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c ; Operators told: MSZ stringent planning is

27th September 1974
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

11

now essential

°F Speakers urge operators to lobby local authorities on the 'Dykes Act", to liaise more closely with manufacturers, and to prepare for severe financial conditions

A CONSTRUCTIVE CONFERENCE, with a strong theme of the need for greater liaison between operators and manufacturers for their mutual benefit — that summarizes the overriding impression of the annual CM Fleet Management Conference, held last week in London.

Sir Daniel Pettit, conference chairman, established the mood of the event in his opening speech (reported in CM last week) when he told operators of the need to close ranks and accept the obligations of transport's vital role in today's exceptionally difficult circumstances.

Both speakers and delegates showed a clear awareness of this in the four business sessions during the day.

"If I've got a message in this paper, it is to go out and lobby local authorities for a 5ton limit", said Roger Denniss, group-fleet engineer of Bass Production Ltd, in the opening session, "Tomorrow's Fleets". The need for operators to plan more actively in the light of the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act 1973 was one of the main points stressed by Mr Denniss, who was concerned that if operators did not take an active interest in the legislation, local delivery in many areas could be limited to vehicles not exceeding 3 tons unladen.

This first session (for which the written papers were published in CM last week) was opened by Brian Hayward, distribution director of BDA Ltd.

Mr Hayward thought that manufacturers needed to gather more reliable information upon which to plan future vehicles. This information was best provided by operators, so they must be prepared to co-operate with the makers if they wished future developments to be based on genuine costs and operational experience.

Emphasizing a point made in his written paper, Mr Hayward said that operators had to accept that drivers were valuable employees who should be given terms and conditions which reflected their value to the company, and this might well demand an attitude change by managers.

Illustrating with slides the very bare essentials of a vehicle actually covered by manufacturer's normal guarantees, he called for chassis makers to give a lead by providing genuine and positive guarantees of quality and performance for the vehicles which they sold.

Mr Hayward thought haulage rates would rise with the forthcoming introduction of shorter driving hours and mileage limits. "Clearly a vehicle that currently works for 50 revenue-earning hours each week is going to need a significant increase when the reduced hours are implemented." Even doubleshifted vehicles would suffer a productivity loss.

Reviewing performance and Costs, the speaker said that fleet insurance was a potential money-saying area, For example, by operating a solely third party policy and carrying their own damage costs, BDA Ltd had shown a considerable saving over a comprehensive policy.

Road fund tax had increased considerably, and the way to cut this was to reduce the number of vehicles operated — "We're all running too many trucks".

Fuel costs had increased alarmingly and were now the next highest item to wages. The most effective economy was to eliminate inessential miles. If every driver at a 70-vehicle depot travelled 10 miles unneccessarily each day, it could cost the fleet £175 a week in extra fuel. Trunk route mileage was easily controlled but collection and delivery work presented a bigger problem. Mr Hayward said that some while ago his company's drivers had agreed to work measurement, which had resulted in positive benefits, and in particular had permitted mileage reductions through better route planning.

Cost factors were also a feature of Mr Denniss's presentation in this first session. Fleet managers, he said, must be

aware of the sharply increasing cost of capital, commenting that in his own recent experience the effective figure had risen from 17 per cent to 20 per cent. Planning also needed to take account of the increasing cost of spares.

In his written paper Mr Denniss had argued the case for a light 32-tonner and he pointed out to delegates that the more heavily built 38-tonner could not only be one ton lower in payload but could also cost about £600 more in fuel per year.

He was interested to see that Volvo had developed a lightweight F86 for the US market and had no doubt that it would make its appearance over here.

Referring to the visits to truck manufacturers, he said he was surprised at their attitude — their interest stopped ghort at the chassis-cab, and so ignored the fuel-saving possibilities of body aeroiynamics.

He had found, too, that vehicles were lot individually tested for output on a '..•hassis dynamometer, nor was each one given a brake test. This was not good Bnough — it was quite unacceptable.

Summarizing some of the main points yf the session, while presenting aspects )f his company's experience, Mr IR, S. Ndkins, general manager of Reed fransport Ltd, said that the effect of mvironmental restraints on transport

as making it increasingly difficult to )ffer customers the desired service at the .ight price.

He felt that fleet planning was more han ever essential, though one had to be :areful that long-term plans did not legenerate into a form-filling exercise. It ook a great deal of time and effort to iiscover principal customer's plans but, mce discovered, these could form a very ewarding basis for transport planning. One had to use the three or four main )perating cost items in arriving at a fleet )olicy; downtime was one of these, and uel cost was certainly another now. Rbed lad, for example, 7mpg 32-tonners vhich would now cost £600 a year more n annual fuel bills than their 8mpg )quivalents. This was on 80,000 miles er year.

Mr Adkins challenged delegates to :onsider some of the questions which the papers and the session had thrown up: What should the industry be doing about the Dykes Act — and were operators sufficiently aware of it's possible effect on future vehicle replacements?

