NEWS INTERNATIONAL AFRICA/ EUROPE
City Logistics expands fleet with Serco.
SOUTH AFRICA Serco has built 56 Dryliner truck bodies – including 16 demountable units – for the Durban-based company, City Logistics, which is expanding its wideranging distribution fleet. City Logistics is a leading southern African logistics service provider to retailers with a specific emphasis on apparel and footwear. With more than 100,000 square metres of warehouse space and a fleet of over 1,200 vehicles, the company provides a complete management service to several blue-chip customers and southern African retailers. City Logistics has established a comprehensive distribution network in Southern Africa. Daily operations in distribution include deliveries to retail, industrial and automotive customers while the line-haul division operates on a 24-hour basis, providing an interdepot service for distribution and FTL deliveries for key customers. Serco CEO, Clinton Holcroft, said City Logistics had wanted high cube load bodies, so Dryliner units built with Protec steel facings and an injected foam were offered to provide a highly durable and lightweight 6 / G L O B A L TR A I L E R / I SS U E 64
panel construction. “We met the customer’s requirements with a combination of 8.25m and 8.8m high cube bodies, built at our Durban factory,” said Holcroft. “Five of the units were adapted to accommodate towing draw bar trailers and sixteen of the units were demountable bodies to enable efficient turnaround for loading and offloading.” City Logistics Director, Anthony Naicker, and Fleet Manager, Rodney Pillay, decided on Serco’s Protec panel construction which had been proven previously, to offer improved durability and hence a longer lifespan for the vehicle bodies, while also meeting the required volumetric capacity, said they were very pleased with the builds and looked forward to continue growing the partnership. AUSTRIA The Schwarzmüller Group achieved sales of €409 million in 2021, compared to €366 million euros in 2020 (up 13 per cent). The number of trailers the OEM produced increased from 8,800 in 2020 to 9,966 (up 12 per cent). “Despite the ongoing pandemic and
volatile market conditions, we have managed to break through a barrier in terms of turnover,” said Schwarzmüller Group CEO, Roland Hartwig. For the current year, Schwarzmüller has budgeted for a turnover of €460 million. However, this forecast is subject to the proviso that the geopolitical events in Ukraine cannot yet be evaluated. The supply of material and components as well as the price situation are still viewed as tense and subject to major fluctuations. According to Hartwig, with these sales figures and after the minimal increase in sales in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, it was possible to return to a double-digit growth trajectory that the company has enjoyed for almost 10 years. In 2021, 13,555 orders were received, which was 68 per cent more than in 2020 (8,053 incoming orders). The starting point for this boom was the investment backlog after the first year of the pandemic, said Hartwig. In addition, there was a trend in investments being made ahead of schedule, prompted by the incentives in place in some EU countries. BELGIUM Tanker specialist, LAG Trailers, has designed an AdBlue discharge installation under its own approval. To reduce wear and tear and improve servicing requirements, the LAG AdBlue discharge equipment does not feature moving parts and can also be connected to an additive pump. Master Designer, Verstraten, said the business identified increasing demand for connecting additive pump to AdBlue dispensers. “In order for an Adblue pump to function optimally, an additive is indispensable,” he said. “This is certainly
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