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Sell your engineering
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• As overhead costs rise, companies look to spread these expenses and im prove profitability. In the transport indus try one such company is Robson's Distribution Services. As part of its total dis tribution service, the company offers a commercial vehicle engineering service to outside customers.
This service, based on Robson's fivestrong UK workshop network, has been available for more than 10 years. With commercial vehicle workshops at Carlisle, Flitwick, Alloa, Castleford and St Helens, Robson's is well placed to offer a nationwide service to its engineering customers. Robson's operates some 200 vehicles, mostly tractive units in either its own colours or those of its contract-hire custom ers. In addition, the company's workshops are also responsible for some 500 Robson trailers.
"We recognised some two years ago that we could devote more of our en gineering resources to outside business," comments Alan Granger, one of the company's sales executives. The company now markets the engineering operation as it would any other part of its services. As such, its sales team, of which Alan Gran ger is a part, has a remit to devote part of its time to selling engineering as it would, say, to distribution or contract hire.
Compared with many other transport companies offering vehicle engineering services, Robson's can offer a national service based on its five main workshops. As well as straightforward workshop facili ties, Robson's engineering service for outside customers also includes recovery, through contracted specialist operators and roadside breakdown assistance.
According to Brian Hill, regional fleet engineer, based at the company's Flitwick workshop, the main thrust of Robson's national engineering activity is to provide a full contract-maintenance service. As part of this activity, Robson's will retain and maintain legal records, handle warranty claims and generally act as its outside customers' engineering centre.
Flitwick is one of the larger Robson workshops, laid out in four-bay format, with more than adequate length to take the longest artic. Carlisle has a larger engineering facility which, besides normal vehicle repair work, also undertakes trailer refurbishment and vehicle painting. A further aspect of Robson's engineering service is the availability of night repair and maintenance. With the exception of Castleford all its workshops operate a two-shift system, an obvious boost to vehicle productivity. Robson's has not set itself a specific target on the ratio of in-house to outside engineering business, "Although, at the end of the day, the amount of nonRobson's business we handle must not compromise the quality of in-house service or that offered to our outside customers," comments Alan Granger.
After just over two years of actively marketing its engineering services, Robson's has gained a respectable amount of business. At Flitwick, where outside work has been carried out for a number of years, the location is now handling a number of local fleets. Among these are around 30 vehicles for the nearby depot of a nationwide carrier, and the fleet of a furniture manufacturer, as well as smaller accounts.
Brian Hill, in common with his colleagues at other workshops, reckons that his fitting staff are able to handle most vehicle types, though some specialist training on Mercedes is now being undertaken to allow a full service to be provided for customer vehicles. At local level Robson's workshops are building relationships with relevant dealers to ensure parts supply for outside customer vehicles.
Robson's workshops are also carrying imprest parts stock on customers' behalf and building their dedicated stocks of fastmoving items to provide customer service. Small plant repair for items such as forldift trucks can also be undertaken.
Charge-out rate costs vary from workshop to workshop within the Robson's engineering network. As an indication, Alan Granger reckons that Robson's charge-out rate for outside customers is about 30% less than that of distributors in the relevant area.
Robson's Turbo 74