kept in reserve are five three-tortners for replacing the vehicles taken out of the two sections for routine maintenance.
Selection for service is in three ways. Routine lubrication is carried out at monthly intervals, when greasing is done manually, and major units (not engine) are checked for oil level, leaks and so on. At 5.000-mile intervals the engine oil is changed, together with oil and fuel filters. This figure is kept to as closely as possible, but is not allowed to upset daily schedule. Only at this time is the engine oil the responsibility of the workshop staff; in between these periods the need for replenishment is left solely to the driver. Thirdly, at three-monthly interval; the vehicles are docked to receive a road test by the company's tester. On his report any work found to be required is immediately put in hand. Should the docking prove to be an extensive one, because of the amount of work which the tester has found necessary, then the Vehicle is replaced by one of the spares.
Thus it is rarely found that not enough time is available to carry out all the work required on any particular unit, and so the work does not pile up. It is fatal to "leave until the next time" work that is in need of doing now, because this results only in a back-log of outstanding jobs which eventually overwhelms the capacity of the workshop. Kearley and Tonge's workshop did not appear to me to be overwhelmed, and I had the impression that this was normal. The main depot at Ordell Road, Bow, London, is capable of carrying out any repairs needed to the company's vehicles and keeps a very strict check on vehicle history. running and repair costs. For this purpose a Remington Rand Graphdex system is used, coupled—for long-term storage of information—with a Cardex system. The Graphdex covers a continuous period of six months and is kept in two blocks, one in retrospect and one for future schedule. Mr. Banot told me that the biggest advantage of this type of record keeping is in the " at-a-glance facilities" that it offers. "Where you have five minutes to wait for a phone call, or any other time-wasting diversions, and you have trained your mind to look at the Graphdex, any vehicle that has escaped attention for some reason stands out like a sore thumb." Of course. this is not the case with records kept in ledgers, because one has to get them out and turn up the pages; this is tedious and therefore is seldom done.
At the three-monthly dock, all vehicles automatically undergo a smoke check. A Dimeden smoke tester is used for this purpose and the test papers are kept in thc vehicle records as a safeguard against prosecutions for black smoke. Any attention that becomes necessary by these checks is carried out at the depot where Hartridge calibrating equipment is kept. All the company's in-line pumps are done on the premises, but at the moment the distributor type pumps are sent away to the makers. Injectors and lift pumps are also overhauled on the premises, as are starters, dynamos and voltage control units. Only when it becomes uneconomic to do overhauls is a component sent for service exchange.
Other work carried out at the dock period is tracking and aligning of steering and axles and any necessarY tyre replacements The latter is by the company's tyre man
and determination for changing is, made by the use of a depth gauge. When a measurement of I mm. or less is recorded in the tread, tyres are removed and sent for remoulding. Subsequently they are run out on rear axles only, except in the case of vehicles under six tons, when they are used on all axles.
Somewhere in the organization there is always a vehicle or vehicles undergoing a brake reline. For this purpose the company uses reconditioned units and insists on the liners being of the bonded lype, for which they claim excellent results. As the sarne system of "don't touch it until you must" is used, there must be the least possible time lost when a reline takes place; hence the factory replacement units.
The Ordell Road depot is directly responsible for the maintenance of 137 vehicles and 13 trailers and organizes servicing for the 117 vehicles and .40 trailers that are left, in the Kearley and Tonge fleet with the local agents (mostly Ford) who are conveniently based near to the organization's outlying wholesale supply depots. These agents are made responsible for carrying out routine servicing and inspection on the same lines as that done in the depot. Extensive work uncovered by the inspection, such as brake relining or expensive engine repairs, is referred to Mr. Banot's department for authorization. Really big jobs, usually those costing in excess of £100, are returned to the depot.
This same method is used to service the 622 light vans which are operated by. the international stores part of the organization. These vehicles are based at the retail branches and come under the direct control of the branch manager and the overall control of the transport department. At monthly intervals, a vehicle inspector—of which there are three operating with the company— visits each branch and carries out a detailed inspection of the vehicles based there. His report goes back to the main depot at Ordell Road, where arrangements are made for any extensive repairs needed to be carried out by the local agent. Adjustments and minor repairs are done by the inspector at the time of inspection. Also, at this time, any mis-use or bad handling that is evident is brought to the notice of the driver concerned, and advice given on how to avoid a re-occurrence of such damage as has been caused.
