Mobile bodybuilding show a big success
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
INFORMATION AND NEWS FROM VBG GROUP TRUCK EQUIPMENT • WINTER 2014
Major British
orders
More than a hundred couplings in
just two deals – a feat achieved
by VBG GROUP SALES Ltd. Read
more on page 8!
Tim Pickford
was the winner!
The winner of the competition in
the last issue was Tim Pickford
from Gillingham, Dorset.New
competition on page 8!
Road trains
with VBG
drawbeams
Volvo has developed a new way
of connecting up to five tractor
units for the Indian market –
with drawbeams from VBG at
the back and front of course.
Read more on page 6!
19 lubrication
systems all in
one go!
Mobile bodybuilding
We visit Meyer Logistics in
Halmstad, Sweden, who decided
to fit VBG MechMatic to all of
their vehicles. See page 4!
show a big success
In September, the Association of Swedish Truck Body Manufacturers (LFG) held its
second mobile bodybuilding show. Just like last time most of the events took place
on trotting tracks – with twice as many visitors as before. Both visitors and exhibitors
alike appreciated the opportunity to talk business in peace and quiet – see pages 2–3!
FIVE TRADE FAIRS IN FIVE DAYS:
Bodybuilder 2013
– the smartest show of the year?
LFG – the cooperation organisation for Sweden’s elite bodybuilders – held its second mobile
show just for professionals in five strategic locations around Sweden, starting in Örebro.
After a hectic September week with mostly glorious weather, it was clear that the goal had
been reached: over 1,500 professional customers took the opportunity to have a closer look
at the very latest models from 30 or so of the industry’s leading bodybuilders, without having
to squeeze past curious locals on a day out. Bodybuilder 2013 was a show where some
serious business was done!
A CONCEPT TO WHET THE APPETITE!
SHOW COORDINATOR THOMAS BERGENKLEV, whose day job
is marketing and sales director of VBG GROUP TRUCK EQUIPMENT, is
extremely pleased with the outcome of this year’s mobile show:
“With twice as many visitors as last time we can’t help but be pleased.
It feels like the concept is starting to gain a proper foothold among both
visitors and exhibitors. Almost everyone I spoke to over the course of
these five days – and that was quite a few people – really appreciated
the chance to talk business in peace and quiet without any distractions.
lenty of The trotting tra
provided p peace ck
il d e r 2 0 1 3 to a trade show environment is ideal for a visi
Bodybu siness in . Easy to park, t
y to talk bu – and good food plenty of room
opportunit !
and quiet.
A few junior professionals managed to sneak
into the show venue.
Satisfied exhibitors said lots of
interesting contacts were mad – a trade
e.
ff in ju st one place
resting st u
efficient.
All the inte hardly be any more
show c o u ld
Red trucks, green
produce
“With multiple drivers using each
truck, it’s easy for maintenance
of the coupling to fall by the
wayside. We effectively eliminate
that risk with VBG MechMatic!”
MÄSS-
VEPET
Aage Henneman in front of one of Meyer Logistics
Sverige’s 19 refrigerated trucks, all fitted with
VBG MechMatic units.
We visit Meyer Logistics Sverige, one
of five haulage companies that deliver
fresh produce to Lidl stores in south-
ern and central Sweden with the
terminal in Halmstad as its base.
T he haulage company is a subsidi-
ary of the German family-owned
Meyer Group, which specialises in
working for Meyer’s Norwegian branch.
Custom-built vehicles
95 per cent VBG
Of the 19 trucks, 18 are fitted with VBG
couplings with power actuator. Nearly
food transports with approximately required half of them also have Onspots.
1,200 trucks across Europe. Apart from In a single journey, five “Onspot makes that tiny little dif-
in Sweden, the red trucks can be seen different temperature ference that can save four hours
in eight other countries, including Ger- zones may be needed as well as four minutes, so we
many, Italy, the Czech Republic and – not many bodybuild- have them on routes with slip-
Romania. ers can match that. pery conditions,” continues
14 trucks are based in Halmstad; one The refrigeration units Aage Henneman.
has a trailer while the other 13 have a come from Carrier or The truck with another
dolly – and there are also five trucks Thermo-King, de- make of coupling is the ol-
based in Eskilstuna. The rigs are leased pending on the speci- dest in the fleet and is due
ready-built on five-year contracts and fications. The vehicle to be replaced later this
at present all of them are Scanias – but fleet also includes a year.
