Suzuki GB has awarded a contract to Hammond Logistics to provide warehousing at Redhill, Surrey, for a further three years. The two companies have worked together for the past three years with Suzuki occupying the 3,720sq m Redhill warehouse, which handles goods in, picking and despatch.
Hammond deals with four or five daily vehicle movements in and out of the warehouse, with goods received from manufacturers direct or via Suzuki’s warehouse in Crawley and despatched to dealers throughout the UK.
The Sainsbury’s to You home delivery service has implemented Dolphin’s Networked Radio Service, a two-way radio communication to keep in contact with drivers delivering shopping to customers all over north London. For a fixed monthly fee, the service features press-to-talk (PTT) calls between handsets and has helped make deliveries more efficient by enabling the driver to talk directly to the transport office and customer care department.
Malcolm Farrow, transport manager at Sainsbury’s to You in Park Royal, London, says: “We originally selected the Dolphin service on the basis of price – unlimited radio calls for a fixed rate of £25 per month. Now, we also really rate the functionality of two-way radio – the drivers can just press the button on the left-hand side of the handset and start talking, without having to wait for the call to set up.”
Sainsbury’s to You has 4,000-plus shopping orders delivered a week by a fleet of 40 vans covering 325 routes between them, with the Park Royal operation covering north London. The Park Royal operation is using 44 Dolphin units, including a Cleartone d210 desk-based office terminal in the transport office. Specialist cash transfer Contract Security Services (CSS) is tracking its fleet on the Internet using technology from telematics company Masternaut. CSS specialises in collecting and handling cash for local authorities, with collections from parking meters, vending machines, schools and other public buildings.
Masternaut offers the latest in telematics development, combining GPRS mobile communications, GPS and web technology. It equips vehicles with an Family-owned international transport company Blair International is benefiting from an extra 20% tyre life from its fleet of 50 trucks and 150 trailers. The company has been using Michelin tyres for more than 15 years, but has only just started using the full Four Lives Package, which enables operators to maximise mileage and minimise costs by optimising tyre expenditure.
The package’s two principal procedures are regrooving and Michelin RemiX, which features an extra layer of usable under-tread rubber.
Blair International managing director David Blair says: “Regrooving has had a significant impact on our tyres’ performance and is proving to be an astute financial decision. Fitting Michelin as standard has always been our tyre policy, but the introduction of regrooving has led to a performance advantage of an extra 60,000km [20%] for each of the drive axle tyres, whilst the steer and trailer tyres are regrooved and used on lift and middle axles respectively.” Victoria Carpets, of Kidderminster, has brought 60% of its UK distribution in-house and is using a new fleet of nine commercial vehicles supplied on contract hire by Fraikin. The fleet comprises four 21-tonne ERFs and three 14-tonne Dafs equipped with box bodies; an 18-tonne Daf drawbar demount unit and trailer combination; and a Daf 14-tonne demount chassis.
The drawbar unit and trailer combination is being used for out-based delivery and overnight trunking while the 14-tonne demount chassis operates in the South.
Victoria Carpets joint managing director John Duncan says: “Deliveries had previously been made through a mix of contract distribution and third-party network services, but we wanted more control over the delivery process and the ability to offer our retailers a dedicated delivery service. The best way to achieve all of our objectives was to bring the contract distribution process in-house, which meant acquiring our own fleet of vehicles and employing our own drivers.”
The company despatches more than 3,000 carpets a week, with the in-house fleet serving core delivery areas and customers directly. Lower volume and more distant parts of the country are covered in partnership with Carpet Express.intelligent mobile collection unit (MCU) which allows connection of any on-board electronic devices, including alarms, door sensors, tachographs and in-cab routeing, navigation and job despatch.
James Britton, customer service manager at CSS, comments: “Masternaut provides a highly reliable and easily accessible service 24 hours a day that has the added advantage of being very affordable. Key, however, is the level of customer service provided by Masternaut.”
Sameday and next-day delivery specialist Initial City Link has added four Renault Premium 420.18 tractor units to its fleet – the first of this
make to join the firm’s fleet. On contract hire from Lex Transfleet, the Renaults are the first of this make to join City Link’s fleet having
matched the existing fleet on fuel.
Each of the Premiums are equipped with on-board telematics for reporting and ongoing performance monitoring, and are operating on trunking services – pulling double-deck trailers to and from a central hub five nights a week.
City Link’s fleet comprises about 140 tractor units on contract hire, operating from around 78 locations nationwide and providing about 170 trunks per night.
The company is part of Rentokil Initial. Rogers of Bedford has taken delivery of its first three Iveco Stralis tractor units for use at 44 tonnes nationwide in conjunction with curtainside and box trailers. The vehicles, which feature a second steer axle lift device, join the company’s mixed fleet of nearly 30 other Ivecos and Volvos. They are being used to transport a wide range of palletised goods to high streets throughout the country, and are expected to be on the fleet for five to seven years.
