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
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152 
Craven Tasker
Page 141
Page 142
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
CRAVEN TASKER, Staniforth Road. Darnall, Sheffield, Yorshire. The Craven Tasker group was formed in 1968 as a result of the merger of Crane Homalloy and Taskers Trailers (1932). It has been part of the John Brown group of companies since 1932.
All of the manufacturer's products now carry the name Task. One of its plants, at Andover in Hampshire. was closed in March last year following a period of heavy financial losses, but last year's opening of a small tipper building plant in Lochgelly. Fife, maintains the group's total number of manufacturing sites at five. These employ a total workforce of 600.
Craven Tasker's head office and central sales office adjoins its Sheffield factory. The other plants are at Garstang, Lancashire; Woodville, Staffordshire: Cumbernauld near Glasgow: and Lochgelly. There are four discrete operational companies in the group and each has quite a large degree of autonomy. Each company specialises in one type of semi-trailer, but has the flexibility to switch to other types when necessary, for example when a large order is required quickly.
Andover's speciality used to be low-loaders and. ironically, a large contract worth about £1.5m for these was won by Craven Tasker after the closure date had been set. The group's response was to share the work between its Sheffield, Woodville and Cumbernauld plants until a 50,000sq ft area of the Sheffield factory was converted to suit dedicated low-loader production. Some 50 Task low-loaders have been built since Andover's closure.
At Cumbernauld Craven Tasker (Northern) builds all kinds of ''traditional" flat semi-trailers as well as specials including extendibles, coil carriers and drawbar trailers. Most of the customers for this plant's products are themselves based in Scotland. An illustration of the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the group's operating companies is the fact that, the Cumbernauld factory has its own drawing office.
The Lochgelly plant went into operation in 1983. building aluminium alloy tipper bodies for rigid vehicles and semi-trailers.
One of the main reasons for a new factory being opened in Scotland, even though Cumbernauld was working well within its capacity, was that mixing the manufacture of steel and aluminium bodies was considered unwise. A further advantage of the Lochgelly site is that it is in the heart of Scottish tipper operators' country.
Craven Tasker is unusual in offering three types of semi-trailer tipper body — parallel frame, step-frame and tapered, The Woodville plant's specialities are curtainsiders and tapered body tippers.
The Taper Tipper was introduced in 1982. Craven Tasker's parallel bodied tippers are also built at Woodville, while Garstang-built step-frame tippers are available in addition to those built at Lochgelly. Since the increase in maximum legal gross combination weight to 38 tonnes in May 1983 this group has noticed a dramatic swing in customer demand away from parallel framed tipping semi-trailers to step framed and tapered designs because of their lower centres of gravity.
Craven Tasker has been able to take advantage of the facilities of its parent group in conducting a computer aided study of stress distribution in different designs of tipping semi-trailers.
Of the company's English plants. Garstang specialises in sliding side door bodied semi-trailers and tippers.
Sheffield's three main Task product lines now are dry freight frameless vans, refrigerated frameless vans, and low-loaders.
Some of the older buildings on the Sheffield site used to belong to Bone Craven, a John Brown company which makes plastic extrusions and mouldings. These have recently been knocked down to ease the trailer plant's access and parking problems. Craven Tasker will save about £17.000 a year through not having to rent adjacent land from British Rail.
The recently introduced Task thin-wall reefer won the Design Centre Gold Medal at last year's Birmingham Motor Show, All Task factories manufacture platform and skeletal semi-trailers.
Until last year Boalloy of Congleton was part of the Craven Tasker group and the Boalloy Tautliner curtainsider and Linkliner sliding door bodies tended to overshadow the Task bodies of these types. But Boalloy was sold to its management for around £10m and, as well as producing some useful cash, this has given Craven Tasker more freedom to promote sales of its own side-access bodies.
Craven Tasker has trailer rental centres in London. East Midlands, South Yorkshire and one at Rotterdam in the Netherlands.