What is the secret of successful buying? Delegates to this
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year's Brewery Transport Advisory Committee seminar heard some of the answers
Nhether they concern fork lift trucks, ipany cars, tyres, 38-tonne tractive :s or even subscriptions to technical Tials like this one, purchasing isions should never be based on ches, but on reliable information ch has been properly evaluated. cient fleet management, whatever size of fleet, now depends on this re than ever.
Chese are the principal messages to erge from this year's Brewery insport Advisory Committee seminar ich took "Best buys" as its theme. kndrew Davis, a former senior itbread engineer who last year set up own business as a physical distribution hnical consultant regards none of the rent, standard specification local ivery vehicles as "a best buy". "In a rid market of over capacity, it is prising that the vehicle manufacturers ren't produced a more customer antated distribution vehicle," says "is.
)rop frame and centre spine 'versions, like those in service with ny brewers' fleets, had shown 'antifiable benefits", according to yis, but still fell far short of the 'cification required by many operators. -Ie repeated his call for European nufacturers to take more notice of the ically new design of local delivery ride, a front wheel drive 16 tonner h air suspension front and rear, for ich BTAC engineers have been bying since 1981.
kt last year's European Transport :intenance Council conference in asbourg (CM, December 14, 1985) an Hancock of the National Bus mpany had publicly acknowledged the :ential of the BTAC concept vehicle midi bus applications. Davis described s as "a significant landmark." red Southcott, fleet manager of unton Cider, criticised fork lift truck nufacturers for the general lack of a -ofessional approach" in their response an invitation to tender.
He singled out Nissan as the nufacturer which had been most ifessional in its response when unton Cider had embarked on a major k lift replacement progranune three )rs ago. "Good after sales service is :ically important to a relatively small npany such as ourselves," says Jthcott. Nissan, in addition to matching precisely the outline specification laid down by Taunton Cider, had been more convincing than any of its rivals in demonstrating that it could provide it. The result is that Taunton Cider now operates 13 Nissan fork lift trucks, some LPG powered, some diesel powered.
Purchasers seeking a best buy in a company car were urged by consultant Stan Thomas, former fleet engineer with Allied Brewers, not to fall into the trap of taking in isolation any of "the three basic elements of car costs: acquisition, operation and disposal." "What is required is a costing method which can recognise the correlation between acquisition, operation and disposal price, and put the cash flows into perspective relative to their occurrence during the car's period of service," he says.
Ray Stark, Scottish and Newcastle's physical distribution director put up a strong case for specifying diesel engined company cars.
"Our company car fleet covers approximately 25 million miles per annum. When the fleet was all petrol we used 4,196.0(X) litres (923,000 gallons) to cover that mileage. With diesel this dropped to 2,473,000 litres (544,000 gallons), a reduction of 1,223,000 litres (379,000 gallons) or 41 per cent," he says. However, fuel cost savings were not S and N's only reason for a wholesale switch to diesel. Improved reliability and less downtime for regular maintenance were also important, according to Stark.
Many people expect low residual value to be a diesel car disadvantage, and Stan Thomas had described this as "the most critical cost area" which has "the biggest single effect on whole life cost."
S and N's experience belies the commonly held belief that used diesel cars are worth less than equivalent petrol models: "All cars are sold through British Car Auctions and have produced sale values which, in the main, are 50 per cent higher for 160,000km (100,000 mile) diesels than we would get for 80,000km (50,000 mile), three year old petrol cars," says Stark.
He warned that not all diesel cars fit his main selection criteria: "Do they achieve the required fuel consumption? Are they able to reach the 160,000km (100,000 mile) mark, at least?
Choosing a computerised vehicle costing system was tackled by Malcolm Filsell. head of transport policy at the Post Office and Dr Tony Christer, professor of operational research, University of Salford.
Filsell explained how the Post Office had methodically evaluated various computer hardware and software before plumping for the Allied Aims VCMS System, run on IBM Series 36 mini computers. Among his best buy pointers are: "Need to know rather than nice to have, is a clue to choosing software. Be aware of the potential high costs in changing or modifying software."
Although the Post Office's fleet is very large, about 30,000 vehicles, many of Filsell's arguments for having accurate, computer based information systems apply equally to much smaller fleets.
Marke Bedeman, managing director of NFC's SPD Contract Distribution, and Allan Clark, Whitbread's distribution manager explained how a company could get a best buy in distribution. Bedeman's conclusion was that contract distribution, through organisations like his own was invariably more efficient than a company running its OWIP vehicles.
Allan Clark's view was that; even "the best way to get a best buy from own account operations is to directly expose them to competition from services available commercially elsewhere. What would you do if it were your money?" he asks.