AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

Flowline Solves Giant Problem

5th April 1968, Page 94
5th April 1968
Page 94
Page 95
Page 96
Page 94, 5th April 1968 — Flowline Solves Giant Problem
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

GPO'S YEADING DEPOT HANDLES 5,500 OVE.11-1AULS A YEAR

HOW MANY vehicles do you operate? If you are an operator in a medium-large way you have probably got some 60 vehicles on your books and you will know from experience just how many problems can arise in the day-to-day operation of a fleet of this size.

Imagine, however, that your 60-vehicle fleet is multiplied by 1,000 and that your float of new vehicles awaiting entry to service numbers in the region of 500. That your annual mileage is 489m and that your fleet is not based in one, five or 10 depots but that some part of it however tiny can be found in almost every city, town and village throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles.

This is the formidable picture which faced the engineering department of the General Post Office when it was decided to change the system used for overhauling its fleet of some 60,000 vehicles. To find out how the multitude of problems has been tackled I recently visited the largest central repair depot of the Post Office motor transport engineering department at Willow Tree Lane, Yeading Lane, Hayes, Middx. This depot services the whole of the Greater London area and a proportion of the Home Counties.

One might suspect that as a Government department, the motor transport department of the GPO has a limitless budget. This is quite untrue. The foremost consideration in the operation of the central repair depots is that all the work carried out is subject first to the good commercial requirements applied by any self-respecting haulier. None of the work done at these

lepots can be termed unnecessary or prenature, even though the vast facilities that ire availablelend themselves most admiraby to that type of operation.

The Yeading depots has a permanent staff )f 393 of which about•. 25 per cent are ion-productive. One of the Staggering pieces )1. information I was given during the visit was that the normal absenteeism due to iickness and other unforeseeable circumaances averaged 30 to 40 employees per lay. During the holiday period up to 100 3ersonnel are missing from the roll call and io, the first figure of 393 is brought into Jerspective.

The basis of the scheduling for vehicle docking is 15,000 miles. When one realizes that it takes from 12 to 24 months for a Post Office vehicle to reach this mileage, hauliers may look askance at the severity with which docking is carried out. But investigation of the general operations of the fleet shows a pattern incurring very high numbers of stops per mile run, and therefore the wear and tear rate particularly on brakes, steering, clutch and gearbox is extremely high. To this must be added an equally high turnover of drivers per vehicle. On some days as many as eight different drivers may handle one machine, and we all know the penalties for this.

In years gone by it was the policy of the GPO to specify vehicles almost to its own engineering requirements but with the growing trend towards mass production of commercials the cost of this exercise has become prohibitive. With the advent of mass produced commercials, the cost of extensive rebuilding such as that carried out previous

ly, had spiralled to the extent when it became no longer an economical proposition.

Much the same can be said for the overhauling of major units which in the past formed a large part of C RD activity. Manufacturers now offer factory-reconditioned units at far lower cost than even an organization of this magnitude had approached, and so, engines and gearboxes, differentials and the like are now merely a unit change rather than an overhaul.

Using the old standard procedure of overhauling, during the years 1958-60 losses began to develop. For instance, a Morris LDO van with a first cost of £1,000 was costing in the region of £950 for an overhaul. For this reason and the fact that the service life of the smaller mass-produced vehicles entering the fleet was being reduced from eight years to four and six years, during which period they needed no major overhauling, extensive replanning of the central repair depots took place and the system now in operation at Yeading was conceived.

Time and motion considerations played a big part in the eventual design and layout of the workshops. It was recognized that to work in a pit or on the floor caused a loss of productive man hours through vehicles not being fully accessible at all times. So it was decided to install raised runways beneath which major units could be trolleyed, and above which fitters could work in light and airy conditions.

Access to the runways is by vehicle-lift and there is one of these situated at each end of each of the 10 lines. The vehicle-lifts at the entry end of the lines are of the type which allows the vehicle to be lifted and held suspended while major units can be lowered to the ground. Because the buildings were a wartime armaments factory, a restriction in headroom renders only two of the lines suitable for high-roofed vehicles. The two which do not have a restriction are suitable for vehicles of up to 4 tons capacity requiring 10ft of headroom.

When a van arrives at the CRD it undergoes a rigorous inspection by a senior mechanic. The facilities available in the inspection department include a roller tester upon which engine and transmission condition is checked.

