July 16, 2007 - How many organisations really listen to their customers? If they listen, how deeply do they understand and then how seriously do they take action? Briggs Equipment recently established an entirely new national service division after listening to its customer, Fraikin.
Fraikin is one of the largest commercial vehicle fleet service providers in the UK, with more than 1,700 vehicles in its 14,000-strong fleet benefiting from the fitment of a tail lift. Supporting fleets of vehicles with customers such as NHS Logistics and the National Blood Service demands high standards of support delivered on national scale. However, despite the steady growth in the UK tail lift market, which is now Europe’s largest market for Vehicle Mounted Lifting Equipment (VMLE), service provision has remained highly fragmented with a barrage of up to 42 local/regional service providers often required to cover the country.
When Fraikin first started talking to Briggs Equipment, ever more onerous operating regulations and increasing safety legislation meant that the fleet provider had a need for a tailor-made solution delivered on a national scale to meet stringent and uniform standards. In order to fill this gap, Briggs created a new VMLE Division to research, plan and deliver this service.
Briggs’ first consideration was for service delivery. In addition to regular inspection and maintenance inspections, tail lifts require weight tests to meet LOLER regulations. Traditionally this service is delivered by mobile engineers who tow the weights in trailers behind the service van. The engineer has to manually handle these weights; six in total each weighing 300 kg. This is time consuming and cumbersome and also incurs the risk of repetitive strain, back problems and other injuries.
Briggs decided that this could be done more safely and efficiently if the weights were carried inside the vans and distributed using a remote controlled hoist mechanism. Ken Stoll, Briggs’ VMLE project manager, designed in conjunction with QI Van Systems a unique crane and hoist and worked with the company to put the product into production. Ken comments, “There wasn’t a suitable design out there that met our requirements, so using specialist panel vans with an extended wheel-base and a 4 ton pay load to house the crane, hoist mechanism and 2 ton of test weights. A remote unit controls the lifting and placement of the weights, which means that the weight tests can be conducted more safely in less time, and with a greater degree of accuracy to meet LOLER regulations for Thorough Examination and weight testing. These vans are supplied by Fraikin and are the only ones of their kind in operation.” In addition to the crane system, each van is kitted out with an on-board welding system, full set of tooling and over £4000 of tail lift parts.
With its network of over 450 highly trained service engineers, Briggs was ideally placed to provide the national service that Fraikin needed. The company cherry picked from its national team to establish a strong dedicated VMLE team. This team had extensive training in full diagnostics skills, lift change, and core competences in hydraulics and power packs and load and functionality tests, to ensure national standards are delivered to the highest levels. To meet the time critical service levels on national breakdowns, Briggs also trained its entire engineering workforce on familiarisation for tail lift repairs and servicing.
Ian Valentine, Strategic Account manager at Briggs comments on the importance of matching internal service to the same high standards of those achieved externally, “We established a dedicated VMLE team in our National Service Centre with a unique telephone number, email and fax line. This team takes all VMLE calls for Fraikin and allocates a dedicated VMLE engineer to attend the customer calls. The service levels we have in place include 90 minute call out response, 12 hour working shifts, first fix rates and pricing discounts for multiple visits. Our new IT system has made the processes and management of this system easier and we have access to powerful business and customer intelligence reports to be able to monitor and uphold the strict SLA levels.”
In spending time to really listen and understand the customer’s needs and then respond with strong action has meant that Briggs has delivered a uniquely tailored solution to fill the gap Fraikin faced. Nick Cash, Fraikin’s Business Development Director, concurs, “We now have one national service provider and highly skilled engineers on call, on site in 90 minutes from the Isle of Wight to the Shetland Isles. This service will help us to reduce our breakdowns and keep the average repair costs per visit low. It has given us far greater control over the critical aspects of our supply chain than we could have imagined when we first started talking to Briggs.”
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Briggs Equipment UK
Briggs Equipment UK Ltd is a leading materials handling service provider and sole distributor of Yale Materials Handling products in Great Britain. Providing a wide range of equipment for a broad customer base, Briggs provides innovative, tailored and cost effective solutions on a nationwide basis. With its headquarters and national support centre in Cannock, Briggs people assist and advise in the delivery of long term solutions that enable customers to develop more efficient and results driven businesses.
Media contact:
Tiffany Clowes
Changeworks Communications
T. + 44 (0) 1785 247588
E.
Company Contact:
Scott Bullock
Briggs Equipment
Orbital Way
Cannock
WS11 8XW
T: 01543 430 455
W: www.briggsequipment.co.uk
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