1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140 
lithe best time to rebuild is in the depths of
Page 48
Page 49
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
a recession, then newly independent Lamberet Isotherms UK has a head start on many of its hungry rivals.
Words: Bryan Jarvis
As the economic
downturn started to take hold last year, Lamberet's European market share fell 16%, with its Spanish and Italian branches performing especially badly. When the Caravelle-owned French industrial group, which includes Marrell, Edbro and Benalu, finally bought Lamberet, it carried out vital restructuring work early this year.
Back at Warrington, managers read the smoke signals, and with the aid of a management buyout, bought 70% of Lamberet Isotherms UK's (LIUK) equity The remaining 30% stayed with Caravelle, which was astute enough to allow the buyout team of managing director and anglophile Pascal Quesnel, general manager Howard Charlesworth, sales manager Phil Lang, and national accounts manager Andrew Bate to focus on home market potential.
Previously, Lamberet France had supplied complete, but costly, reefer boxes and containers direct to Warrington, for them to be mounted to the chassis, fully anglicised, then delivered to the customer.
Now fully independent, LIUK orders flat pack kits and builds exactly what the customer requires at its new-build facility at West Thurrock, in a much more bespoke fashion. "Assembling our on rigids has cut the 90%
imported content to about 40%. Wc can be much more customer-specific in what we do," reveals Lang. -We engineer-out any source of damage a customer may incur during a vehicle's daily working life and minimise the way that pricing is affected by currency fluctuations."
At Warrington, the highly-skilled workforce has been refurbishing and rebuilding such truck and trailer body systems for some time. It also supports a sizeable 3.5-tonne van rental business, and has a maintenance and repair portfolio that spans every type of CV, including road tankers, PSV, fire engines, custodial vehicles, livestock vehicles and special aircraft component carriers.
Whole Vehicle Type Approval
One element high on LIUK's agenda is Whole Vehicle Type Approval (WVTA), and as a VBRA director for the past 14 years, Charlesworth works hard to get disbelievers to wake up to its reality. Already in force for passenger vehicles, WVTA becomes effective for Ni, N2 and N3 goods carrying vehicles of existing types in April 2013.
Charlesworth aims to make LIUK compliant much earlier since truck manufacturers are inclined to use only properly certificated bodybuilders. "Already OEMs are telling dealers just who to approach for different equipment; fridges bodies from say Lamberet or Gray and Adams, tippers from Wilcox or Fruehauf, dry freight from perhaps Don-Bur, Montracon and so on," says Charlesworth.This, he says. removes all responsibility for sourcing the package from the dealers' hands, while ending the business of supplying bodies built beneath railway arches.
Expansion
Since so many LIUK clients are based in the South and South East, expansion had long been on the cards, and in April 2008 the company bought the now-defunct Essex Trailers' old premises in West Thurrock. In addition, it took on its original 11 staff.
But turning the 4.5-acre 'Beirut-like' site into a useful production facility needed resolve and cash —.€2.1in has been spent, and a £300,000 second phase is under way. The workforce has increased 10 21 and could rise to 30, but pride of place is the new-build workshop, where UK-specific rigid bodywork can be tailored. It's managed by Polish bodybuilder Josef Ropiak, who moved to Fraserborough to run Gray and Adams' panel shop before returning to look after the West Thurrock site.
Inside the refurbished hanger is a new production structure that was built by Hull marine engineers, but based on original French jig designs. In it, bodies of up to 9.4m can be assembled and, by using rear extenders, it can build longer (11m) bodies.
At the time of CM's visit, two Iveco 18-tonners with 8m fridge bodies and Carrier nose units had been completed, and a smaller version was in hand.
The investment also includes a state-of-the-art Junair paint shop, compressor building and planned shot-blast centre with new offices, stores warehouse, and staff facilities also under construction. •