The friendly atmosphere that prevails in the company,
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and the fact that most of the operational activities are predetermined, makes it fairly easy to accommodate most of the work needing to be done in five days. The standard hours worked are from 8 a.m to 4.45 p.m., and all the year round one man is on duty between the hours of 7 and 8 a.m. and 4.45 and 5.45 p.m. to cope with emergencies. In the event of there being a crash or serious breakdown away from the depot, the men, if required, will turn out at any time and for almost any period to ensure that the wheels are kept turning. In addition, during the months of November to March a second man is on duty between 7 and 8 a.m. to attend to the topping up of antifreeze mixture. The garage is manned on Saturday and Stniday by a skeleton staff of one chargehand and one fitter between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Owing to a decentralization of its distribution services, the company is in the process of opening new depots at Staines, Southall and Harlow, and this scheme will result in a reduction of the fleet taking place. Natural wastage is being utilized here, it is hoped with the minimum-of upheaval.
One of the most surprising things that I found out during my visit was that nearly all the bodies used in this fleet are built in the concern's own body shop. Experience gained over the years has shown that although there is no profit in building its own bodies, the company gets exactly what it wants and when it wants it: and some of the detail that gets attended to would put many bodybuilding outfits to shame. The same can be said for the paintshop, where all the painting and signwriting is carried out. All vehicles that are .less in overall width than that allowed by law are fitted with rubbing rails along the outsides of the body. This has been found to cut down considerably damage caused when operating in very confined spaces such as markets and back-entrance alleyways. I saw some new Thames 15-cwt. vans being fitted with this device in the body shop. These were, in fact, the first of the lightweight vans to be so equipped.
Vehicle depreciation is based on a period of eight years' service. But it is by no means certain that at the end of that time a vehicle will be pensioned off. "It depends entirely on the ability of the driver as to how long you can economically operate a machine ", said Mr, Banot. "In sonic cases you have serious trouble on your hands after only a few weeks' service, and in others you get a vehicle running for years without ever needing more than routine attention." For this reason, as far as is feasible, the system of one machine, one driver, is abided by and as the drivers are all trained from scratch by the company, a large degree of standardization of driving is achieved.
I got the impression that the feeling of Mr. Banot was that a good driver could save you a lot more trouble than a s,,00d workshop could overcome. At the end of his period of training a driver is tested by the company's own Ministry certified driving examiner. If he passes he then climbs up the ladder of vehicle sizes until he reaches the heaviest in the fleet, and by this method the company avoids most of the failures that can be attributed to uninformed driving.
Being very nicely placed in East London and centrally disposed to a large number of manufacturers agents, Kearly and Tonge never experience any difficulty in obtaining spare parts, and in fact appear even to be able to have them delivered when and where they require them. Because of this they find no need to carry large stocks of parts, and consequently the stores look a bit sparse when cornpared with some of the organizations I have visited. "Why carry things that you do not have to ", says Mr. Banot. And with this I must agree.
A simple, but effective, costing system is operated whereby the vehicles are broken down into 16 parts. As repair or replacement of any unit is carried out an entry is made in the Cardex system, which carries two cards per vehicle, each one lasting for twelve months. One card carries information as to units fitted, the other as to time and material cost. Simple reference to this system gives immediately information as to what was done, when, and how much it cost.
Included on the costing part of this system are columns covering oil and fuel., mileage and tyres—and by simple arithmetic it will be seen that full vehicle cost per mile can be extracted. A unit is run only while it continues to be economical. As soon as the figures show that this is not so, its days are numbered. Effective check on the time expended by fitting staff on a job is achieved by having every man clock on and off each job. This is done when after completing a job he reports to the foreman's office to get his next assignment and avoids a tot of arguments about who did what.
When a vehicle is completed the driver is made to thoroughly check that he is satisfied everything is in order, and he most sign the repair card to this effect.
Mr. Gable, who is in overall control of this fleet, told me that his prime function was to serve the warehousing side of the business and not necessarily to make a profit.
" But he said, "that is not to say that we can spend what we like and every effort has to be made on the part of the maintenance organization to reduce costs.– I wonder how many companies can show repair costs per vehicle of 2d. per mile over a period of 18 years and 477,040 miles.