A standard test is applied to all vehicles and comprises an acceleration and deceleration on the roller tester. A check is made on the minimum bhp turned out by the power unit and the vehicle is accelerated from 20 to 40 mph and decelerated from 40 to 20 mph. It is possible for the inspector to evaluate the general condition of both engine and transmission at this stage, making the appropriate comments on the single form carrying the complete documentation of the vehicle as it passes through the works.

With the inspection complete the unit passes to a hot-water washing bay powered by Graco high-pressure washers. These operate at 900 to 1,000 p.s.i. and at 150deg F, and as I witnessed, are extremely effi cient, the vehicles are all but spotless underneath on entering the actual workshop area.

Irrespective of condition, brakes and tyres are stripped from every vehicle. The major check from the tyre angle is to ensure that covers have not been repaired with plugs which have not been vulcanized. Tyre remoulding facilities deal with some 500 tyres per week: the depot supplies the whole of South and South Western England. Brake units are relined and any outstanding work is done, such as replacing cylinders and flexible pipes showing signs of weakness. A vehicle seldom gets its original components back again; all units are overhauled where necessary on a production-line basis and issued from stock, so it is possible that when a machine leaves the plant the only part which is original could be the chassis and body.

Seven days is the scheduled time allowed for a vehicle to be collected from its operating station, ferried to Yeading, inspected, repaired, tested and painted and ferried back to its operating station. As the depot operates only a five-day week, it will be seen that where a vehicle must be ferried 100 miles, the actual time available for carrying out repairs is reduced to something like three days.

All too often in workshop systems one sees little or no attention paid to the ancillary requirements of vehicle repair. Where the engineer in charge has a responsibility merely to take the vehicle into the shop, execute the necessary repairs and park it outside the door ready for the traffic department to collect and resume work, it is justifiable to adopt an attitude of quick turnround being the only criteria. The only criteria accepted by the operating departments of the GPO is that their vehicle, or a replacement vehicle, must be working. Like the extremely low docking mileage, the time out of service appears in a new light when these points are considered.

When all mechanical repairs are completed and the vehicle arrives at the end of the raised track it is placed on a second dynamometer test bed where it undergoes a simulated road test and brake efficiency test. Note that on the first dynamometer test when the vehicle enters the workshops, brakes are not checked. This is deemed unnecessary and time-wasting because brakes will receive attention irrespective of their initial ,condition. Subject to the dynamometer test showing that the vehicle is turning out a satisfactory performance with regard to acceleration and braking, it is cleared in a final check-over, for painting.

Once in the paintshop, again, the principle is to do what has to be done in order to render the vehicle serviceable. Where panels have been repaired but the rest of the body is still in a respectable condition, the repaired sections are the only ones which will receive treatment. The remainaer of the body will be washed and polished sufficiently to blend in with the new paintwork. When the paintwork and cleaning process is completed the machine is now cleared for issue which means that it is returned to the car park in readiness for a ferry driver to return it once more to its operating station.

In addition to the repairs and docking of vans and lorries, the Yeading depot also carries out overhauls on motorcycles used by the GPO's telegraph service. This is one division of activity where complete rebuilding is still a proposition, machines being overhauled at roughly two-thirds of their cost when new.

Some idea of the effectiveness of the testing system used to evaluate the condition of vehicles being docked can be gained from the following figures: A cross-section of vehicles passing through the depot shows that in the 5cwt class, 27 per cent are fitted with replacement engines, while 17 per cent have replacement gearboxes. The 10 to 15cwt group sees 1.5 per cent of the total passed through having replacement engines and 24 per cent replacement gearboxes.

It must be recognized that the revised docking scheme is at this stage catching up on a backlog of fairly high-mileage vehicles. In some cases mileages recorded by units being changed have been as high as 50,000. Once the system gains momentum, major units should not require replacement in so many instances.

Further proof that the choice of mileage for docking is correct was highlighted by a number of badly-worn items removed from vehicles undergoing a straightforward scheduled dock. All credit in my opinion to those responsible for a fleet of this size is that the number of items in the museum was so small. They do, however, serve as a warning to those not having such good facilities, to make arrangements for vehicles under their care to receive similar treatment. One must always recognize that it is the type of operation rather than the mileage covered which must dictate a servicing or docking period and there is, of course, no substitute for preventive maintenance on a regular and controlled basis.

Tags

Organisations: Post Office
Locations: London

comments powered by Disqus