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 
'Close workshops' call to ETMC
Page 118
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• WORKSHOPS in or around major cities must be manned round the clock in order to make an adequate return on current real estate values, John C Lee, director, supply and distribution, Renault Truck Industries, told the European Transport Maintenance Council's London conference.
Lee said an important development in maintenance is the growth in recent years of contract maintenance by the manufacturer — an attempt to get work back into dealers' workshops.
However, the greatest value is that for the first time manufacturers are having to pay for maintenance, he said.
"No one can afford to run a workshop in or around major cities unless they are highly productive. If the industry wants to increase its profits it must stop fleet engineers coming up with dubious financial justification for maintaining their own workshops. To make an adequate return on current real estate values, workshops must be manned round the clock with staff trained to meet work-measured standards and without staff moving about all day trying to get the right spare 2arts.
"Sc close all your workshops?
"Bit before you do, what are manufacturers doing to help? In the UK, local government sub-contracting is leading towards collect and delivery contracts and substantial outof-hours servicing, a trend I believe will become the norm. Twenty-four hours assistance programmes with credit facilities is maturing into a fast and reliable service. "Fitter training standards are high and they work to measured productivity standards. Couple all this with maintenance contracts supervised by the manufacturers and you arrive at cost-effective maintenance without the real estate.
"The alternative of fighting for each other's skilled mechanics, keeping rates down to attract work, chasing around to get parts, demanding direct warranty and free training — on this very valuable piece of real estate — can only add to the long-term costs.
"Gentlemen, we, the manufacturers, are trying to provide low-maintenance vehicles and service which will ease the burden of urban distribution."
Giving a paper on "Maintenance in urban distribution" in the session on "Maintenance practice for future Europe: tools to do the job", he said trade journals give much space to bulk movement as we move closer to 1992. What is sure is that delivery into towns will be faced with heavier traffic.
The highest tonnage in urban distribution, however," he said, continues to be moved by trucks in the six to 15 tonnes range, so he would concentrate in his paper on those vehicles.
What, he asked, are the key factors in maintenance costs? costs?
In design terms they are not looking to over-engineered components to meet tougher conditions as this would run counter to high power and maximum payloads demands. Smaller, lighter components are needed," he said.
The most worrying area to customers is electronics. They are on the way, but fleet engineers of today will have another seven years keeping today's generation of trucks on the road, he said.
The middleweight truck clearly needs more protection. With advanced technology in basic design, lubricants and filtration we are moving from 20k to 30k oil changes on the largest middleweight range engines, he said.
In a perfect world, current designs are more than made for the job. "But look what happens in just three seconds in the wrong gear."
"Bigger clutches will help, but driver education and electronics are the only long-term answers," he said. "Meanwhile, gearbox and clutch components are beefed up with the most durable materials."
Bill Montague, of the Brewery Transport Advisory Committee, said as "an ancient engineer" he is sometimes cynical about closing workshops.
The weakness today, said Montague, is lack of training and manufacturers do what he calls pallet training with fitters left with knowledge of only one vehicle.
Lee said Renault had relaunched indentured apprentice training (Workshop, May '89) and the apprentices also spend time in colleges studying the whole spectrum.
Another delegate said the final chassis is specified by the operator and his workshop personnel must be trained to deal with refrigeration, tail lifts and so on as well. continued from page 5 truck — averaging 20kailh.
Fox foresees a big increase in components and partially completed assemblies being hauled between European Community countries, meaning just in time will make shorter journey times essential.
"The use of specialised lubricant oils is required for longdistance trucking to lengthen mandatory service intervals," he' said. "But how often do we find an operator claiming for unnecessary engine failure when he has deliberately tried to use low-cost and substandard lubricants?"
Fox said truck mileages will increase from 150,000 to 250,000km a year. Fully laden running will increase from the 50 or 60% of today to around the 80% that is the experience in the USA. Truck technology will advance significantly with the growth of on-board electronics and needs to meet higher emission and environmental standards.
The impact on truck maintenance standards will, he said, be enormous.
"The truck maintenance industry will need to employ 100,000 mechanics, fitters or technicians. Not only is this some 5,000 higher than today, but they will need dramatically higher skill levels."
Fox concluded: "Yesterday's dealer was small, a sole proprietorship, under-capitalised and employed willing staff. Tomorrow's dealership will have to be professional, well capitalised and have highly trained and well paid staff.
"The Nineties will require a new culture of high technological standards of maintenance compared to the garage mentality of the past."
Operators' conference
• MALCOLM FILSELL, ETMC European chairman,. welcomed delegates to the seventh annual conference, held at the Queen Elizabeth 11 Centre, London. Filsell, who is managing director BFI-Store to Door, said the constitution drawn up at the inception of the ETMC states its purpose to be:
To encourage European cooperation and the exchange of information between its nzembers on specific technical, managerial, economic and regulatory aspects of the truck and bus maintenance industries.
The ETMC is a voluntary body — its chairman always an operator with operators forming a majority at board level.