Repair site for Boalloy
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by Bill Brock.
• Boalloy has opened a dedicated after sales, repairs, refurbishment and parts centre less than 10 miles from its Congleton factory. The extra space released at the factory has been used to increase output of bodies for rigid chassis from six to 15 units a day.
The Parkhouse Estate site at Newcastle-under-Lyme has 14 full-length hays equipped with lifting gear, welding stations and air-driven tools. This enables Boalloy to carry out everything from the smallest curtain repair to body rebuilds and chassis alterations.
A new 65°C low-bake (wen/spray booth produces finished paintwork using a twopack paint process: preparation and priming is carried out in a 17.5m shotblast cabin which can handle the longest chassis. Chilled iron shot is separated from the dust and recycled.
Painting facilities can be used round the clock if necessary and the centre is already able to manage four times the repair/refurbishment throughput that was possible at Congleton.
Managing director Gerry Brown says that while the body and trailer market is still substantially lower than at its peak in 1988 it has picked up over the last 18 months, "Output from Congleton, Bellshill and Leyland is expected to exceed 3,700 units this year which will be the best we have ever achieved," he says.
"Our share of the trailer market has increased from 15.4% to 30.7% and we are looking for 8.5% of the rigid body market. A pre-tax profit of 12.2m for last year, almost double the previous year's profit, has allowed us to make this investment at Parkhouse and acquire the trailer manufacturer M and G at Stourbridge."
According to Brown. Boalloy is Britain's biggest bodybuilder by a large margin.
Other sites, starting with Avonmouth next year, are planned to offer a growing number of operators the benefits of a local bodybuilder with the technical backup of a national company.
Ni and G is producing more than 20 chassis a week, with ROR running gear and Boalloy bodywork as standard. BP and SAF running gear can also be specified.
The Parkhouse Estate site located just three miles from Junction 16 of the M6, represents a Lim investment, funded out of profits accrued since Boalloy's management buy-out just over three years ago. Parkhouse joins six other Boalloy sites from Cumbernauld in Scotland to Purfleet in the South of England.
Boalloy has just produced a complete Tautliner body parts catalogue.