Fleet engineer finalists deliver savings
1st June 2010
The four MT Fleet Engineer of the Year Finalists have each demonstrated improvements in the operational running of their fleets.
At the Comet Group, Ian Markham, 2004 winner, has recently introduced bespoke aerodynamic trailer design, investment in double-deck trailers, improvements in driver behaviour, and has saved £200,000 from the repair and maintenance bill by reducing non-beneficial items from contracts.
£300,000 has been saved at Indesit Company UK by Paul Pinfold through work on trailer design and load fill, accident management and vehicle damage reduction, cost visibility and compliance auditing.
At UK Mail, Kevin Webb has increased on-road time by two days per vehicle per year by lengthening vehicle inspection frequencies by 4 weeks to 12 weeks. He has also focused on tyres; testing on tyre-life aims to identify the idea tyre for the fleet, and already tyre pressure compliance has increased from 50% to 78% across the fleet. By introducing a 60/40 split of electric diesel fortklifts CO2 savings have been made. In addition he has also been working on improvements to trailer aerodynamics to make further efficiency improvements.
MT Fleet Engineer of the Year 2002, Brian Wheadon at Home Delivery Network, has recently reduced fleet emissions by 11% year on year through a combination of fleet reduction, vehicle selection and Safed training, and has reduced accidents by 23% by introducing driver training at every site. He has also achieved cost benefits through procurement evaluations.
Operators looking to make efficiencies from their trailer fleet can also take advantage of trailer management such as GPS trailer tracking from Axscend. With up-to-date information on your trailer fleet, knowing where are and what they are doing, trailers can be utilised more and stationary time can be reduced – driving down operational costs and improving profit margin.