site manager Aage Henneman is keen number of extra low- “Its superstructure was
to see the fleet supplemented with profile trucks, speci- done in Germany, so
another make of truck. ally adapted for shops we’ll have to view that
whose goods-in bays one as an ‘accident’ of
19 lube systems in one go! are in basement-level sorts. Next time it will
The 19 trucks are also the reason for garages. be VBG, as we know the
us being in Halmstad, talking to Aage. “They cut of f a x x service is competent and spa-
Last autumn he got hold of a copy of the metre from the height re parts are available every-
IAA 2012
brochure describing VBG MechMatic, and suddenly it’s twiceHannover,
as 20–27 september where. I’m also curious about
the automatic coupling lubrication and expensive!” laughs Aage,
1 904 utställare, 262 300 besökare the Multi Function Coupling
cleaning system. He started to do some who is keen to see standard concept, which seems very in-
sums and quickly realised that it would solutions wherever possible. teresting for our business. But
be a good deal – and soon there was we’ll probably have to wait for
a unit fitted to all 19 trucks. Truck with the forthcoming dolly version,”
“The trucks are in constant opera- trailer is cheapest concludes Aage Henneman. n
tion, covering up to 200,000 km a year, Aage uses GPS transmitters
many of them in two shifts and are to keep track of exactly where the ve-
coupled and uncoupled up to 10 times hicle are, how much fuel is being used
every day. With multiple drivers using and so on. The trend is clearly towards
each truck, it’s easy for coupling main- more trucks with trailers because, ac-
tenance to fall by the wayside. Now, cording to Aage, these have the lowest
we effectively eliminate that risk and total costs per transported pallet.
I’m convinced that this will be profi- But isn’t it risky to have just one
table. And it goes without saying that customer?
the drivers are happy about not “You might think so, but the Meyer
getting dirty from carrying out Group and Lidl have worked well to-
the lubrication work,” explains gether for decades and we take a long-
Aage, who is from Bergen in term approach to our assignments. If
West Norway. He mo- we were to drive for more customers,
ved to Halmstad after we’d probably end up with some over-
Lidl sold its Norwegian capacity, so it’ might not pay off. To-
operations a few years gether with our sister companies we
ago – already then take a global approach,” says Aage.
Aage Henneman shares experiences with visitors
Vestfyn Trækker 2012, Folketingets Gunnar Hermansson and Thomas Bergenklev from
Ejby trafikordförande VBG GROUP TRUCK EQUIPMENT.
1–3 juni, 130 utställare,
8000 besökare
Supplier of the
year rewarded for
100% quality
For some time now VBG GROUP TRUCK EQUIPMENT has
been working in a structured way to evaluate all our major
suppliers each quarter on the basis of criteria such as delivery
precision, quality problems and level of service. In 2012,
the Supplier of the Year award was established to promote
the work to improve the quality of purchased items – and in
turn the quality that we can supply to our customers. Quite
simply the goal is for the best couplings in the world to keep
getting even better.
The first company to win this award in its inaugural year of
2012 was Stévenin-Nollevaux from Les Hautes Rivières in
France, which produces forged parts for lifting arms, and
now also steering arms for the VBG 575V-2 couplings. The
company has around 100 employees and annual revenue of
approximately EUR 15.5 million.
Stévenin-Nollevaux was chosen from around 150 supplying
companies due to its excellent qualifications –100% delivery
precision with no quality problems, in combination with good
service and a high level of technical expertise. Congratulations
Thierry Latour from Stévenin-Nollevaux receives the award from Cecilia
from us at Connection! Cooper, Head of Purchasing at VBG GROUP TRUCK EQUIPMENT.
HEAVY HAULAGE IN INDIA:
A new form of road train
– with VBG equipment
REALLY HEAVY TRANSPORTS such as steam generators or reactor tanks the extremely variable road standards are very taxing. As a result, Vol-
are assignments that not even the most powerful of trucks can manage vo has come up with a new way of hitching up as many tractors as are
alone. Three, four or even five ‘tractors’ may be needed to complete the job. required. The solution is based on front-mounted drawbeams from –
In the Indian market, this type of transport is relatively common and well, do we have to spell it out? (Photo: Volvo)
The Symphony Group
stays in tune with VBG
SUCCESS FOR VBG IN THE United Kingdom continues. Field
trials of the new 50 mm VBG 575V-2 drawbar coupling in part-
nership with the Symphony Group has now led to an order for over
fifty such couplings with power actuators, to be installed on just
as many brand-new truck combinations with bogie centre-axle
trailers. Symphony is one of the UK’s largest suppliers of fitted
kitchen, bedroom and bathroom furniture and have ordered their
new Mercedes 1824L Actros ”Streamspace” chassis through Inter-
county Truck & Van of Wellingborough.
The VBG 575V-2 design is unique for a 50mm load bearing coup-
ling, having a fixed guide funnel and designed primarily for opera-
tion with centre-axle type trail-
ers. It has a wide angle fixed
guide funnel with special wed-
ge shaped compression blocks,
positioned internally, either
side of the guide funnel mouth.
