Motor Transport 3 September 2018

Sharp ■ Informed ■ Challenging

NEWS INSIDE Strong growth

Stobart acquisitions, contract wins and retained business pay dividends p3

Sad times

Harris Transport director laments firm’s demise p6

Insolvencies

Year-on-year failures up but Q2 better than Q1 p8

OPERATORS IN THIS ISSUE AT Morgan...........................................p10 Boleyn Recovery and Fleet Services .......p3 Bowker Transport................................p10 Canute Haulage Group ...........................p8 DR Macleod...........................................p6 Eddie Stobart Logistics ..........................p3 Harris Transport ....................................p6 International Medical Services...............p8 J Dickinson Transport ............................p8 LHT Logistics.........................................p8 PMP-Forward ........................................p8 Spartan Distribution ..............................p8 Wincanton ............................................p3

3.9.18

PREMIUM REDEFINED The Pallet Network has begun a new chapter under Eddie Stobart Logistics ownership

Evolution of the species

By Carol Millett

Eddie Stobart Logistics’ purchase of The Pallet Network (TPN) represents the evolution of the pallet network model, according to MD Mark Duggan (right).

TPN was bought for £52.8m

by Eddie Stobart Logistics on 29 June and Duggan told MT that rather than consolidation, the move should be regarded as the evolvement of the pallet sector model.

“TPN and our members drew a line in the sand several years ago, agreed a collective view as to what good looked like and created a strategy to deliver that,” he said.

“As a network we realised that the future couldn’t simply be about doing what we’ve always done, and we needed to evolve and develop both what we do and how we do it, to create a roadmap for the future generations in our members’ businesses.”

TPN had been backed by

LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group since 2007, and Duggan said the network would benefit from being under the ownership of a long-term, complementary trade investor.

“It’s business as usual within the network, however the synergy between Eddie Stobart and TPN and our members has created so much positive potential operationally.

It also presents opportunities to accelerate pre-existing plans where appropriate,” he said.

Duggan added that in joining the Eddie Stobart Logistics family, he believed the pallet network, which has always aimed to “create an environment where our members’ businesses can flourish”, had not only delivered on this mission statement, but taken it to another level.

Speaking about TPN in its interim results (see page 3), Eddie Stobart Logistics chief executive Alex Laffey said: “The recent acquisition of the business further adds to the range of services we provide to our customers across the supply chain.”

He added that it was a major step in the operator’s stated aim of becoming a full end-toend logistics service provider.

XPO Logistics and House of Fraser agreement in the air As MT went to press, a union representing workers at two XPO Logistics sites said a report last week that the operator and its client House of Fraser had reached a compromise appeared to be false.

XPO Logistics is owed £30.4m as a creditor of the department store chain, which was placed into administration on 10 August and saw most of its assets sold to Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct shortly after.

The operator has been withholding services to House of Fraser from the

administration date, paralysing its supply chain.

XPO Logistics uses two warehouses to service House of Fraser, in Milton Keynes and Wellingborough. Its decision to freeze activities there led to the retailer suspending its website and cancelling existing orders.

According to the GMB union it has also placed 627 jobs at those sites at risk of redundancy. “Our members are turning up for work at the sites and being stood down every day,” a GMB spokesman

confirmed, suggesting a deal was still to be struck.

The spokesman reiterated the union’s statement last week urging resolution.

“We call on XPO and Sports Direct to come to an agreement that will stop 627 people facing redundancy. This isn’t just a game of profits – this is our members’ livelihoods on the line.”

XPO Logistics declined to comment and Sports Direct had not responded as MT went to press. The businesses are expected to hold talks today (3 September).

PERFORMANCE REDEFINED Pages 4–5

Marketplace news p14 Vehicle testing p20 Profile: John Lewis Partnership p26 Camera systems p28 MT Awards winners p30-33

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30/08/2018 18:00:03

6 November 2018 | Alexandra Palace, London

As cities strive to improve air quality through the rollout of clean air zones, freight operators must step up to the low-emission challenge or face the prospect of significant fines to enter urban areas.

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30/08/2018 11:15:07

News

motortransport.co.uk

Acquisitions, new contract wins and renewals boost performance with e-commerce leading the way

Eddie Stobart racing ahead

By Chris Druce

Eddie Stobart Logistics’ growth continued at a gallop in the six months to 31 May 2018, driven by a mix of acquisitions, contract wins and retained business. Turnover increased by more than a quarter (25.3%) in the period to £359.3m (2017: £286.8m).

The operator’s acquisitions continued to perform strongly – iForce sales increased 20% and Speedy Freight’s by 52% in the period – and organic growth was robust too.

Eddie Stobart Logistics said it had seen strong growth across three of its four key sectors, with retail up 28% year-on-year; manufacturing, industrial and bulk up 13%; and e-commerce 118% ahead.

Its consumer sector turnover was 6% down compared with the same period last year following the loss of its Britvic contract. However, the operator won this back from rival Wincanton in May. Contract renewals in the six months were valued at £113m.

Wrestling back Cemex from, again, Wincanton was a business highlight during the first half of the year, but it also has a pipeline of wins that will be recognised in full in its 12-month results. These include a deal with aggregates supplier Tarmac and taking on PepsiCo’s previously in-house distribution operation, as well as deals with Homebase and Knauf.

Eddie Stobart Logistics puts the value of new contract wins, year to date, at £158m.

The operator’s pre-tax profit increased 122.2% to £1.4m, compared with a loss of £6.3m in the same period a year ago. Exceptional items in the six months were £4.4m, of this the majority (£3.9m) related to acquisitions.

Adjusted pre-tax profit for the period, which strips out exceptional items, was £14.1m (2017: £10.5m).

Eddie Stobart Logistics chief executive Alex Laffey said: “We are pleased to have delivered a strong first-half performance as we continue to implement our strategy of becoming a lead-

SECTOR TURNOVER – SIX MONTHS TO 31 MAY 2018 Sector Retail Consumer Manufacturing, industrial, bulk E-commerce Non-sector specific Total

2018 £102m £70m £92m

2017 £80m £75m £81m

% change +27.5 -6.2 +13.2

£80m £15m £359m

£37m £14m £287m

+118 +7 +25.3

ing provider of end-to-end supply chain solutions.”

The company announced an interim dividend of 1.54p per share and highlighted that the second part of its trad-

ing year is traditionally its strongest business period.

On 29 June the operator bought The Pallet Network in a £52.8m deal, causing a stir in the pallet network sector.

TfL puts faith in retrofit kit being ready for ULEZ start Retrofit equipment will be available for hauliers ahead of the start of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) next April, TfL has claimed.

From 8 April 2019 HGVs entering central London will

3.9.18

MTR_030918_003.indd 3

have to comply with Euro-6 engine emission regulations or face a daily fine of £100.

TfL was responding to a request for an exemption for recovery operators from Barking, Essex-based Boleyn

Recovery and Fleet Services.

In a letter seen by MT, Jeffrey Johns, compliance manager at the business, called on TfL to introduce an exemption for recovery operators to offset the rushed introduction of the ULEZ. “We have a mixed fleet of vehicles with the majority being slidebed recovery trucks and three heavy recovery vehicles. These vehicles are specialist vehicles that, although starting from a normal HGV chassis, have been rebuilt to incorporate recovery attachments such as cranes and underlifts. This puts the prices for such vehicles between £120,000 and £250,000 and, with the small profit margin available in the recovery indus-

try, this limits the amount of money available for fleet replacement,” said Johns.

“A regular haulage operator will usually use their vehicles for between eight to 16 hours a day depending on how many drivers they have on shifts, and their vehicle costs less than a large recovery truck. Whereas a heavy recovery truck, due to the nature of recovery, may only attend a couple of breakdowns a day and so have low usage. This means that recovery operators have to pay more for their trucks and have a limited amount of utilisation.

“With the introduction of the ULEZ and Direct Vision Standard, we are being unfairly pressured to invest in new trucks by TfL when others

are exempt. We have contacted the major suppliers of aftermarket exhaust filter kits and none of them have a completed design for upgrading ‘normal’ HGVs.” However, a spokesman for TfL ruled out an exemption for recovery vehicles. “We recognise that the national Clean Vehicle Retrofit Accreditation System has emissions reduction systems certified for buses only.

“We are working with the Energy Saving Trust and retrofit technology suppliers to encourage the development of systems for the broadest possible range of specialist vehicles where replacing the vehicle would be expensive,” he said.

