Light heavyweight contender
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With production up by 20% and a raft of new products on the way, trailer-maker Dennison is consolidating its position as a specialist trailermaker in the UK and Ireland.
by Brian Weatherley • It's been a good year so far for Dennison. Last year it built 800 trailers in the UK and Ireland. This year, according to James Dennison, managing director of the Irish trailer-maker's UK Lancaster operation, the figure will rise to 1,000. Not bad going at a time when the general trailer market is already suffering from the 'shivers of a possible recesssion. But Dennison is hardly a general trailer-maker. More than 50% of its sales are taken up with skeletals which go to big rental fleets like TIP, Transamerica and Transrent, or else to end users.
Sliding bogie
Operating in niche markets, it helps to have an established product. "Our main seller is our lightweight sliding bogie skeletal, launched in January," says engineering director Robert Dennison. "It weighs 4,780kg, and that's an 'over-the-bridge' weight—we don't deal in theoretical weights."
That last remark is a not-sosly dig at competitors who claim tare weights which never quite stack up on the road. But then Dennison is always looking at ways to take weight out of its container trailers. At last May's IRTF. Telford Show it unveiled its unusual arrowhead chassis, fixed bogie step-frame tank car rier which, with the latest ultra lightweight Mentor FL9000 disc-braked axles, weighs just 3,360kg. An evaluation unit is running with Securicor Omega Container Logistics, and a further nine will eventually be out on approval.
Although some may shy away from seeing that much weight taken out of a trailer, Robert Dennison insists: "Its engineering package is 100% sound, and there's nothing in it that gives us any concern—but operations are the real world and we want to see how it goes."
That reluctance to sign off a product before it's proved itself on the road is undoubtedly connected to the fact that Dennison has real-world customers—especially in Ireland, where overloading and bad roads have a way of uncovering engineering flaws in a way sophisticated CadCam systems never can.
However, there's no doubt that operators on both sides of the Irish Sea want to carry more weight, and the advent of 40 and 41 tonnes will only fuel that interest, although James Dennison insists that until VED rates are known "it will have minimum impact on us. We already build for 4.4 tonnes as it is. But if VED rates go down on six axles, there could he a lot more interest."
A more obvious trend noted by Dennison is that rival trailermakers are moving towards supplying "complete" trailers, where before they left the bodybuilding to other companies.
With Boalloy buying M&G and Fruehauf doing their own bodies there seems to be a refocus in the business," says James Dennison. "People want to buy the entire thing." It remains to be seen whether Dennison follows suit. For the moment its curtainsiders are bodied by Grahams of Gildersome and Norteck Bodies.
Fleet trials
Trailer buyers are still conservative with a capital C when it comes to looking at developments like disc brakes. Many will no doubt wait to see what feedback comes out of ongoing rental fleet trials before committing themselves to anything other than drums. But Robert Dennison reckons: "The acceptance of discs will be dictated by one thing in the end, and that will be: can they save maintenance costs? If they're going to adjust your maintenance bill, even if it means removing only one scheduled service stop in a year, that has to have serious implications for operators."
MeanWhile, Dennison's UK production capacity has been boosted by the latest 12,000ft2 extension to its Lancaster factory, which includes new paint bays and finshing area. It's also been on the buying trail, having taken over Gylemuir Trailers at Newbridge, which will become a sales and service centre.
Further product developments are already planned for 1999 (see panel), when the company will be aiming to increase production to about 1,500 units.
Dennison developmew
• Dennison has some new pro-ducts scheduled to hit the streets between now and next spring. They include a straight-frame version of its arrowhead skeletal design, which will be able to handle a variety of containers, including 6.1, 7.45 and 7.85rn boxes, and be ready to operate at either 40/41 or 44 tonnes GVW running at a 1.150mm fifth wheel height.
It's also working on a lightweight curtainsider chassis which will tip the scales at 4,800kg, saving 500kg on the current standard chassis.
In addition to considering new machinery and boat trailers for customers, Dennison also wants to develop a lightweight coil carrier which will challenge the traditonal sector leader.