THRIVING ON RUBBISH
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The success of Dennis Eagle could be summed up in the old adage that there's money in muck: the company currently holds around 35% of the thriving refuse collector market.
• Rubbish is big business in the environmentally-conscious Britain of the late eighties. Collection of refuse from domestic and small commercial premises is no longer the preserve of in-house local authority services: amid fierce political controversy private contractors have made dramatic inroads, often handling the disposal as well as the collection of domestic and trade waste.
In 1985 Dennis Eagle brought together two of the best known names in the refuse collection business into a single manufacturing operation, and it is relishing the challenge of the competitive market. UK sales manager Norman Thoday says: "As more local authorities have put out their waste services to tender, so the traditional, perhaps cosy, relationship between manufacturers and borough engineers has disappeared."
Regular replacement orders spread conveniently through the year can no longer be taken for granted, by Dennis Eagle or its competitors, says Thoday: "Contractors often put off ordering vehicles until new or extended contracts are confirmed — and then they invariably want them damned quickly!"
Dennis Eagle is part of the management buy-out being put together by the vehicle division of the multiple-interest Hestair group (CM 24-30 November). DE, with a turnover of about £25 million, represents about a third of the vehicle division, whose chairman Geoff Hollyhead is based at DE's Warwick headquarters.
BUYOUT PACKAGE
Other divisional companies in the buy-out package are: Guildford-based Dennis Specialist Vehicles, which builds PSV and fire appliance chassis; PSV coachbuilder Hestair Duple in Blackpool; its support company Duple Services; Duple Metsec, producing mainly bus body kits for the Third World; and Bifort Engineering, the hightech plastic mouldings specialist.
It was back in 1973 that Hestair, with little publicity, acquired dustcart maker Eagle Vehicles with a 3,000m2 factory site in Warwick. Far more interest was generated a year later when Hestair took over
Dennis Bros of Guildford, one of the oldest names in the commercial vehicle industry, with truck and bus chassis, fire engines and airport tugs as well as dustcarts in its product portfolio.
Unlike any of its rivals, except Shelyoke and Drewry, Dennis built complete refuse collectors, including chassis and cabs, and has maintained this practice which Thoday believes is a key factor in the company's success. "Private contractors as well as councils like the one-stop deal", he says. It simplifies the purchasing or leasing arrangements, as well as the after-sales back-up."
Like the general UK truck market the municipals sector has reflected — though to a less marked degree — the state of the country's economy with increasing consumer spending generating more domestic waste, particularly packaging.
In the boom year of 1979, about 1,500 refuse collectors of 16 tonnes GVW and above were commissioned. Tighter local
authority budgets and, says Thoday, higher standards of reliability and durability, had pulled annual sales down to about 800 by 1984. Growing private sector purchases have lifted the size of the market back to some 1,000 units a year, of which DE claims around 35%.
That share implies sales of 350 vehicles from Warwick, but the statistics are complicated by DE Phoenix refuse collectors built on to other makes of chassis: about 60 a year for the UK market and 120 a year for export to EEC countries and Hong Kong.
Some of the Hong Kong units are built on semi-trailer frames — an oddity explained by the pattern of municipal services in the colony. An 18m3 semi-trailer dustcart can be parked next to an apartment block to have dustbins emptied into it over a period of hours for Later collection. Its compactor hydraulics feature an electrical drive powered from an external mains supply. In Britain a compactor
:ontainer of vastly greater capacity (pickKI up by a Rolonof or Dinosaur type six)r eight-wheeler) would be used in such .n application, but the Hong Kong authorties want to be able to use the same ,emi-trailer dustcart on ordinary stop-start in collections.
DE's market share claims are also corniicated by the small number of Dennis :hassis-cabs supplied to take other makes A' refuse collector body and other muniipal applications, usually where councils vant to rationalise their fleets. These nclude skip-loaders, gully emptiers and .uction sweepers, notably those built at )E's Leeds factory that was formerly rorkshire Sweepers' plant.
From time to time an order comes in or a Dennis chassis-cab for general truck Luties, where a platform, dropside or yen box body is to be fitted. DE is happy o supply them but no longer pretends to e a serious contender in the truck secor, although it is technically a third memer of the flag-flying "all-British" truck ■ ttilder club alongside ERF and AWD.
In 1985 the Dennis and Eagle manufacuring operations were brought together
a purpose-built 12,550m plant on the ,utskirts of Warwick. Most of Dennis's aluable Woodbridge works at Guildford nd the whole of Eagle's old Saltisford site
Warwick were sold to raise the 5 million needed for the factory, on he Heathcote Industrial Estate.
DE's success since moving into the ew factory is reflected in the size of the rorkforce which has grown from 250 in ,pril 1985 to around 430.
Product development of the Dennis and :agle ranges was rationalised in the late 970s: in 1978, the Phoenix brand name ras given to all DE refuse collectors. 'wo years later the switch was made to n all-steel cab which better met strength equirements, both from safety-at-work tgislation and from customers. Adoption f simple flat or single-curvature panels nabled DE to tool up for a strong steel
cab at a fraction of the usual cost faced by a truck manufacturer.
Subtle styling changes earlier this year in the front grille and roof dome (still GRP mouldings) help the Dennis cab bearing comparison with many volume-built truck cabs. Small refinements like a kerbsighting window in the left-hand door and flexible bumper end-caps have also enhanced the cab's appeal.
COMPLEX SHAPES
For the manufacturer of Phoenix bodies and their loading hopper, compactor and ejector mechanisms, DE has invested £350,000 in a Whitney IW300 air plasma steel sheet cutting machine. It can cut out complex shapes, giving finished smooth edges and, on the same machine setting, can punch round holes.
Phoenix model numbers indicate airspace capacity from eight to 28m3, on chassis gross weights between 14 and
30.5 tonnes. There are full-width (2.5m) and narrow (2.18m) models, the latter of which is in considerable demand for congested city operation.
An increasing number of 6x2 chassis grossing 22 or 23 tonnes are being specified to overcome the risks of rear axle overloading on traditional four-wheelers. The addition of elaborate bin-lift mechanisms (DE offers its own design or a German Zoller) adds to rearward weight bias problems, already aggravated by the effect of crew-cabs. To counteract this DE fits a single-tyred third axle just ahead of the drive axle.
The 23-tonne Phoenix 20 is the newest addition to the range. All models use an intermittent loading/compacting system, in the interests of durability. To the same end DE specifies phosphor-bronze sliders in preference to the nylon or PTFE components used by some of its competitors. LJ by Alan Bunting