MotorTransport 3

30/08/2018 16:13:27

“WE’RE SAVING £200 A WEEK WITH EACH S 450, SO WE’RE QUIDS IN.” “We’ve found other trucks susceptible to fuel consumption variations depending on driver/weather etc, so we’ve recently taken eight new S 450s. The savings are remarkable – approximately £200 a week. We’re finding that our Scania fleet performs well in all circumstances. As a result, we now have another three on order.”

Arran Courton, Transport Manager CPT Distribution Ltd.

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30/08/2018 11:15:59

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30/08/2018 11:16:28

News

motortransport.co.uk

Haulier blames company’s demise on a switch to new landlord and subsequent change to rental payments

Harris Transport boss reveals pain as family firm collapses

By Chris Druce

Harris Transport director George Harris has spoken of his heartbreak after the family firm established by his parents was forced into administration.

Alexander Kinninmonth and Richard Brewer of restructuring advisory firm RSM were appointed as joint administrators of the Eastleigh-based transport, distribution and warehousing firm on 21 August.

In a statement Kinninmonth said: “Unfortunately, it was not possible to sell the business as a going concern.

As a result, the company was left with little choice but to cease trading and make staff redundant.

“We are assisting affected staff to make their claims to the Redundancy Payments Office and working with

customers to allow them to their collect goods.”

On 17 August, before the appointment of the administrator, 70 staff were made redundant with 15 people retained to assist in an orderly wind-down of the warehouse operation.

The general haulier, which undertook some container and pallet network work for Palletforce, was set-up by husband and wife team Colin and Pauline Harris in summer 1991 with three trucks. Its current directors are sons George and Derek Harris.

George Harris told MT: “At the moment I have no intention of employing anyone else in my life.”

He detailed the shock felt by staff across the business when the decision to stop trading and then enter administration was

made. “When it happened there were grown men in tears here… we were very much a family firm, and if we were to do anything else the drivers all said they’d be back,” he said.

George attributed the company’s demise to a change

in landlord, that initially the haulier was not aware of.

The business had been paying the previous owner monthly but the new landlord reverted to a three-month payment demand and backdated the payment, which the

business was unable to satisfy within the new timeframe.

The company has 35 trucks and trailers, the majority of which are owned and an auction of assets is planned.

It stopped covering areas including the Isle of Wight and Channel Island postcodes for Palletforce at the point of administration.

NATSAR Supplies, a company recently incorporated by George and Derek Harris, is not connected to the administration, having been setup as an instrument to recognise and safeguard an investment the brothers had made in the haulage business, which due to the pace of events did not come to fruition.

A spokesman for RSM confirmed there are no plans for a pre-pack sale of the Harris Transport Business.

Adopt CLOCS to boost road safety, urges MPA T he Mineral Products Association (MPA) is calling for all public sector construction contracts to require suppliers to be CLOCS-compliant.

Criticising what it claims is a disappointing lack of commitment from the public and private sectors, the MPA called for a more positive approach to the CLOCS scheme.

MPA chief executive Nigel Jackson said: “If we want practical solutions for road safety, and particularly for the most vulnerable of road users, government should insist that all public sector construction contracts require suppliers to be CLOCS-compliant.

“Contractors and private sector construction clients,

many of whom are committed to on-site safety, should operate in the same manner outside the site gate in accordance with CLOCS and insist that their suppliers do.

“There is a need for all major infrastructure developers responsible for spending significant sums of public money to be equally

committed, not just some.”

Jackson also called for a more positive industry approach to the London mayor’s Direct Vision Standard (DVS).

“It is absolutely clear that too many people are being killed and injured on the roads, particularly in London but also elsewhere,” he said. “Based on

our experience of CLOCS implementation and the London DVS preparation, there remains a disappointing lack of commitment in the public and private sector.

“The supply chain as a whole needs to raise its game collectively if we are to avoid being judged by the worst offenders.”

CLANSMAN: DR Macleod has taken delivery of 10 Volvo FH tractor units.

Supplied by Volvo Truck and Bus Centre North & Scotland Inverness, the 6x2 mid-lift trucks are on a 36-month contract hire agreement.

The Stornoway-based company has a varied trailer fleet to accommodate cargo delivered to and collected from some of Scotland’s most remote areas.

MD Donald Macleod said: “The latest Volvo FHs will haul a mixture of fridge vans, curtainsiders and flat trailers, and occasionally our tanker, bulk and moving-floor trailers.”

6 MotorTransport MTR_030918_006.indd 6

3.9.18

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30/08/2018 11:17:31

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motortransport.co.uk

Year-on-year failures up but Q2 figures represent a significant fall compared with Q1’s rash of failures

Insolvencies up by a third

By Carol Millett

Insolvencies in the logistics sector rose by almost a third in the second quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, according to the latest Creditsafe Watchdog report.

However, the rate of insolvencies in the second quarter was significantly lower than at the start of this year.

The report revealed that the

UK’s logistics sector saw 109 insolvencies in Q2, up almost a third on the same period last year, but significantly lower than the 534 recorded in Q1.

The biggest insolvency in Q2 was the collapse of Canute Haulage Group and its various subsidiaries. In fourth place was Southampton-based haulier PMP-Forward, which appointed administrators in

June, followed by another Canute division, International Medical Services, in fifth place.

The Canute business was transferred to Almtone in May this year in a pre-pack sale.

Almtone’s directors include Canute director Glenn Marshall. The other listed director, and sole shareholder of Almtone, is Michael Ventham.

The new business is contin-

uing to trade under the Canute banner.

Creditsafe UK CEO Chris Robertson said that on a positive note, the number of new companies formed in the sector during the last quarter was 5,265, compared with 4,552 in the same period last year. This represented a yearon-year increase of 15.7%, which he said demonstrated “the resilience and potential

for growth in the industry” .

Another positive indicator revealed by the report is the fall in the level of bad debt owed by the logistics sector to suppliers, which fell 58% between Q1 and Q2, from £19.7m to £8.3m.

However, Robertson added that the sector’s future performance will be “heavily influenced by the state of the UK’s borders following Brexit talks”.

ALL CHANGE: J Dickinson Transport, based in Carlisle, has joined Pallet-Track after leaving UPN. It will cover the CA, TD and DG postcodes, which include the border areas between England and Scotland. It is one of the hauliers brought in to cover the areas previously serviced

by Canute Haulage Group. J Dickinson Transport was founded 23 years ago by ex-carpenter Jimmy Dickinson, when he purchased a van. The business now has 20 vehicles and 25 employees on the books. It came as UPN welcomed LHT Logistics, AT Morgan and Son, and Spartan Distribution into the fold. Swansea-based AT Morgan is new to pallet networks and will operate South Wales postcodes previously covered by South Wales Pallets. Spartan Distribution, based in west London, has left Fortec Distribution and will service west London postcodes for UPN. LHT Logistics based in east London, will continue to work with Fortec alongside UPN, working north London postcodes for the latter.

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3.9.18

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30/08/2018 13:37:05

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30/08/2018 08:54:57

News

motortransport.co.uk

Logistics firms need workable solutions to keep Britain trading in the event of no-deal

Industry calls for clarity in a no-deal Brexit scenario

By Kylie Noble

Trade associations have criticised the no-deal Brexit papers published last month, accusing the contingency plans of falling far short of what would be required to keep Britain trading.

The FTA, RHA and British International Freight Association (BIFA) said the papers essentially confirmed what was known, without providing the level of detail road transport operators required to plan for such an outcome.

BIFA director general Robert Keen said: “As most of the visible trade that takes place between the EU and the UK is managed by freight forwarders and logistics

professionals on behalf of traders, some of the content of the information could be considered patronising as those freight forwarders are already aware of many of the issues of concern to businesses trading with the EU in the event of no deal. “BIFA members need clarity on the arrangements that will be in place in the event of a no-deal scenario. “How will we deal with a massive increase in the customs entries that will be required in the event of a no deal? Where will we source the huge number of extra staff that may be required to

process such a large increase in entries on a new and as-yet unproven computer system? Where will HMRC source the extra staff that will be needed to process entries and expedite their training, which would normally take up to a year?

