Transport Business

When it came to equipping its new headquarters and Freight Centre in Huthwaite, Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, B Taylor and Sons took the opportunity to invest in a fully integrated diesel fuelling point using Merridale pumps and FuelFX management reporting software, provided by MIS Fuel Monitoring of Wolverhampton.
    
B Taylor & Sons operates over 100 vehicles covering all types from articulated trailers and rigids used for trunking operations to smaller Transit/Sprinters for local collection and delivery services. The company consumes around 100,000 litres of fuel a month. In addition to the depot facilities, drivers also use fuel cards for external fuelling.
    
Built over a 110K litres underground storage tank, the depot fuelling point has two ‘twin’ self-service diesel dispensers, providing a choice of high and standard flow rates. Drivers access the pump by using a smart key coded to the vehicle and the keyboard to enter vehicle mileage and PIN to authenticate the transaction.
    
Every drop
These details are captured by computer monitoring, which together with electronic gauging, enabling the fleet administrators to reconcile precisely the storage tank contents against fuel drawn and updates after stock deliveries.
    
Details of all external transactions are imported into the Merridale fuel management system allowing the company to maintain a unified record across the entire fleet.
    
“Basically it means that we can account for every drop of diesel oil brought onto the premises and consumed by our fleet,” says operations consultant Ray Calladine. “Apart from the need to manage our costs, this is important because we are committed to operating our vehicles economically and with minimal impact on the environment in terms of carbon emissions.
    
“The recording system provides the reports we need to monitor the fuel drawn by individual vehicles and this can be used to calculate its fuel economy performance, in terms of miles per gallon. Any anomalies in mpg will be highlighted, enabling the staff to investigate further to ascertain the cause. This may be a service issue, traffic conditions on the route or possibly, the manner in which the vehicle is being driven.
     
“All of these factors can make a measurable difference of up to five per cent on the vehicle’s mpg performance and this translates to operating costs and impact on the environment.”

Services available
Taylors offer general haulage and distribution services to businesses based in the East Midlands and nationwide. Site facilities include warehousing with specialist expertise for transportation of hazardous products. Other work includes overnight deliveries as part of an international pallet network.
    
Logistics services range from the support for equipment manufacturers, packaging and newspapers. Contract movements include daily long distance runs to Spain, the Netherlands or Scotland. This can mean that some vehicles are away from the depot for several days. It is therefore necessary for external transactions from fuel card usages to be integrated into the system.
    
Commenting on the reasons for choosing a Merridale solution, Ray Calladine highlights the need to incorporate both depot and external transactions into a unified record: “To do this we need to improve the integration of data from external fuelling transactions. Here we rely on the fuel card services and we are encouraging the providers to be more proactive in the information that they provide us.
    
“The content of these reports and ease of use can be very variable. Essentially the key card service providers are trying to cover all situations but most transport companies will have some unique requirements. After discussing this requirement with Merridale, they provided us with a generic upload template which allows us to pull out the data we need from the external fuelling records.
    
“We were very impressed with the Merridale team’s positive approach and willingness to listen to constructive ideas for making the management reports suit the way we work. In our opinion this extra detail is what distinguishes Merridale from the other equipment suppliers. They understood our operational requirement and were prepared to listen to what we wanted to achieve.
    
“And we are continuing development, for example using the smart key for other applications such as the dispensing of Ad-Blue additive. We are also looking at access to the site and the truck-wash facilities so that we can monitor all these procedures as part of our quality control.”

Managing costs
Next to the wage-bill, fuel is the largest on-cost for the business and costs need to be managed carefully in order to remain competitive. Data collected through the Merridale FuelFX software enables the fleet managers to keep an eye on individual vehicle’s fuel consumption. Should this drop off by just half a mile to the gallon, this can add up to a considerable cost across a couple of hundred vehicles covering thousands of miles. Even if just one vehicle should be under performing, perhaps returning 5 mpg instead of 8 mpg and this is not picked up for several months while running high mileages, it will amount to a considerable penalty.
    
“Our investment in the Merridale FuelFX reporting software is already showing dividends by highlighting anomalies in fuel consumption,” says Ray Calladine.
    
“Accurate fuel costs are important to ensure that we remain competitive when pricing new contracts. We also need this information to apply a realistic surcharge – or adjustment – according to any changes in the price of fuel over long running contracts.
    
“Bulk diesel is also cheaper than external fuelling. So whenever possible we expect all drivers to use the depot facilities. All of these factors which will impact directly on the profitability of our transport operations are now being managed with the help of the Merridale software.”