The Wielton way Wielton

THE WIELTON WAY THE WIELTON WAY

In just 18 years Poland’s Wielton has grown into one of the leading manufacturers of trailers and semi-trailers in Europe. It is also widely recognised throughout the industry as a pioneer in the latest manufacturing technologies. Peter Mercer spoke to marketing and communications Director, Jacek Kurowski.

Wielton is Poland’s largest producer of semi-trailers and trailers. It is also the largest manufacturer of trailers in the central-eastern Europe (CEE) region and one of the top ten in Europe. Established in 1996, the company achieved sales in excess of 520m in 2013 and produced a record total of 6505 trailers, an increase of more than 10 per cent on 2012. In Poland itself Wielton sold 2360 trailers last year, making it the third largest supplier in its home market; the remaining 64 per cent of output was exported, mostly to countries within the CEE. Russia remains the largest export market, taking just short of 2000 trailers and semi-trailers in 2013.

Wielton currently offers the widest range of trailers and semi-trailers on the Polish market, with more than 60 different product types that can be adapted to the specific requirements of customers. “Our strategy is to maintain our dominant position in both Poland and the whole CEE region by continuing to invest in our production facilities and introducing the latest manufacturing technologies,” says Jacek Kurowski. “We have a reputation for innovation in both our products and our production processes; of the €11m that we have invested over the last five years, a third has been spent on new plant and machines. We have recently installed 32 welding robots – and there are more to come – and have completely modernised our paint shop. We currently also have a planning application in for a com-

pletely new stand-alone R&D centre that will be one of the most modern in the industry.”

Wielton’s total current investment programme is intended to boost its production capacity to around 12,000 trailers per year and its revenues to more than 1 bn PLN within three to four years. Its product range already includes platform, curtain, box and refrigerated semi-trailers as well as tippers and container chassis. It also produces trailers for roller containers, tipper bodies and high volume combinations. Wielton is also a partner in the program Hardox In My Body SSAB.

Product innovation

Wielton continues to extend and modernise its product range to meet the increasingly complex needs of the transport industry; more than 120 market-specific product enhancements were carried out during just the last year.

“A lot of our recent R&D has focused on reducing the weight of our products, through developing aluminium chassis, for example,” explains Jarek Kurowski. “We are also developing industry-specific solutions such as curtain-siders that are optimised for carrying liquids in bottles and semi-trailers that are specially designed for transporting consumer electronic goods. Poland is a huge exporter of fridges, washing machines, TVs and so on and the semi-trailers that carry these have to be designed to make loading and unloading as efficient as possible. That means that the skeleton of the trailer, the spaces between the vertical bars etc, has to be very carefully worked out.

“We are also developing a new Bi-Rail concept to enable the complete package of the container and the trailer carrying it – rather than just the container - to be loaded on to a railway wagon, which can then be transported by rail anywhere in Europe. We completed the homologation of our first BiRail semi-trailer at the end of last year and we will be launching them on the market later this year.” Agro launch

The most significant development of Wielton’s product portfolio in the last five years has been the launch of its Agro range of trailers dedicated to the agricultural market. In fact, trailers for agricultural applications accounted for 800 of the total number of products sold in 2013 and nearly one-third of them went to export markets.

“Poland is developing an excellent reputation as a manufacturer of agricultural trailers. We identified this business opportunity some five years ago and have now set up a stand-alone agricultural division,” says Mr Kurowski. “We are now number three in the country in what is an increasingly export-led business. In fact, most of our exports of agricultural trailers go to western Europe rather than the CEE countries. Our range is designed specifically for the agricultural market, with a heavier, more robust construction to cope with off-road conditions and with features specific to different agricultural

crops – you need different side walls to load, unload and carry apples from those you need for grain, for example.

Working with SSAB

Maintaining strong supplier relationships has been vital to Wielton’s continued growth. It has used SSAB’s high-strength steel in its products since its establishment – mainly the Domex brand but also Docol, Hardox and Weldox. Altogether SSAB supplies Wielton with about 5000 tons of product per year. More than half of this is Domex, followed by Hardox, both heavy plate and strip products.