How do we deal with large increases in costs that our customers are unlikely to be expecting and might be unwilling to accept?�

An FTA spokesperson said: “Logistics businesses need workable solutions to aim higher than damage control, and to keep Britain trading.�

Sarah Laouadi, FTA European policy manager,

added: “No deal would be disastrous for logistics. There are clear problems that could face our supply chain if agreements cannot be reached, including customs and border arrangements, the continuity of trade agreements and vehicle permits, as well as the continuation of business access to EU workers.�

The RHA warned that international operators would be hit with new red tape as they become “carriers� of goods in a no-deal outcome. According to the association, the Trading with the EU if there’s no Brexit deal technical notice said hauliers would be responsible for their own safety and security declarations – a new development.

EXCITING TIMES: Andrew Gee has been appointed chief financial officer of Bowker Transport. Gee joins with more than 20 years of financial experience including boardroom roles with JJB Sports, Dave Whelan Sports and most recently Lewis’s Home Retail. It is the first time a key position has been created with roles at both the separate Lancashire businesses that trade under the Bowker family name. He said: “Only 18 months ago, Bowker Transport acquired Potter Logistics. And the Motor Group’s strategy for investment in new dealers continues with the building of the Porsche Centre in Preston. There’s plenty to do and many reasons to be excited.�

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Viewpoint

motortransport.co.uk

It’s hard to keep track of regulations

F

Moreton Cullimore MD, Cullimore Group

ORS is being talked about quite a bit lately as it is the only accreditation scheme that promotes best practice for commercial vehicle operators, and the RHA believes this has resulted in it monopolising the safety accreditation space.

I believe it is healthy to have one scheme providing this kind of accreditation. With other schemes, where there are several bodies offering the same accreditations and after the same goals, there is no winning situation – some customers will recognise one and not the other.

For suppliers, this means spending time and money to repeat training for their employees to meet these standards, even though they are all the same. It creates a conflicting interest. National contractors in the construction industry want people to have these accreditations and without them, it cuts off some companies’ ability to tender.

FORS achieves really good things in the industry, but as a business, the majority of things it employs, we at the Cullimore Group do anyway.

A lot of what they demand, we do regardless.

As for emissions regulations such as the Ultra Low Emission Zone and clean air zones, they are only allowing the most modern trucks in that are running to the most efficient standards.

I understand that we are trying to reduce emissions, but in aggregate and concrete-specific vehicles, both Euro-5 and Euro-6 trucks suffer from weight penalties when achieving those standards.

The Cullimore Group’s day-to-day business is to deliver to construction sites, and if, say, a client orders 2,000 tonnes of material, which is usual, five or six years ago that amount would have been delivered in 100 trips, but now is delivered in 108 trips as we have to carry 1 to 1.5 tonnes less. We’re making eight more journeys to the same building site, so are we really being more efficient with our emissions?

With regulations changing so often, trucks are being turned over far more frequently. Not only does this have cost implications, but it also leaves questionmarks over sustainability and long-term environmental impact.

PREMIUM REDEFINED

Emissions reduction claim just a lot of hot air

J

Steve Hobson Editor Motor Transport

ust when you thought the ‘demonisation’ of diesel was well and truly dead and buried, as most people now understand that Euro-6 diesels are extremely clean, a press release from the Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance lands in my email inbox. Headlined ‘Government’s Clean Air Strategy ‘airs’ on the side of caution – It is time for the UK to switch from dirty diesel HGVs to natural gas,’ (their caps not mine, by the way) it states: “It is time for the UK to switch from dirty diesel HGVs to natural gas. If vehicles were to use natural gas, NOx emissions could be reduced by 74%, Particulate Matter by 96% and if they use Biomethane, carbon emissions would also be reduced by over 80%,” (again, their caps).

Naturally, these precise numbers for emissions reduction piqued my interest, as there is some debate about the difference in emissions between Euro-6 diesel and the current generation of gas trucks. Tests carried out last year found that gas trucks are indeed cleaner than Euro-5 diesel, but with the latest Euro-6 emissions standards there is little to choose between gas and diesel on NOx and particulates.

12 MotorTransport MTR_030918_012.indd 12

A request for an interview with NGVA CEO Mike Foster to explain his numbers was declined, but his head of external affairs did send us a statement admitting there is “little difference” between Euro-6 diesel and gas engine tailpipe emissions. No explanation of where their original claim for a 74% cut in NOx and 96% cut in particulates came from, which makes their original release even more disgraceful.

The issue of well-to-wheel carbon emissions for conventional gas and diesel fuels is quite complex, but comparing carbon emissions from biomethane with those from standard diesel is equally wrong-headed and misleading. Switching from fossil-based diesel to biodiesel would produce a similar cut in carbon output.

Operators need good advice on how to reduce emissions to comply with the government’s ‘Road to zero’ strategy, not misleading mud-slinging by proponents of one fuel technology.

The newspaper for transport operators

To contact us: Tel: 020 8912 +4 digits or email: name.surname@roadtransport.com Editor Steve Hobson 2161 Editor-in-chief Christopher Walton 2163 Group news editor Chris Druce 2158 Reporter Kylie Noble 2167 Group technical editor Colin Barnett 2141 Senior compliance editor Roger Brown 2168 Urban editor Hayley Pink 2165 Group production editor Clare Goldie 2174 Deputy production editor Jo Saunders 2173 Key account manager Andrew Smith 07771 885874 Display telesales Barnaby Goodman-Smith 2128 Event sales Richard Bennett 07889 823060 Tim George 0755 7677758 Classified and recruitment advertising Head of sales operations Julie McInally 2122 rtmclassified@roadtransport.com Sales director Vic Bunby 2121 Head of marketing Jane Casling 2133 Head of events/MT Awards Stephen Pobjoy 2135 Managing director Andy Salter 2171 Editorial office Road Transport Media, Sixth Floor, Chancery House, St Nicholas Way, Sutton, Surrey SM1 1JB 020 8912 2170 Free copies MT is available free to specified licensed operators under the publisher’s terms of control. For details, email mtsccqueries@roadtransport.com, or call 01772 426705 Subscriptions Tel 0330 333 9544 Quadrant Subscription Services, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH Rates UK £135/year. Europe £163/ year. RoW £163/year. Cheques made payable to Motor Transport.

Apply online at mtssubs.com Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper Published by DVV Media International Ltd © 2018 DVV Media International Ltd ISSN 0027-206 X

Got something to say?

If you would like to contribute to MT’s Viewpoint, email steve.hobson@roadtransport.com 3.9.18

30/08/2018 13:34:01

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Marketplace

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Dealership has invested more than £200,000 on rubber floor workshops at five of its six sites

HRVS Group is gearing up for electric vehicle work

By Kevin Swallow

Truck and van dealer HRVS Group has invested more than £200,000 on fitting out its workshops to work on electric vehicles.

Keith Sims, group operations director (pictured, centre) said five of its six sites are now kitted out with rubberfloor workshops that can remove and charge batteries and carry out maintenance checks safely.

HRVS Group, which covers Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire, has been an LDV dealer for more than two years and has sold 14 of the Chinese-built vans to date.

Interest in its electric LDV EV80 range continues to grow.

Sims said: “We have been inundated with interest from local authorities, utilities, highway maintenance providers and parcel companies. In many cases the need for an electric vehicle has been stipulated within a tender.

“There are also firms that want an electric vehicle as a trophy element for marketing

and to say to customers ‘we have an electric vehicle’.”

Batteries come with 3,000 full charge cycles on a fiveyear/60,000-mile guarantee and are expected to have a 12-year service life. Sims

added: “Other companies have worked out the future emissions cost and see electric as financially right to buy instead of diesel.”

He predicted future investment in specialist tooling as

more vehicles and technology enter the market. As well as selling the electric vehicles, HRVS has also teamed up with a utility company to provide infrastructure and support.

“The utility company can

install a substation if one is needed to support the fleet. At the dealership in Ripley we could install three AC electric vehicle chargers and one Tesla Supercharger without adding a substation,” Sims said. “We are talking with a parcel company in London and they would need a substation for their fleet. It just depends on the demands and local infrastructure.”

Sims also believes that the role of the vehicle technicians will also change and revealed that HRVS has just employed its first electrical engineer.

“The electric vehicle has just 22 moving components, whereas a combustion engine has thousands of moving components. It’ll change aftersales and maintenance programmes.

“Things like brake pads rarely get used because the vehicle accelerates like a dodgem, come off the accelerator and momentum drops dramatically almost to a standstill,” he explained. “Servicing will focus on checking and replacing battery cells.”

Revenue up at Guest Holdings but profit down after poor year of sales The end of year report from Ian Guest Holdings, which owns IVECO and FIAT dealers Guest Truck and Van and Sherwood Truck and Van, shows that revenues were up during 2017 but that profits dropped.

