Geoff Middleton•30 Sept 2016
NEWS
Scania's 'Transport Laboratory'
Just how does a manufacturer like Scania know what its customers want in a truck? By running its own transport company, that’s how…Scania, out of its massive head office in Sodertalje Sweden, runs its own transport company which operates like a typical European road-transport haulier. The company works independently of the head office. It transports only Scania goods and personnel and charges the Head Office retail rates for its services.
On our recent visit to Sweden for the launch of Scania’s new range of trucks, we went to visit the Scania Transport Laboratory, as it’s known, and met some of the people who work there.
Big Cem Kizilkaya (pictured) is a former driver and now the fleet manager of the operation. He told us that the transport company serves more functions than just transporting truck parts around the countryside: “By running our own transport fleet, we can see what it’s like for the company’s customers,” he said. “We can use it as a knowledge base for own Research and Development (R&D) department as well as service and sales."
"It gives us a true indication of the real operation of a transport company. We run 37 trucks and 120 trailers as well as six buses for transporting Scania personnel from Copenhagen to Sodertalje.
"We have an international run from Sodertalje to Zwoll in Holland, as well as local distribution around Sweden," Mr Kizilkaya said.
"On our long-haul runs we use trucks from 420 to 580hp hauling engines, gearboxes and axles to Zwoll at loads of around 34 tonne. We have 3.5 drivers to a truck and run the trucks constantly."
Kizilkaya said that they’ll run the trucks for around a million kilometres and then sell them off to dealers.
"We have to buy the trucks, service and maintain them and then sell them," he said.
The information that the transport company gets from the telematics in the trucks is vital info for the company.
"We gather data on the total cost of operating the trucks and we can give real-time fuel figures and uptime to the company."
"We use competitors’ trucks as well,” he said. “At the moment we have a Mercedes-Benz and a MAN.
"We have to buy them from dealerships and we benchmark them against our own products and analyse the data."
Cem Kizilkaya told us that the fleet uses platooning convoys to maximise the economy of the trucks and the data they’re gathering shows that they can save between four to 12 per cent on fuel by platooning.
"For maximum economy we run a three second interval (67 metres) between the trucks and sit on 80 km/h," he said, adding that the maximum speed for any truck carrying a trailer in Sweden is 90km/h. “That gives us around four to seven per cent saving but if we ran closer, say one or two second intervals, the savings would be greater.”
Mr Kizilkaya showed us data for the ‘total ownership’ costs of one of the trucks over its life of just over one million kilometres indicating that that the truck achieved a total fuel consumption of 27.4 litres/100km and 1.42 litres of AdBlue per 100kms. It had a total of 106 problems, 16 unplanned repairs five VORs (vehicle stopped). Incredibly, over its life the truck has an uptime of 99.8 per cent.
We were told this is due to the servicing being done on a rotational basis, mostly during driver swaps: "When the truck comes in for a driver swap, we run it into the service area and do a partial service,” Said Cem Kizilkaya. “We have a maximum down time of two hours then it is completed and the truck goes out again. There is very little that we can’t do in two hours."
We also met Andrea who is one of the 120 drivers who work for Scania. Andrea came straight out of school and went to Scania to learn to drive trucks: "My father was a truck driver and that’s all I want to do," she said.
"It can get a bit boring on long-haul trips when you’re platooning but we have ways of keeping ourselves alert," she added. "Some listen to music, or we chat on the radio or the phone. We keep in contact all the time alerting each other to what’s ahead or talking about each other’s driving."
Asked what she didn’t like about being a truck driver, she replied: "Nothing. I get some comments from guys in the depots about being a young female driver, but mostly once they get to know me and see that I can drive, they’re fine."
Cem Kizilkaya concluded by telling us that his fleet after covering over 70 million kilometres had not had a major accident. "Sure a couple of guys have got bogged in the snow, but we’ve never had a crash," he said.
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Scania
News
Written byGeoff Middleton
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Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
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