SSAB’s high strength steel is used in all truck bodies and trailers manufactured by Wielton. Domex is used in both the supporting parts of the trailer frame and the walls of various kinds of truck bodies such as beds and tippers. Hardox is used, amongst other things, for the bottoms of tippers.

Wielton’s business strategy is simple: it’s about meeting the highest demands of its customers – and that is where SSAB’s high-strength steels play an important role. By using high-strength steels, Wielton can reduce the weight of its products considerably as well as making them stronger and longer-lasting. Moreover, it can reduce the need for welding and improves production effiiciency. Its close cooperation with SSAB is a crucial factor behind Wielton’s success.

Partnership with Knorr-Bremse

Knorr-Bremse is the world’s leading manufacturer of braking and control systems for commercial vehicles. Wielton is one of the many Polish companies to use the latest braking and control systems from Knorr-Bremse in its products. TEBS G2.2 is one of them. This is already the third generation of electronic braking system from the TEBS G2 family designed for trailers. In one compact unit the system combines the electronic control unit, sensor technology and pneumatic adjustment.

In addition to the popular conventional suspension systems, Knorr-Bremse also offers its latest electronic suspension system. The iLvl Intelligent Levelling Control System is an electronically controlled air suspension system for trailers with groundbreaking functionality and the ability to be controlled by a driver. Regardless of the operation, the system responds in a second during the lifting and lowering of the trailer suspension. Even if the power supply is not available, the

driver can still raise or lower the trailer using pneumatic control buttons. The system also offers the simple possibility to program the suspension system functions, which in the case of conventional suspension systems are complicated and often expensive.

Furthermore, Knorr-Bremse allows for simplified controlling via a remote control system based on a smartphone, which also keeps the driver away from the danger zone. The iTap Intelligent Trailer Access Point means that the driver does not need to use a valve or other control device attached to a side of the vehicle – he can remotely, from a safe distance, adjust the vehicle’s height to the ramp. iTap enables communication between the driver and the TEBS and ilvl system by a smartphone or tablet from the application specially developed for this purpose by Knorr-Bremse.

Another of the Knorr-Bremse solutions responsible for security is a tire pressure monitoring system (Tire Pressure Monitoring System), whose main task is to measure the pressure and to inform the vehicle’s user when the vehicle’s values are too low or too high.

Expanding exports

Across its entire product range Wielton intends to build on its export success. In fact, last year the company won the ‘Eagle’ award from the Polish Ministry of Trade for its dynamic export performance. It is actively exploring new export opportunities within and beyond Europe. “We are particularly interested in the rapidly growing markets of the countries of Central Asia to the east of the Caspian Sea – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan etc,” explains Mr Kurowski. “With the increasing oil wealth of this region, there is a huge growth in construction and civil engineering work and therefore a big increase in demand for trailers. We have already set up a dedicated sales team for these countries.”

A wider export market requires an expanded service network. Wielton already has a network of 60 service points all over Europe (including 23 in Poland) and has plans to further extend this network, initially in Russia. It is also investing in modern IT systems throughout the network to ensure quicker location and delivery of parts and more complete customer support. Increasingly, the IT systems have also to be multi-lingual.

Wielton’s growth strategy for the next few years centres mostly on building on its dominant position in the Polish market, extending its exports in central, eastern and western Europe and looking to new markets as well as continuing its investment in advanced production technologies. It may also consider acquisitions of manufacturers of trailers and semi-trailers, particularly in specialist applications such as refrigerated transport, tankers and livestock transport.

“We are interested in moving into new industry sectors and in advancing into new geographical markets,” says Jacek Kurowski. “As we expand our exports, we need to ensure that we keep close to our final customers to keep delivery costs low and to ensure first-class service. So we are actively following acquisition possibilities wherever there is a clear strategic advantage.” n