In the year to 31 December 2017, Ian Guest Holdings reported turnover up 6% to £118m, whereas pre-tax profits fell by 25% to £1.5m.

The two dealerships operate from 14 sites from the Midlands to the east coast.

A statement by the board said: “The commercial vehicle market was significantly down in 2017. The directors took the opportunity to review the 14 MotorTransport MTR_030918_014-016.indd 14

services offered by the company and we believe that we have ended 2017 with the company in a far better position to take advantage of opportunities as they arise than we were at the end of 2016.”

The statement continued: “The increase in turnover was due to a change in the method used by our main manufacturer to market certain fleet clients.

“The increase in turnover masks what was a poor year in new vehicle sales, units processed being considerably down on 2016, especially during the second half of the year.”

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30/08/2018 11:29:53

Marketplace

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Makeover for WG Davies’ Tenby site

Sales up as Euro-6 prices harden There are more used trucks going under the hammer this year, compared with the same period last year, as values for second-hand Euro-6s come off the boil.

Charlie Wright, MD of Protruck Auctions, said sales are up 50% on last year. “There is a steady flow of stock coming on from the food sector, as well as large retail groups, and civil engineering companies. We sell direct to

the truck trade and they are selling directly back into the market, so they must be selling more to sustain demand,” he said.

However, those defleeted trucks are not getting the high prices they were earlier this year. “There are signs people are starting to get a bit fussy about what’s available when buying. They are looking closer at the specification, seeing what things might

separate it from other Euro-6 vehicles. As a result, prices are hardening,” he explained.

He recalled that earlier this year Protruck Auctions was selling Euro-6 Volvo FH tractor units as fast as they were appearing, “then all of a sudden the specification had to be right”.

He added: “Rigids are dropping back too; I’ve seen a 10% fall in prices compared with six months ago.”

The Tenby-based dealership belonging to MAN dealer WG Davies has been upgraded with a £750,000 programme ahead of an open day to be held at the site on 6 September 2018.

As well as Tenby, the dealer group has two other sites based in Cardiff and Swansea and employs more than 100 people.

Rachel Davies, marketing and quality manager, said the revamp was done because it was the most run-down depot in the group.

“The Tenby dealership is such a huge premises and Roger Davies [MD] believed that there is so much potential, so he wanted to fulfil that,” she said.

“We have really loyal customers in Tenby, so it was obvious our facilities had to be improved.”

Alongside service manager

Sarah Blockwell there are two technicians and an apprentice on site.

“The site is so big that we wanted to ensure our customers’ experience is the best possible and make sure the facilities that we offer are the best possible,” said Davies.

“It wasn’t just for the customers, it was also for the staff. We want all of our staff to have comfortable working conditions.

“We’ve had the whole premises asphalted, a customer/ staff car park marked, biomass boilers installed, workshop repainted, office painted and the staff have even been given new uniforms.”

The open day is a chance for WG Davies to raise the profile of the Hazelbrook Garage site in Pembrokeshire, as well as supporting existing customers and attracting new business.

Redcorn adds two car carriers

By David Harris

POWERED UP: Inkerman Hire Services has turned to Volvo for a vehicle powerful enough to pull other vehicles on its trailer.

The Woking-based demolition, construction and haulage operator has ordered an FH16 750 rigid hook-lift to haul plant machinery on a drawbar trailer. MD Charlie Garnade opted for the FH16 44-tonne combination because a powerful engine is required. He said: “We move quite a few machines about and we felt there wasn’t enough power in other vehicles to pull a machine on the back of the lorry, as well as the trailer. I used to have a Volvo FL10 tipper and an FM9 grab lorry. They were good vehicles for the price and we knew this Volvo was the right machine for the job.” The FH16’s 5,600mm wheelbase chassis was specified with a sleeper cab, I-Shift automated 12-speed gearbox, Dynamic Steering and rear air suspension.

Other features include a reinforced gearbox, Alcoa DuraBright polished aluminium rims with standard holes, fuel anti-theft and anti-spillage devices. Another crucial component ordered was Volvo’s Tandem Axle Lift.

16 MotorTransport MTR_030918_014-016.indd 16

Redcorn, which collects abandoned and unwanted vehicles for 26 local authorities in and around London, has added two Mercedes-Benz car transporters to its fleet.

The two Antos 2540s are Redcorn’s most powerful yet, and have been fitted with redesigned transporter bodies. The latest vehicles will collect unwanted and accidentdamaged cars. After being taken to the company’s Tottenham base the vehicles are scrapped and recycled.

The trucks were supplied by local dealer S&B Commercials, which will deliver another two identical vehicles in December. They have extended ClassicSpace day cabs, while power is provided by 10.7-litre straight-6 engines that produce 394hp – Redcorn’s eight other 6-wheelers have outputs in the 340hp to 350hp range.

The trucks are fitted with twin-deck bodywork by specialist builder Belle Trailers of Great Dunmow, Essex. Each

is capable of carrying up to eight cars.

Redcorn has opted for more durable fully galvanised bodies, rather than the painted steel versions specified previously. The bodies are also lighter and 100mm lower than previous versions, incorporate a revised top deck with two ramps that can be operated individually for enhanced flexibility, and feature repositioned winches and reduced approach angles for easier loading.

Redcorn operates approximately 90 transporters, the majority of which are Mercedes. The line-up includes

Sprinter chassis cabs and Atego trucks with GVWs of 7.5, 12 and 15 tonnes – the smallest of these carry single vehicles, while the 12-tonners are built to handle two or three cars, and the 15-tonners four or five.

Redcorn contracts manager Stuart Bunker said: “We choose Mercedes-Benz vehicles for their outstanding reliability and competitive wholelife cost of operation, as well as for an image of quality, which our experience has proved to be well deserved. We acquired our first Atego in 2000 and have been buying them ever since.”

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Marketplace

Privatisation: the end game Too few DVSA vehicle examiners has led to renewed calls by the road transport industry to let the private sector employ truck MoT testers. Kevin Swallow reports

A

t the beginning of 2009, VOSA, forerunner of the DVSA, announced it was to shut down three test stations. This started the move to have most truck tests carried out by authorised testing facilities (ATFs) built by, paid for and run by the private sector.

This saved government millions of pounds closing its own truck test stations before selling off its mothballed assets. There remained a small but significant caveat; ‘testing will continue to be run exclusively by VOSA staff’.

While trade unions and vehicle operators felt the plan threatened road safety standards, operators, dealers and maintenance providers spotted a golden opportunity, acting quickly to build ATFs and sign up.

By 2013 the mood had darkened. It quickly became clear that the return on a £125,000-plus investment was protracted. Vehicle examiners adhered to an 8-hour day (including lunch), and concerns were raised over examiner utilisation, cancellations and payment arrangements. Alternative solutions were bandied about. The National Franchised Dealers Association, the newly formed Authorised Testing Facility Operators Association (ATFOA) and the IRTE all put the case for bringing vehicle examiners into the private sector.

Image: DVSA Crown Copyright

OCRS integrity

The government reiterated its position later that year, when the Transport Committee said: “The independence of testing from the private sector ensures that the integrity of OCRS continues to be held in high regard throughout the transport industry.”

By 2015 that view appeared to soften. The Df T ‘Motoring services strategy’ consultation paper’s five-year plan stated: “We will consider whether industry would be best served by a ‘mixed economy’, which allows some private sector delegated examiners to conduct HGV tests at ATFs (following the model for cars), with appropriate safeguards to ensure fleet operators cannot certificate their own vehicles.”

Although approached, the Df T had nothing further to add, instead it was left to DVSA operations testing manager Hugh Rimmer to

20 MotorTransport MTR_030918_020-021.indd 20

explain: “As the trade bodies are aware, any ‘privatisation’ of vehicle standards inspection would require primary legislation and there are no plans for this. It is a matter for the government.”

Mark Serwotka is general secretary for the Public and Commercial Services Union and represents DVSA staff, including vehicle examiners. He says: “Our members are opposed to any attempt to privatise vehicle testers in the DVSA. There are recruitment problems that would be best solved by ending the public sector pay cap, paying our members in the DVSA properly and ceasing the undermining of good terms and conditions within the industry.

“Privatisation would also endanger longstanding safety standards on our roads. Privatesector companies are wedded to the interests of their shareholders and the public good will always play second fiddle to the pursuit of profit.”