Could we really afford 6bhp per ton?

What importance did operators attach to driver comfort, and were drivers sufficiently involved in vehicle selection?

Was there a case for a reliable lightweight 32-tonner?

If the 38-tonner was introduced, would the 40ft platform be tong enough to permit higher payloads?

Were manufacturers willing to consider a new form of vehicle guarantee?

Were operators prepared to co-operate in providing more operational information about vehicles, to aid manufacturer's development .plans?

Were fleet operators prepared to pay more for vehicles in order to get more reliability and durability?

Automatic assessment

The discussion period was opened by Mr J. H. Adler (chief engineer, SPD Ltd) who wanted to know how much it was reasonable to pay for automatic transmission on 10/12-ton-gvw distribution vehicles and how much might be saved on maintenance as a result.

Mr Denniss thought Bass would pay upwards of £500 for an automatic gearbox on local delivery vehicles at certain depots where conditions warranted their use. But this had to be an individual decision. Chassis manufacturers had said that where automatics were offered on very light vehicles, they made up only about three per cent of sales. He was joined by conference chairman Sir Daniel Pettit in suggesting that a quantified case had to be made out — for example, that automatic transmission could be cost-effective, perhaps in reducing accidents.

Mr P. Roberts (director of operations, National Carriers Ltd) felt that the speakers had dealt mainly with heavy vehicles; were there no noteworthy developments to report among the middleweights?

Mr Hayward said that makers had had very little to say about medium vehicles, while Mr D. M. Ball, Vauxhall's national fleet sales manager, pointed out that the new TM range of Bedfords included vehicles down to 16 tons gvw. British middleweights were already pretty competitive, though this did not mean that no development was intended.

Why were grp cabs being discontinued by UK makers, asked Mr F. M. Fieldhouse (manager, Bridon Wire Ltd), and were the steel replacements galvanized or rustprotected?

The grp cab could not meet crushresisting regulations, explained Mr Denniss, but manufacturers were using phosphating dips and other means of inhibiting rust.

Mr Alan Jobson (sales manager, Mainstem Ltd) suggested that if maintenance cost were 20 to 25 per cent of total operating costs, this was an important area to look for savings.

Commented Brian Hayward: "If your maintenance costs are that high you'd better employ a man like Roger Denniss!" He thought that there were indeed savings to be made in the maintenance area, and that workshop practices would improve with the entry of Ford and Bedford into the heavy market. Manufacturers were already putting timesaving fasteners and quick-change components into vehicles.

He had found that chassis manufacturers were very ready to give advice about workshop layouts — a useful service for operators,

Mr R. V. Pratt (transport manager, Waitrose Ltd) wanted to know whether Mr Denniss made a maintenance assessment of vehicles he was thinking of buying. He was told that this was not done, though Bass did try to buy to eliminate known high-cost items. But the policy was to identify actual and high-cost areas in vehicle operation concentrate efforts on reducing them.

Asked by a Bass executive whether brake developments were on the way, to cut the high cost of brake maintenance, Roger Denniss said Ford felt that discs would prove a workable answer, so long as they were incorporated into a purpose

ujdesigned wheel "package". He hoped 0 ZLi.they'd be developed soon, as they held promise of 50 to 60 per cent reductions in brake maintenance costs. The assistant director, Ministry of Defence, Mr H. L. Bradfield, said that MoD purchasing strategy included 0 whole-life vehicle costing, which demanded a lot of "inputs". MoD had gone as far afield as New Zealand to Imil gather factual operating information and was now more confident that a low-firstZcost vehicle was not necessarily cheaper. uj2 WThe problem lay in getting reliable operating cost information, and he thought there was room for a British equivalent of the American Trucking Associations' computerized gathering of operating costs from many companies. Brian Hayward said that manufacturers saw Mainstem and Focas as the $:::(Z

his company's defence. "Mr Denniss's his company's defence. "Mr Denniss's

imalcomments on injector quality are hearsay," he said. The CAV-Simms LLrecord was second to none, and ,component returns were less than 1 in 2 . 1000. If operators had fuel injection problems, there were over 320 approved service agents ready to help.

QRoger Denniss replied that, before the conference, he had told CAV-Simms of the chassis makers' views, and asked for statistics. The statistics he had been given were "certainly not acceptable". He denied that his comments on quality were based on hearsay; he did not regard a chief design engineer's opinions as hearsay.

Mr G. W. Jones (group distribution manager, Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd) complained about the difficulty of getting delivery of Bedfords in the Edinburgh area. Mr Ball of Vauxhall said the company was aware that it was not giving delivery satisfaction in every area. despite buying materials worldwide, supplies were still unreliable and the. manufacturing schedule wat virtually on a day to day basis. The company INC trying to see that fleets with a hig Bedford content were not let down, but urged operators to plan and order as fi ahead as possible.


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