Volvo leases ship to meet customer demand

Martin Merrick, President and CEO of Volvo Group Australia, has confirmed to trucksales.com.au that, in conjunction with Volvo Group head office in Gothenburg, Sweden, the company has leased its own ship to get much-needed trucks and parts to Australia.

Mr Merrick was talking during a meeting at Linfox in Melbourne along with Volvo Truck Global President Roger Alm, and spoke exclusively with trucksales.com.au. He said that Australian production was maxed out and Volvo Australia was having to look elsewhere for trucks to fill demand.

“We’re at maximum capacity at Wacol; it’s going to be a record market for heavy-duty trucks this year,” Mr Merrick said. “We’re getting massive support from our Global industrial system. So for specific customers we’re bringing in some CBUs (completely built-up units) from Gothenburg and from Saudi Arabia.

“We know that shipping is big issue as well as supply chain; we know that there are over 600 vessels sitting out off Shanghai. So anything coming from Europe to Australia is a problem.

“So on that note, Volvo has taken the decision centrally that we’ll charter our own RO-RO (roll-on, roll-off) vessel to get out CBUs here in time for our customers.

“Our customers are delighted with that news. We’re really supporting our customers to meet this current demand.

“The vessel we are chartering is 100 per cent dedicated for Volvo. We’ve chartered the full vessel, so there’ll be nothing else on it but trucks for our customers.

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Mr Merrick said that the ship will sail direct from Gothenburg to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Brisbane where the trucks will be unloaded for Volvo customers.

“We use a word here [at Volvo] called hyper-collaboration, where all our teams work together to get the trucks to our customers. So when shipping became a problem we got together to charter our own ship. That’s the level of support we’re giving our customers.”

Also at our meeting at Linfox was Per-Erik Lindstrom, Senior Vice President of Volvo Trucks and President of our sales area. Mr Lindstrom said that the company was fully behind our market. “It’s also worth noting that when we started production of the Australian trucks in our main factory in Gothenburg, we also brought over three skilled colleagues from Brisbane for support and to get the job done at the factory,” Mr Lindstrom said.

Mr Merrick added: “We build trucks here in Australia that we don’t see anywhere else in the world. So these colleagues are supporting the locals [in Gothenburg] during the builds.”

Mr Merrick also said that parts from Australia were being sent to the manufacturing facilities to be fitted to the trucks so they arrive “Australia ready”.

“We have over 90 local suppliers here in Australia for parts for the Australian-built trucks. And we’re using that local supply chain to send components to Sweden and to Saudi Arabia so that our trucks come looking just like they’ve been built at Wacol.

“We’re not saying that they’re locally made. Our customers are aware that they’re built overseas, but they will look and feel like an Australian-made truck.”

So not only is Volvo hiring its own ship to get the extra trucks here on time for customers, they’re using Aussie knowledge at the overseas factory and using Aussie-made parts to make the trucks look and feel like the ones that are made here. It’s a very ingenious way to get around the supply-chain and shipping problems that are besetting all parts of the industry at the moment.