Feedback

The DVSA also puts its work into context. Since January 2018 it carried out more than 43,000 tests, fulfilled 99.6% of testing reservation slots at 570 ATFs and seven DVSA-owned sites, compared with ATF operators cancelling 2.3% of test slots.

Demand for test slots increased by 18% over the past year, despite the national fleet of vehicles that require testing remaining static. There is some anecdotal feedback that operators are double-booking slots for one vehicle at multiple sites to ensure a future test slot, then cancelling the ones they do not need.

To meet demand the DVSA is recruiting. It has approximately 550 staff trained to conduct HGV/PSV testing and is recruiting 77 more people who will be “trained and operational by the end of the year”. It has also been given the green light to recruit a further 85 testers.

John Parry, chairman of the IRTE’s irtec steering group, once supported the public sector’s role in providing vehicles examiners.

He has now changed his mind due, in part, to the excessive administrative costs of co-ordinating a public body and private industry.

What’s more, recruiting additional MoT testers to offset the much-publicised shortfall will

prove difficult. He says: “Only time will tell whether it will be enough. This situation is symptomatic of a much wider problem – a lack of engineers in the transport sector.”

The situation has escalated, he contends, as ATF sites remain unused, leading many to call for the outsourcing of HGV MoT testing. He adds: “If the MoTs were being conducted with irtec-licensed technicians [all DVSA examiners are] within premises that are workshop accredited, safety would not be at risk.”

Return on investment

Ian Wrench would support the public sector model if resourced properly. As retail development director of Volvo Group, he sees ATFs as an investment that he wants to see a return on.

“When a vehicle tester fails to show up for work, we’re the ones telling the customers their vehicles will not be tested; we are in the firing line, not the testers,” he says.

With 22 ATFs in the Volvo network and 17 in Renault Trucks, it would be professionalism and fear of punitive measures that would maintain standards for high first-time MoT pass 3.9.18

30/08/2018 07:34:49

motortransport.co.uk

rates and help customers retain their OCRS status. “If privatisation is the way forward it must be heavily policed,” he says.

Russell Hallowes, MD at Mercedes-Benz dealership Northside Truck & Van, is more damning. He runs seven sites covering north Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, with Bradford and Immingham depots operating ATFs. “We were sold a dream,” he says, “and it has not been delivered.”

He is critical of the DVSA’s latest recruitment campaign. “There is a lack of technicians. The recent DVSA recruitment campaign also took in non-engineers and that tells a story to me,” he says, suggesting that is a greater risk to road safety standards than privatisation.

Although Northside has two additional ATFs built at Leeds and Sheffield, there is no plan to make them operational because of the current situation with DVSA staffing levels. Northside is not alone. Scania dealer Haydock Commercials spent £6.3m on a new dealership off the M62, with an ATF lane that is unlikely to be certified before the end of the year.

Unnecessary downtime for operators is not 3.9.18

MTR_030918_020-021.indd 21

acceptable, argues Lee Hosier, dealer principal of IVECO Retail, a wholly owned four-dealer group covering the south and west of London, which operates an ATF at Farnborough. He spent 20 years as transport manager at Safetykleen, in Brentford. “From an operator’s point of view it’s downtime of the vehicle during the day, pre-MoT check and travel to and from a test station. A lot of downtime could be reduced if the private sector took over vehicle testing,” he contends. Privatisation would allow better utilisation of the lane and staff during off-peak hours.

Flexibility

One of the industry’s biggest advocates for privatising vehicle examiners is Stephen Smith, founder of the ATFOA in January 2013.

“Privatisation would give the industry three things: flexibility, flexibility, flexibility. The public sector cannot deliver the flexibility to deal with the fluctuation in supply and demand of the haulage market because it does not have the tools the private sector has to manipulate the workforce,” he says.

Smith says often, on a designated test day, a customer won’t show up or has booked a 4-axle test instead of 3-axle, which leads to lost test slots.

“The private sector can adapt, I can move my employees around and offer overtime to get the tests completed. Then my customer is happy because I can reschedule the test that day because I’ve got the flexibility to get 100% utilisation of my workshop and test lane,” he says.

His day job is running Boleyn Recovery & Fleet Services, in Barking, Essex. His allocation of test reservations from DVSA is down by 11% from the last quarter because it cannot supply enough examiners. “It’s catastrophic for my customers. Moving to privatisation would be straightforward. Technicians in my workshop prep vehicles for test and four-, six- and eightweek inspections every day.

“Dealers and maintenance providers could run an ATF 24/7 to meet demand from operators, have the right number of qualified staff to keep it open when we need it, and give us the flexibility we need,” he says. ■ MotorTransport 21

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30/08/2018 10:59:32

30/08/2018 11:46:38

Profile: John Lewis Partnership

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nyone driving past Milton Keynes on the M1 can hardly miss the three huge DCs, Magna Park (MP) 1 to 3, operated by the John Lewis Partnership (JLP). Totalling more than 2.5 million sq ft, the three sites are the backbone of a £250m investment expanding John Lewis’s e-commerce capability to take on the specialist e-tailers and stay relevant in today’s fast-moving multichannel world of fashion and homeware shopping.

JLP head of operations for the Magna Park Campus John Munnelly has worked for a number of leading retailers including Sainsbury’s and the forerunners of today’s e-tailers, the catalogue companies Freemans and Littlewoods. He joined JLP, which also owns grocery chain Waitrose, in 2005 to lead the development of automation as the future of e-fulfilment.

As a result, MP1 and MP2 have become showcases for the leading edge of warehouse automation provided by KNAPP and Munnelly describes the site as “KNAPP’s biggest shop window” because it uses most of the Austrian logistics specialist’s portfolio. “We have visitors from all over the world,” he says proudly as he shows MT around his domain.

Impressive results

Munnelly explains why automated rather than manual systems have been key to John Lewis’s success while other department stores have been slower to enter this arena. “Last year John Lewis reported a 2.2% sales increase [to £4.8bn] while [operating] profit was up 4.5% [to £254m], so in a tough marketplace they are really impressive results,” he says.

“With 50 branches, John Lewis is the UK’s largest department store group but there is an obvious trend towards online shopping. I joined the business in November 2005 when we had 26 department stores and a much smaller online business than it is today. John Lewis purchased the UK arm of buy.com in 2001, which was an incredibly smart move by our chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield.”

Back in those pre-e-commerce days, the ambition was to open more department stores, and under the ‘10 in 10’ programme the goal was 10 new stores in 10 years as the main driver of growth.

“The e-commerce business has virtually doubled in size since I joined,” says Munnelly.

“The long-range forecast was that by 2017 online sales would never be more than an average size department store. However last year it represented approximately 40% of sales.”

As well as 50 department stores, JLP has the advantage of also owning 352 Waitrose supermarkets, which means it is better placed to take advantage of the rise of click and collect than pure e-tailers that have to rely on the less-thanideal solution of third-party shops or parcel lockers. “Approximately 50% of our online sales are click and collect and approximately 70% of that is through Waitrose,” says Munnelly. “That really has been the jewel in the crown.”

The investment in the Magna Park national DC campus isn’t just for online, as it also supports the store network with rapid replenishment of approximately 250,000 products.

The main reason for investing in automation is simple: the difficulties in staffing large warehouses in the so-called ‘golden triangle’ for national DCs in the Midlands.

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“Labour availability is a huge challenge for the whole industry, so automation is the way ahead,” says Munnelly.

Highly automated warehouses make efficient use of staff but the upfront investment can be high. “The original business case was signed off by the board in June 2006,” says Munnelly, “and we went live in June 2009. Since then we have managed a series of extensions mainly to keep up with the pace of online growth. We introduced the second building in 2015, joining the two buildings to form a 2.1 million sq ft campus.”

John Lewis’s logistics and transport is almost all in-house, although it uses an ancillary DC in Northampton run by Clipper Logistics to handle customer returns and preparation of some inbound product ranges, as well as an operation to support e-commerce run by iForce – now part of Eddie Stobart Logistics.

“We also have a joint venture with Clipper, Clicklink, a multi-user arrangement built around John Lewis deliveries of click and collect into Waitrose,” says Munnelly. “All the Waitrose fulfilment we handle here is sent to two Clipper

Automation for the people The UK’s largest deparment store group has expanded and automated its DCs to meet demand from high street and online customers. Steve Hobson reports regional sorting centres where they sort and deliver it the next day to Waitrose shops.”

Taking a tour of the site, the first thing that strikes visitors is how clean and well-looked after it is, belying its 10-years’ service. Naturally the other contrast with more conventional warehouses is the lack of people and the scale of automation used.

