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A diverse customer base can help keep the work flowing eve in tough times. And that is precisely the thinking behind Bank Bros. Transport's efforts to diversify its customer offerings
Words: Ian Griffin / Images: Craig Eccieston One of the keys to maintaining a healthy workflow for your business is to get your selling boots on and bring in some new customers — but remember to keep cherishing your existing ones.
If 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, you could be over-exposed to events outside of your control. If you transport goods or raw materials in bulk. the economic health of global commodity markets could almost certainly affect your customers customers and, ultimately, your own business. At the moment, hard-pressed operators are being attacked from several directions at once Rising operational costs together with pressure on cash flow and shrinking margins caused by customers tightening their belts, mean there has not been a more difficult time to be a haulier in the past 50 years However, where hauliers have pro-actively taken steps to counter the effects of the recession on their business, they are finding that they can keep the work flowing. One such business is Banks Bros. Transport The company, which was incorporated 27 years ago in July 1982, is part of The Banks Group, whose other divisions include mining, construction, waste management and land development companies. Banks Bros. Transport is based at West Cornforth in Co Durham and operates 16 trucks on bulk tipping and low loader work.
In the beginning
The Banks Group was founded in March 1976 by three brothers — Harry, Joe and Graham Banks — and has always been involved in the mining and supply of coal in the north-east. in fact, Banks Bros. Transport supplies the haulage for the coal mined at the firm's new surface mine at Shofton near Cramlington in Northumberland. The coal from there is used by the 420-megawatt power station that provides electricity for the aluminium smelter owned by Rio Tinto Alcan at Lynemouth. Although it is one of the smallest in the UK and is stated to be one of the most thermally efficient, the smelter consumes 1.2 million tonnes of coal a year. When the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, visited the mine at the beginning of July, Rio Tinto Alcan's corporate affairs director, John McCabe, told him the company believed that coal would continue to be, 'a major part of the future global energy mix as it is affordable, reliable and in abundant supply". Good news for the Banks Group since only last year the company capitalised the production of coal for the next decade at the Shotton surface mine.
Intensive duty
This deal is good news for Volvo, too since Banks Bros. Transport has purchased 12 new FM artics to provide the traction for the extraction of coal from the site. The new trucks are coupled to Weightlifter tipping trailers and are working on an intensive duty cycle of eight loads a day to feed the smelting process Banks Bros. transport operations director Bill Unsworth points out that maintaining a high level of vehicle utilisation is especially important under the current economic conditions: "We've got to keep up the levels of outside work. The Volvo artic tippers are used 80% on our own work and 20% on jobs for other customers. We also have two low loaders available."
Outside customers for the low loader work include BAe Systems, CAT and William Keys for whom Banks Bros. collects and delivers numerous items of plant, including access platforms. The Volvo-powered low loaders with their Faymonville and Nooteboom trailers are plated for up to STGO CAT 3 operation and provide a steady flow of outside work which Unsworth and his small team work hard to maintain. We do low loader work for anyone It's the same with the tippers. We're always quoting for outside work and are on the lookout for new customers to keep the trucks busy."
Drivers on the BAe Systems work are all security cleared with background checks being made, and Unsworth is the holder of a Section 5 firearms certificate, a customer requirement which allows the company to transport the BAe manufactured armoured vehicles, which have weapons but not ammunition on board. It illustrates, he says, the firm's commitment to detail Banks Bros. Transport also works closely with other hauliers. Unsworth mentions West of Scotland Haulage, Fergusons at Blyth, Philip Makin Transport in Boroughbridge and J&J Ward in Bedele, Yorkshire as companies with which they have strong links.
The arrival of 12 new Volvo FM tractor units sees Mercedes-Benz replaced as the mainstay of the Banks Bros. Transport fleet. Artics have not always been the vehicle of choice for the Banks Bros. Transport tipper fleet 'We used to run 20 Volvo 8x4s and four 4x2 artics with a Scene low loader," says Unsworth, explaining that the firm moved to artics in preference to eight-wheelers because they are "less expensive to maintain'
Good fuel economy For Unsworth, the key factors when purchasing trucks are front-end price, dealer back-up and product reliability. Unsworth claims that, of the seven FM wits the firm has operated over the past five years, only one had had a replacement clutch fitted. 'They were all fitted with manual gearboxes and had covered 420,000km each when we sold them. Although the mileage is not unusually high, the drivers make a large number of
gearchanges on the route they had to follow." The latest Volvos were specified with I-Shift automatic transmissions. He says. "Volvo has proven the I-Shift in the construction industry and it has also shown its fuel economy benefits to us," he says.
The price of fuel is the number one challenge states Unsworth. A weekly check is kept on fuel usage by vehicle and driver and the high cost of diesel influenced the choice of Volvo's I-Shift gearbox and the Euro-5 13-litre 440hp mated to an optional, numerically higher, diff ratio of 3.10 for optimum economy on their duty cycle. Were waiting for the latest Volvos to bed in and give their best fuel economy before we introduce monthly fuel bonuses for drivers' he says • II