This new design not only redu-
ces the number of moving parts The VBG 575V-2 has been developed especially for use with
centre-axle trailers, allowing full articulation.
but helps to reduce damage
from potential abuse by giv- In another deal, 54 units of the VBG 795V with power actuator,
ing superior alignment of the VBG MechMatic lubrication system and jack-knife indicators have
UKMail chose VBG 795V
with Power Actuator and draw bar eye during the coup- been supplied to UKMail, one of the largest private courier com-
VBG MechMatic. ling procedure. panies in the UK.
VBG GROUP TRUCK EQUIPMENT AB
BOX 1216, SE-462 28 VÄNERSBORG
Denmark’s first suction & blower truck with VBG MFC
VBG MFC makes life easier, provides a safer working Faster and safer
environment and is a profitable investment from as With a VBG MFC
little as three connection/disconnection operations per the driver can com-
day. These were the reasons why haulier Lars Lund plete a coupling/ un-
coupling manœuvre
Pedersen chose MFC for his new Scania.
in just a few se-
BODYBUILDER CARSTEN PETERSEN from conds, without get-
Nordjysk Blæser-Service has with great interest ting out of the truck.
– and until recently some scepticism – fol- The alignment pro-
lowed the development in the VBG MFC that cess is started with
integrates all hydraulic, electrical and air con- the touch of a but-
nections and enables automatic connection and ton, using ultrasound
disconnection without the driver having to leave sensors. Then the
the cab. Now Carsten has built Denmark’s first mechanics, electrics,
VBG MFC-equipped suction & blower truck air and hydraulics are
– a Scania R730 with triple bogie, which has just connected automati-
been delivered to Pedersen’s in Falsbjerg. cally and the entire
sequence can be fol- Comfort appreciated
Doubts swiftly eliminated lowed on the instrument panel display. The new suction & blower truck will be used to
“I had my doubts about whether it really meant Not only does it save time, it also prevents deliver feed to and collect grain from farms in
financial sense for the haulier, but also whether connection damage that can be expensive, and the Falsbjerg area. To use the truck’s blower sys-
there was room for it on a suction & blower truck, In some cases you don’t need to have a rever- tem, Lars has to uncouple the trailer. In a normal
given how much equipment has to fit in at the sing camera. working day there can be five coupling/uncoup-
back,” says Carsten Petersen. ling operations and Lars also expects to save on
After doing a few sums, Carsten soon real- Convinced by colleagues maintenance and reduced wear. His decision to
ised that only three coupling and uncoupling Lars Lund Pedersen had actually already de- opt for VBG MFC is also based on comfort and
operations a day were needed for the VBG MFC cided on a standard VBG coupling when Car- working environment reasons.
to pay for itself. And the installation proved to sten Petersen showed him what the new sys- “I won’t get worn out from getting in and out
be very easy, so now he wouldn’t hesitate recom- tem could do. of the rig and having to root around among the
mending it to his customers. “I went through the cost estimates and spoke hoses and cables under the truck and I’ll stay dry,
“It takes a while to get all the connections in to colleagues with experience of the system and warm and clean all day long,” says a satisfied Lars
place, but otherwise there are no problems at all,” was soon convinced that it is well worth the ex- Lund Pedersen pulling away. n
continues Carsten. tra expense. So it was an easy decision to make.”
The picture of the Tim Pickford won! Tim Pickford, Operations Director for Dextra
year can be yours! Group plc. in Gillingham, Dorset, was the
lucky winner of a VBG MechMatic in the
last issue’s competition. Below, Colin Barge
ANETTE WALTHER FROM Middelfart in from VBG GROUP SALES Ltd (on the right)
Denmark has painted the VBG picture of the hands over the prize. Congratulations!
year. She usually works in acrylics and takes
inspiration from her travels to exotic places
like Hawaii, Cuba, Iceland and Indonesia.
“I love strong colours and contrasts and
my aim is for people to feel happy when they
look at my paintings,” says Anette, who has
exhibited her work in many countries. The
painting is available in a limited number of
prints. A copy could be yours for free (while
stock lasts) if you send your name and add-
ress to vbg@vbgltd.co.uk!
BE A WINNER WITH CONNECTION!
Answer a few simple questions about this issue and you can win a 1: How many VBG 795V units did UKMail buy?
case of VBG Mechanical Oil – 12 cans in total! We have four prizes 2: Which food chain does Meyer Logistics Sverige drive for?
to give away – one in the UK, one in Sweden, one in Denmark and 3: On which trotting track did Bodybuilder 2013 begin?
one in Norway! Don’t forget to write your name and full address E-mail your entry to vbg@vbgltd.co.uk titled ‘Competition’.
– good luck!
V B G G R O U P S A L E S L I M I T E D • Te l . + 4 4 1 9 2 5 2 3 4 1 11 • F a x + 4 4 1 9 2 5 2 3 4 2 2 2 • w w w. v b g g r o u p s a l e s . e u • M e m b e r o f V B G G R O U P
You can also read