Agency support

“Across the campus we have 660 full-time equivalent partners and on a shift like today [in March] we might have 160 people,” says Munnelly. “We have three shifts, seven days a week. On top of investment in automation, last year we needed about 1,200 additional agency people to support us through peak periods.

Black Friday is now our biggest peak by a mile, followed by Christmas and our clearance sales in June and January. The difference between the busiest day and typical volume is a factor of nine.”

As well as reducing labour costs, automation makes John Lewis more agile when it comes to stock turn, especially on merchandise such as fashion. The site works 24 hours a day, seven days a week – the only day off is Christmas Day – but outside peak periods the 33 maintenance engineers on site can shut down and work on

parts of the mechanised systems. “The automation is very flexible and reliable, and availability is more than 99%,” says Munnelly.

MP1 and MP2 are linked by a 96m bridge and together they store, pick and pack 260,000 SKUs. Hanging garments and small products are handled separately, coming together only at the final packing station to be consolidated into one of six different-size cartons for despatch to various final-mile carriers. The automation system relies heavily on green plastic tote bins to store and move product around the site, bringing product to the operative rather than having them walk around the vast site.

MP1 is 15m high and MP2 is 20m high and both are having extra mezzanine levels added to boost capacity. “The real engineering feat was putting in the link bridge,” says Munnelly.

“The original idea was just one building, MP1 – it was supposed to be bigger than we would ever need. All the planning data in 2005 suggested we would need only approximately 500,000sq ft but it soon became apparent that might not be the case.

“Three years ago we completed the business case for the second building and it was sold on the premise that we could consolidate hanging fashion with smaller items already resident.

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ing garments had a product from MP1 as well.

As a result of this investment, last year we sent out approximately one million fewer parcels just by being able to consolidate orders, so that was a big win.”

Decant stations

Products arrive direct from suppliers or the ancillary warehouse and are received and entered into the system. “Generally stock goes to decant stations where we take the product out of suppliers’ packaging and place it in our tote bins,” says Munnelly. “The totes then get conveyed and put into the automated storage areas over the link bridge in MP2 until the system says it needs more of that product.

“Small ‘binnable’ items are placed in tote bins in MP1 and hanging garments go to MP2.

We are unique in having a single pool of stock – all 260,000 products are served both to stores as replenishment and customer delivery.”

Two automatic storage and retrieval (ASR) machines, completely unmanned, manage approximately 260,000 tote bins with a different product in each bin. Depending on the rate of sale, there might be 10 boxes with the same product or just one tote holding the entire stock for the building.

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installed throughout the solution use about 800 robot shuttles feeding high-speed lifts that work on the front of the OSR machines, enabling product to be accessed very quickly.

“We installed the YLOG shuttle system for tote storage 18 months ago,” says Munnelly. “It can go not only horizontally and vertically but can also turn through 90 degrees so it can roam across all the aisles. We only have three pick stations and the operation we migrated from had 26 people doing the picking and packing that three do now.”

The hanging garment solution in MP2 is on six levels totalling nearly 1 million sq ft of floor space and holding 1.5 million hanging garments in stock. “Three levels are traditional manual storage,” says Munnelly. “Conveyors transport the garments and partners store them on rails.

The dark store area at the top of the structure is an automated dynamic buffer system that holds ‘some of everything’. Nothing is physically picked in this area, it is fully automated. The replenishment of the dynamic storage area comes from the manual storage areas below.”

As hanging garments come into the storage system, hangers are automatically allocated to RFID transponders. Then a scanner reads the barcode and attaches the product information to the RFID tag so the barcodes are never

scanned again. “That has reduced misreads enormously,” says Munnelly. “From that point on if we look for that garment the system is looking for its transponder not the barcode.”

Deliveries to stores are handled on the first morning shift, with the focus switching to e-commerce later in the day.

Single selling units

Shops are replenished using larger plastic tote bins. The bins, limited to a maximum weight of 19.99kg for manual handling safety, are stacked and strapped onto wheeled dolly bases.

“We send products shop-ready as a single selling unit,” says Munnelly. “Previously, if a product came from the supplier in a pack of 20 we would send that pack of 20, and the store would put three on the shelf and 17 in the back room. So we had a situation where up to 60% of stock was downstream of the DC so we couldn’t access it for e-commerce. Now we break it down into single selling units and send the shops exactly what they want. We stream to more than 1,000 different bin group combinations for the 50 shops. This service is popular with the selling branches as once the products arrive at the branch the replenishment effort is easier. Now 85% of stock goes direct to shelf compared with 25% in the old days.” ■ MotorTransport 27

29/08/2018 11:40:46

Camera systems

Will video-based systems replace telematics? Louise Cole looks at the shifting face of fleet safety

Shifting views F

leet cameras have moved on from simple dashcams. Today, they protect against fraudsters and blindspots, provide a narrative for what is otherwise merely data, and can offer potentially the most powerful driver coaching systems the industry has had.

And, increasingly, they are absorbing the functions of traditional telematics. In fact camera is becoming a misnomer.

What the industry is now offered is a revolutionary suite of video-based management tools.

Ten years ago the big sell into the fleet market was telematics. The USP morphed from vehicle tracking to fuel use reduction to driver behaviour. But its emphasis was always on efficiency and cost reduction. Improved safety was just a valuable by-product of curing drivers of a heavy right foot. Today, however, while the fastest-growing cost to fleets may be the price of diesel, the biggest risk, financially and legally, is collision. Insurance costs have risen markedly since the change to the Ogden tables and the increasing problem of driver distraction and fatigue (MT 5 March) make corporate manslaughter laws an ever-looming shadow.

Changing landscape

In answer to this is the not-so-humble digital video camera, rapidly accruing a dizzying array of acronyms and techiesounding functionality. What it comes down to is they can film operators’ risks in action and also say, using GPS and G-force data, where, when and how the vehicle was being driven.

“The telematics landscape is changing,” says John Mills, sales director at Lytx. “The black box has done many things well for many years but if you have a video-based event recorder you don’t need it anymore.”

The old adage that efficiency equals safety no longer serves.

“The correlation between efficiency and safety isn’t nearly 28 MotorTransport MTR_030918_028-029.indd 28

as clear or as nuanced as we [as an industry] need it to be,” says Aidan Rowsome, vice-president, EMEA, at SmartDrive Systems.

Many companies, including Brigade, Smart Vision, SmartWitness, Provision, Exeros Technologies, and FastView, can all provide 360-degree views of the vehicle, incident recording and blindspot focus with a driver monitoring screen. They’ll also meet the FORS/TfL Direct Vision-mandated views of the nearside and blindspots and many other functions.

Integrated data

However, the really interesting progression of video-based systems is the power of the integrated data. Trakm8’s RH600 integrates telematics with a driver performance ‘lightbar’ and routeing and scheduling data. The 4G camera systems allow live streaming so operators can log into the camera view at any time, as well as faster upload of exception-based events to the cloud. “It brings it all into one box, and costs less than £500, which is less than the individual elements,” says Trakm8 MD of fleet and optimisation Colin Ferguson. He says the real power of the system is in the actionable information that operators can pull from the analysis of this combined data. “Our Insight platform has default perspectives, but you can create widgets to interrogate the data in different ways. It becomes proactive and powerful.”

SmartWitness layers the functionality available in its cameras systems in a modular fashion, starting with single or multiple standard SD-card-based dashcams up to systems that can live stream, issue video alerts, and capture telematics data.

CEO Paul Singh says a system that can do all of these and be FORS-compliant, for example, could cost between £600 and £1,000 per vehicle. He suggests that typical return on investment (ROI) is between three and nine months.

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OPERATOR VIEW: BIBBY 3PL Bibby Distribution has rolled out forward-facing and in-cab cameras to 90% of its fleet to integrate with its Microlise telematics system. Head of fleet and procurement Adam Purshall says its rationale is to protect its drivers. “We’d driven baseline scores so that all drivers were A or B, but we needed to take it to that next level,” he says. The company allocates considerable resource to driver performance management. First-line managers review performance as part of a standard debrief on a daily or weekly basis; and specific issues are referred to the driver trainers. “We’re seeing a year-on-year reduction in accident stats and expect long-term insurance savings,” says Purshall.

