West Midlands-based Plastic Coatings has once again chosen Ryder, a leading independent provider of commercial vehicle contract hire, rental, and maintenance services, to manage its latest fleet upgrade.
Ahead of the 20th anniversary of Ryder and Plastic Coatings’ working relationship this summer, the coating application specialist has taken delivery of three new 18-tonne DAF CF230 rigid trucks - replacing three older DAF models - under a contract hire agreement.
"Our delivery and collection service is a key part of our business," says Carl Allison, Commercial Manager at Plastic Coatings. "Our customers range from manufacturers of small items, like screws and washers, to motor parts and engines, right through to rail and construction beams. Many of our customers don’t have the transportation to bring the items to us for the finishing application, so our delivery vehicles play a vital role in our customer offering."
To allow for any overnight trunking work, Plastic Coatings specified sleeper cabs for the new vehicles.
"Around 50% of our customers are within a 30 mile radius of our site in Kingswinford, West Midlands, so the majority of our runs are local. However, we do have customers in Kent, South Wales, and Aberdeen, so our drivers can cover the length and breadth of the country and therefore require an overnight stay in the truck from time to time," says Allison.
Another important part of the fleet upgrade was the body dimensions for one of the new trucks.
"Our biggest contract involves transporting four-foot long tubular assemblies that are a complicated shape and have to be stacked inside each other on custom-made stillages. We have to transport 2,500 of these tubular assemblies a day within three runs, so we need a specific truck body size to accommodate the volume and meet this daily quota," explains Allison.
"Our Ryder Account Manger Fiona Rennie worked closely with us to ensure the correct body dimensions were specified for this truck."
Paying homage to the long-standing relationship between Ryder and Plastic Coatings, Allison says Ryder has "always served us well".
In particular, Ryder has helped Plastic Coatings overcome a problem with vandalism to its trucks.
"During our Christmas shutdown period, we had several incidents of break-ins to our yard with vandals punching holes in the bottom of the trucks to steal the diesel. It caused £3k-£4k of damage to the truck each time. Ryder now stores our vehicles securely for us at one of its own manned sites over the shutdown period, which is a fantastic service and shows how accommodating Ryder is," says Allison.
Ryder also manages the vehicle maintenance and servicing for Plastic Coatings’ fleet, which Allison says enables the transport manager to focus on the running of the vehicles, drivers, and planning of deliveries.
"We have around 3,500 customers and, at any one time, 300 of them will have a live order with us. Having the vehicle maintenance and servicing schedule handled by Ryder gives us peace of mind that that side of things is taken care of," he adds.
Ryder Account Manager Fiona Rennie comments: "Ryder is honoured to have looked after Plastic Coatings’ fleet requirements for the last 20 years. It is a fantastic company and we look forward to continuing to support, manage and provide vehicle solutions to enable it to service its customers and remain the leading coatings specialist."