Small Fleet Delivers Countrywide
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By Alan Smith, F.R.S.A. INTENSIVE operation of a small ancillary fleet has contributed to a twelvefold increase in turnover by Berlei (U.K.), Ltd., in as many years. Speed of delivery, as achieved by a weekly round-Britain service, is important to the company in competing against other makers of foundation garments, and substantial savings have also resulted from being able to pick up factory materials on return journeys rather than employ public transport.
The company have their main factory at Slough, Bucks, with two satellite workshops in nearby West Drayton and Maidenhead. Materials are brought to Slough for cutting, the stitching being done in South Wales. A factory was opened in Ebbw Vale in 1947 and another in New Tredegar a few years later.
Works had to be set up so far from Slough because of the availability of suitable labour in South Wales. and the difficulty of obtaining it in Slough, where there are many factbries which offer light work for women.
200-mile Route
Two Commer long-wheelbase 7tonners shuttle between Slough and South Wales. The vehicles are based at the ends of the 200-mile route, each making a round trip weekly. The cycle begins on Tuesday mornings, and the vans are back at their bases on Thursdays at midday. Drivers change vehicles halfway at Northleach.
The company use light wooden boxes measuring 2 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. deco to carry cut materials on westward journeys and completed garments packed loose are transported back to Slough, where they are cartoned. About 1,000 boxes are in circulation. The size was chosen as being not too unwieldy for a girl to handle.
Fabric and elastic parts, and metal a24 fasteners, are bundled in lots" of 50, and a box is filled with five bundles ready for the factory operatives. A colour code is applied to the dispatch of the containers to the South Wales destinations, and to other workshops.
The vans have composite bodywork with rear and side entrances. Boxes for Ebbw Vale, the first call, are placed at the rear and those for New Tredegar at the front, and each lot is taken into and out of the body through the appropriate aperture. The rear opening is 3 ft. wide and the doors, when opened, do not exceed the width of the van.
The older of the vans was bought in June, 1956, from Newell's Garage, Ltd., Maidenhead, and has Reall bodywork which was built to a lightweight specification. When the second vehicle was purchased (from Davenport, Vernon and Co., Ltd., High Wycombe) in August of the following year, the Saunders body was constructed rather more robustly.
This model is about a ton heavier
Ian the earlier van and has an overrive gearbox, the use of which has ffset any deterioration in fuel conrrription which might have been Kpected because of the greater weight. cr:.th vehicles average 20.5 rnil_g_
After calling at the South Wales tctories the Slough-based van collects lastic in Swansea before returniing. It
reckoned that 2d. a yd. is saved in ackaging costs and the extra expense rhich public transport would involve y being able to pick up the material nder C licence, The elastic is brought
Slough, and some is sent from there ) Portsmouth, where there is a subdiary concern making products under ie Berlei label as well as their own rand name.
The van goes to Portsmouth on :ridays and brings back finished pro luets. The subsidiary have a big narket in Scotland for the wear sold inder their own brand name, and their :loads augment the load of Berlei garnents on a van which the Slough actory sends north each week.
This is a Commer Avenger passen;et chassis with Saunders bodywork. Elie vehicle is 30 ft. long and 8 ft. wide aid has a rear well and overdrive ransmission. Loaded on a Saturday eady to leave early on Monday, its irst stop is Leicester, where it delivers ocal consignments at the depot of the Ittlas Express Co., Ltd., who undertake he final distribution to customers.
The next call is at the Mansfield varehouse of a group of stores in that trea, and from there the van continues o Ripponden, to deliver goods for lispatch by Ripponden Motors, Ltd., ind on to the Atlas depot at Bishop kuckland.
On Tuesday, the van heads for Glas;ow, where Atlas have another depot, aid thence south for Manchester, vhich is reached on Wednesday after in overnight stop at Kendal. The. Glasgow-Manchester stretch is the only section of the tour run empty, for fabrics are picked up in Manchester,and on the return to Slough a call is made at Derby to collect elastic, and another at Leicester for steel fasteners.
Goods collected in Manchester used to cost £7 a ton for delivery to Slough. and the transport of fasteners from Leicester previously presented a packaging and return-of-empties problem:
The round trip, the calls on which can be made quickly, is finished on Thursday after 870 miles have been clocked. The service has been run for just over a year, the Avenger beina, introduced to it last July.
Deliveries to Scotland used to take
10 days, whereas they are now done in two_ Apart from the delivery in Mansfield, Beriei do not deliver direct to customers. The services of carriers are preferred, and a rational balance between ancillary and public transport is achieved.
Deliveries to customers in the London area may, however, 'conveniently be done by two Morris 1+ton oil-engined vans which are employed on runs between Slough and the two nearby factories for most of the week, but undertake deliveries on Wednesdays and Fridays. One has an extended wheelbase. Loads are bulky.
and even the Avenger carries only about 5 tons.
Davenport, Vernon and Co., who supplied the Avenger, service all the vehicles at fortnightly intervals. At Slough there are no fleet installations other than washing facilities, availed of once a week, and a 2,000-gal. tank for oil fuel. This and a similar petrol tank for Berlei's cars are filled by Shell-Mex and B,P., Ltd.
Vans are consistently busy throughout the year, except for-a slack period when shops have their winter sales. Opportunity was taken just after last Christmas to decarbonize the oldest Commer, which by then had covered 80,000 miles, and this was the first
attention of any consequence it had received.
The job was done more as a precaution than as a necessity. Similarly, the India tyres were retreaded, although an estimated 10,000 miles of wear remained. The Avenger returns a fractionally better fuel-consumption figure than the other two vans. All have cab
Based on an Avenger chassis, this van makes an 870-mile trip around Britain every week, delivering goods to depots and bringing back materials to Slough. The industrial truck is a Lister.
heaters and radio, also. long-range fuel tanks which avoid need to buy fuel away from base.
Having improved the manner in which their goods are shifted from Slough, Mr. K. J. Burley, managing director, told me that the company now intend to introduce better internal means for handling and sorting goods ready for dispatch, so that the two phases of movement may be better synchronized. The aim will be to pack production overnight.
A new warehouse, 90 yd. long and 50 ft. wide, will be built adjacent to the factory. Two-tiered stillages about 5 ft. long will be used to bring cartoned goods out of the factory, a Lister elevating truck with towing attachment being employed to draw them on trailers into the southern end of the building. Here the stillages will be elevated to an upper floor where the goods will be held, in the stillages, as bulk stock.
At ground level will be rows of fixed racks arranged• according to sizes of garments, and these will be replenished from the bulk stock_ The racks will be 8 ft. high and disposed across the floor, and a conveyor will run along the west wall so that the sorters may place cartons for transit to the bay at the northern end of the building. Here the cartons will be made up into consignments to be put into the vehicles
at the loading bank.