SOFTWARE PROVIDER: MOBILEYE Vehicle safety and security firm Handsfree is the UK distributor for Mobileye collision prevention technology. Mobileye is a camera system that uses visual acuity software to identify hazards, their distance from the vehicle and their likely trajectory, effectively acting as an extra pair of eyes for the driver.

The parameters for alerts are measured in seconds – ie two seconds from the vehicle – and can be adjusted for each vehicle and application.

Sales manager Craig Thomas says its array of standard cameras for nearside, offside or forward-facing recording, together with in-cab monitor, costs between £1,000 and £1,200, and its Mobileye unit with different benefits, costs approximately £650. Although this could be a great collisionprevention technology, MT thinks it would double its value to operators if it recorded what it saw. As it is, Handsfree says that it has integrated the data (but not footage) from Mobileye into its DataLive platform but hopes that within six months Mobileye’s creators will have addressed this deficiency.

The real power of video is still enhanced by coupling it to Canbus data, argues ProVision chief marketing officer Franco de Bonis. “Irish operator McCulla Transport is a good example,” he says. “It had been using Bluetree telematics with very strong results. However it needed better accident reporting systems and protection against fraudulent claims. McCulla linked the data points from its telematics to the footage and found most incidents could have been avoided. As a result, it saved an additional 3% on its fuel bill, equating to £80,000, and estimates its total savings will be £200,000 a year.”

Driver coaching

Video footage is invaluable for driver coaching. It provides a narrative for telematics data, removes room for excuses, and makes lessons both sharply relevant and compelling. Was that harsh braking the product of heroic reflexes or a panicked response by a texting driver? External cameras tell part of the story and internal cameras the rest.

But managers still need the time and resource to manage, review and action all this data. SmartWitness offers SmartGuard, an alert sorting service whereby its staff remove false positives from its facial-recognition tracking and rate alerts based on urgency. This is more an administrative service than one offering feedback for drivers.

SmartDrive and Lytx both offer fully managed services,

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whereby the footage is reviewed, the behaviours noted and specific coaching alerts for each driver passed back to their line manager. Lytx uses a mix of in-house and external assessors, while SmartDrive exclusively uses its own team. However, they both assert that most fleet managers will lack the statistical benchmarks for assessing risk, the objectivity and, frankly, the time to watch, assess and act on every piece of footage.

“Drivers also like third-party reviewers because it removes all the subjectivity,” says John Mills, enterprise sales director of Lytx. “We’ve had clients who have tried to sample their data, reviewing 10% of it and extrapolating across the fleet, but it doesn’t drive risk reduction.” He says operators need to identify and address all the root causes of driving incidents to have a real effect on collision rates.

SmartDrive takes the same telematics-style triggers and risk scores drivers against dozens of observations that can be amended by the client. Those observations, which include seat belt use, eating, drinking, phone use, and fatigue, as well as driving practices, such as close following or poor anticipation, form the basis of specific insights that form the basis of the coaching session.

Lytx says its coaching system allows drivers to self-coach, which is useful for remote or lone workers.

Return on investment

When telematics first appeared there were wild claims about ROI through fuel savings and then a period of disillusionment as operators often struggled to use the data sufficiently to make this a reality. However, camera and video-based systems usually pay back within one year (when insurance discounts will kick in) and often far sooner. The systems no doubt benefit from a more skilled and mature profession – fleet managers have upskilled from being experts in transport to strategic users of data. They also benefit from a range of price points, and the fact that the most basic dash-cam can protect fleets from erroneous 50-50 insurance settlements and fraudulent claims.

Where telematics’ ROI is fundamentally from fuel-savings, video-based systems will start with insurance defence and rapid first notification of loss but then pay and pay if they’re used to coach drivers away from problematic behaviours. Unlike skillsbased training, video-based systems have the potential to act as a mirror to the individual. ■ MotorTransport 29

30/08/2018 07:53:54

MT Awards 2018 winner profile Business Excellence Award

Quick clipper Business Excellence Award winner Miniclipper Logistics is a fast-growing family haulage firm run by husband and wife Peter and Jayne Masters

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iniclipper Logistics can trace its history back to 1971 when it was started by Mick Masters as one man and a van in Leighton Buzzard. The privately owned business, still based in the Bedfordshire town, has expanded strongly since its humble beginnings and now specialises in UK B2B pallet delivery and warehousing services with 130 employees and more than 300 customers. It has four warehouses totalling 300,000sq ft and a 24hr DC, which offer a fully integrated storage, fulfilment and delivery service delivering 250,000 pallets a year.

MD Peter Masters, son of founder Mick, told MT: “We are delighted to have won the Business Excellence award, which reflects the hard work of all our people. The projects we have under-

taken, actions and strategy combined have made a major contribution to our business stability, while maintaining high customer service.”

The Palletline and Hazchem network member company has an annual turnover of more than £13m and sustained growth of 10% per year. In the three years to 2017 turnover increased 17.6%, while its delivery KPIs were between 97.5% and 99.4%. Staff retention is high, with nearly half the workforce having worked for Miniclipper for at least five years, and 15% have been there for between 10 and 20 years, while 3% have been with the business for 30 to 40 years.

Sales director Jayne Masters said: “We like to think that we are the type of company where employees like to stay because they get the opportunity to develop. Despite a driver shortage, as an employer with a good reputation for retaining staff with better than average pay levels, we have a full complement of class 1 and 2 drivers, all with ADR training under their belt, and we consider direct deliveries a core strength for our customers.”

Personalised touch

ALL SMILES: Hireco sales director Tim Gibson, second left, presents the award to Miniclipper Logistics MD Peter Masters, centre, and sales director Jayne Masters, third left

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Miniclipper has two sites in Leighton Buzzard, one in Houghton Regis and one in Dunstable, all close to the M1. It has customers in a range of business sectors including retail, clothing, foods, raw materials, packaged chemicals and industrial products and is approved consolidation pallet carrier for Sainsbury’s, Amazon and Waitrose. Customers are provided with a “go to” customer services representative, who they meet and who understands their business, as well as full access to its leadership team when required. “We believe a personalised touch is key,” said Jayne.

“Customers can speak directly to myself or 3.9.18

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LOOKING AFTER ITS STAFF Miniclipper has introduced a Medicash plan, rolled out to all salaried staff, which includes medical and dental services. It has also invested in an employee wellbeing programme from Health Assured, one of the leading employee assistance plan and psychological service providers in the UK. The firm is active in local initiatives, sponsoring Wing Raiders junior football team, and is a strong supporter of Transaid having funded a bicycle ambulance to help medical staff living in rural Africa. In 2017 Miniclipper featured in Grant Thornton’s Bedfordshire Top 100 companies.

Peter if they have a query and there is a partnership approach that customers don’t get from competitors.”

Miniclipper recently launched an initiative that means six customers a month receive a complimentary premium service for an upcoming pallet delivery. The company will also arrange a next-day timed upgrade or half price delivery, tailored to the needs of the customer.

“Pallet damage at Miniclipper is rare but all the directors hear about any incidents and we work to put things right straight away if something happens,” Jayne said. “It all contributes to the success of our relationships and high levels of trust and professionalism.”

According to Miniclipper, it successfully wins the business of more than 30% of companies that come to view its facilities, with average

WHAT THE JUDGES WANTED In the Business Excellence category at the MT Awards, judges were looking for a company that could demonstrate its commitment and excellence in financial performance, a long-term business growth strategy, care for the environment, excellent corporate social responsibility and high service levels and outstanding staff development and retention programmes. Miniclipper Logistics secured the award after being described by the judges as a “solid business with strong values”. The company was praised by the judges for its “exceptional service, people and environmental focus”. They singled out its focus on creating a strong foundation for the future. The judges were also impressed with the testimonials supplied by customers.

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storage customer retention at seven years. It also has long-term partnerships with many of its customers, the longest one being 30 years with The Open University, based in Milton Keynes. Furthermore, the company’s overall annual customer retention for 2017 was 91%.

“Our company is attractive to large blue chip customers that require a niche service,” Peter said. “The products we store and deliver are characteristically industrial high-value goods and our key customers are big players in their industry. We want to work with more businesses whose profiles reflect the same characteristics as our most profitable accounts.”

Generic growth

Miniclipper has reduced the average debtor days to 51 by rigorously credit checking new clients, taking credit references, and monitoring credit updates for each client. Because of the high-quality customer service it provides, the company can secure an average next-day pallet price up to 10% higher than the average for the south east. Also, warehousing revenues and utilisation is strong, with rates at least five to 10% higher than the average for the south east, enabling it to afford good-quality employees and rewards.

Peter said: “Our global competitors have their strengths and unique selling points, some of which are related to their size, buying power or scale. We want to learn from their successes, however we are not looking for global domination, instead we want to see generic growth.

Also, we will not rule out acquisitions if the right opportunities present themselves.”

It’s been a busy year at Minclipper: it relaunched its website, which it benchmarked against the best in the industry; championed a restriction on tail-lift deliveries to 750kg – from 1 tonne – which is now mandatory practice

across the network and is spreading across other networks; and introduced new technology, Open WMS by Advanced group, and Paragon to plan deliveries and select optimal routes. It has also improved cost-effectiveness and transport efficiency.

Peter, a Palletline board member, said: “Live tracking across our entire fleet allows us to update our customers on their deliveries and keep drivers informed on their planned schedule. The Paragon system has also helped us reduce empty mileage.

“We punch above our weight when it comes to technology; we often think of ourselves more as a technology company that happens to store items and transport pallets.”

Friendly rivalry

When it comes to environmental matters Miniclipper is proud of its credentials. The company uses Microlise Fleet Telematics to monitor driving styles, with a bonus reward system for drivers for good driving, improved mpg, and vehicle damage reduction. It has installed solar panels on its warehouses and uses energy-efficient lighting to reduce electricity consumption.

Peter said: “The driver league table has created positive, friendly rivalry, which is improving fuel economy and environmental impact. We’re looking at the potential benefits of introducing gas and electric trucks into the fleet.”

Transport accounts for between 65% and 70% of the business, with warehousing the rest. The company has a modern – mainly MAN – fleet of 40 rigid and artic trucks, ranging from 7.5 tonnes to 18 tonnes, as well as 35 trailers. Its fleet clocks up an annual mileage of 1 million.

Peter said: “The trucks are maintained by dealer John Arnold Commercials, in Bedford, and we are happy with the service we get.”

At a time when 41% of loan applications were being refused in the UK for business development, Miniclipper secured a £1.55m commercial mortgage from Barclays to vacate a leased DC in Leighton Buzzard and purchase the freehold of a former factory. Converting the site into its headquarters and a DC saves £350,000 a year, while development of leased office space provides £200,000 of rental a year.

A third generation of leadership is coming through with the couple’s children both working in the logistics sector and with a long-term plan to join the family business. Peter concluded: “The future for us is about focusing on what we are good at and continuing to provide an excellent service.

“Getting the Motor Transport Business Excellence Award is very nice but we don’t want to take our eyes off the ball or rest on our laurels.

You can’t afford to slip back in this industry, it’s very competitive.” n MotorTransport 31

30/08/2018 15:03:20

MT Awards 2018 winner profile Innovation Award

It’s a no-brainer Renault’s automatic park brake impressed the MT Awards judges not only for its safety features but as an example of development and technical teams working together successfully

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hy wouldn’t you have this?” was one judge’s comment when picking Renault Trucks’ automatic park brake as the winner of the Innovation Award over some other very strong contenders. Even presenter Jimmy Carr commented on the night of the awards ceremony that a handbrake that came on automatically when the driver got out of the vehicle seemed to be a “no-brainer”.

But developing this seemingly obvious safety feature was not as simple as it sounds. Linking the door-opening sensor to the park brake

control so it applies the brake when the driver leaves the cab sounds straightforward. But it was anything but, as Mike Stringer, product engineer at Renault Trucks, explained.

“We had a number of customer requests for this feature as long ago as 2014, so the ball started rolling pretty much as soon as we had the electronic park brakes,” he said. “With the bodybuilder module, if there is equipment deployed, for example, the park brake can be held on so that the driver can’t release it until the equipment has been safely stowed. So we had initial discussions with our product team in Lyon, who came up with the first set of software parameters.”

The UK product development team in Warwick then spent 18 months working on the system before putting it on a customer trial vehicle in 2016. “We had some feedback from the fleet engineer where he had the vehicle operating from one particular depot. He said: ‘I’m getting some objections in this particular site, so I’m going up to have a look’,” said Stringer. “He went up to have a look, and it turned out they didn’t like it because they couldn’t open the door while reversing. He said ‘exactly! That’s what I’m trying to stop’.

“One issue is distraction. But the other is there are still some old-fashioned practices that he did not want to see on his site. We then extended the trial to include all the Range T fleet, based at one depot. He now fits it across his Range T fleet.”

Incompatibility

The early version of the system used hard wiring from the door control ECU to the bodybuilder module (BBM), with the necessary software supplied by France and installed via the dealer.

“The only issue we had was incompatibility with some PTO operations, because when the driver reset the engine speed for pumping, as the door was opened the software cut the engine speed back to idle,” said Stringer. “It still worked, but we had to be aware that there were some markets where it didn’t suit the operation.”

The solution came with the next generation of the BBM, which provided a door-open signal, and modified software. This means the auto32 MotorTransport MTR_030918_032-033.indd 32

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matic park brake is now available as an ex-factory option via a ‘customer adaption’ of the BBM. “We can now offer it on anything with electronic park brake that includes all Range T, larger Range C and Range K,” said Nigel Butler, Renault Trucks commercial director. “It has been available in the UK as a factory upgrade for around six months and is now fitted to more than 250 trucks.”

Threshold speed

An additional safety feature built in to the software is that the brake will not be applied if the vehicle is travelling at more than 3kph. “It also checks speed, because obviously if it gets a false signal that the door is open at 50mph, you don’t want it to apply the park brake,” explained Stringer. “We started off with zero speed, but decided to give it a threshold speed.”

Although there are no hard statistics on the number of vehicle rollaways, there have been plenty of well-publicised tragedies and it is a widely recognised but little discussed problem.

“It seems to be due to driver distraction,” said Butler. “The driver pulls up, opens the window, has a conversation with a security guard or whoever, and they get out of their normal process of control. That’s when unfortunately these things happen because no one wants to do it.”

Like other automated driver safety aids, the automatic park brake is intended to be a backup system and should not replace good practice by drivers. The system really comes into its own when drivers are coupling a tractor unit to a trailer without first applying the park brake.

“If they forgot to put the handbrake on and couple up to the trailer, it releases the trailer brake, and that’s when you get the uncontrolled vehicle movement,” said Stringer. “There the danger is worse because people can be trapped between trailer and unit.

“The driver pulling up, forgetting to put the handbrake on, jumping out of the cab and the whole thing disappearing down the road is probably only a fraction of the problem.”

At present, the automatic park brake is available as a customer option, but Butler would like to see it as standard fitment on all Renault Trucks. “We could – and probably should – fit features like this a standard, but the commercial reality of life is that there are lots of things that carry an additional cost we could put on the truck that customers, for whatever reason, see no value in,” he reflected. “At some point the demand for this may come to a point where we do fit it as standard. Now some customers are happy to pay for it and some are not.”

Butler said one immediate benefit of winning the Innovation Award is that it is an excellent 3.9.18

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reminder to the sales force to tell customers that the automatic park brake is available, as well as a pat on the back for the development team.

“It is a good example of where the product team, the aftermarket team and the guys who manage the customer adaptions all worked together,” he said. “It was their communication with the software people in Lyon that made it work, because trying to get software modified on a truck is quite tricky.” ■

ON THE NIGHT: Renault Trucks commercial director Nigel Butler, centre, receives the trophy from Goodyear sales general manager commercial UK & Ireland David Howe, second right

AUTOMATIC PARK BRAKE IN ACTION Renault Trucks has fitted the automatic park brake to the red Range T High that welcomes visitors to the UK head office in Warwick. We got a demonstration of the system from Mike Stringer, product engineer at Renault Trucks.

“The first level of security is when you turn the ignition off the park brake applies,” he explained. “That was in the concept when the electronic park brake was first launched.”

With the engine running, the park brake automatically disengages when the gear selector is put into drive and you pull away. But if the door is opened the brake will not release without manual intervention. “It gives a warning: ‘park brake applied’. Even if we’re still in gear, with the brake on, it’s not going anywhere,” Stringer said. “If we shut the door, the park brake’s still applied. When it logged the door open, even though we’ve now shut the door, it doesn’t know whether we got out or climbed in, so it won’t auto-release. If we put it in neutral and back into drive, because it knows there’s been some intervention, it will release the brake; alternatively we could release the brake manually. But you can’t just get out and leave it – if we tried to get out the truck just pops it on.”

As Jimmy Carr said, the automated park brake is simple yet effective. Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

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