£3.5m Briggs win to supply equipment

Freightliner is aiming to boost operational efficiencies across its 13 rail sites with a new fleet of 10 Hyster reachstackers, supplied and maintained by Briggs Equipment.

The company already operates Hyster equipment, supplied by Briggs, and the new £3.5 million deal sees the company replacing some of its older machines.

Briggs secured the contract for the new Hyster RS4531CH reachstackers following a detailed tender process, during which it had to demonstrate its ability to meet Freightliner's service expectations as well as the low cost of operation of Hyster equipment.

"We're a large, safety critical organisation with multiple sites across the country so we need an equipment and engineering services partner we can trust," said Peter Thompson, chief terminals engineer at Freightliner. "Briggs was awarded this key contract because of its commitment to providing a safe and reliable solution in a challenging environment."

Freightliner moves containers from the deep sea ports of Felixstowe, Southampton, Tilbury and London Gateway to all major UK conurbations, operating approximately 100 daily services across the country and handling more than 770,000 containers per year. The company's existing fleet of Hyster reachstackers have clocked up in excess of 18,000 hours during a five-year period of operation.

Under the terms of this new contract, Briggs will provide 24-hour service call-out cover six days a week plus a UK parts stockholding facility and, in most cases, same-day parts supply.

With 600 engineers, including more than 130 who are specially trained in 'heavy truck' maintenance, Briggs Equipment operates one of the country's largest mobile engineering workforces. To minimise disruption to Freightliner's front line operations, engineers will schedule out-of-hours servicing and will work alongside a dedicated team of UK-based heavy truck technical support managers to help Freightliner achieve its business objectives.

The new generation Hyster RS4531CH reachstacker is designed for maximum space utilisation in intense container terminals and ports, offering outstanding manoeuvrability and superior handling speeds with no loss of power at full capacity for demanding loads. The truck not only complies with Tier IV Final engine legislation, but Hyster's energy-efficient technologies also deliver fuel savings of up to 25%.

Paul Giles, ports & terminals national business development manager at Briggs, said: "Our relationship with Freightliner is based on our ability to deliver high quality machines plus comprehensive, round the clock engineering support backed by reliable management information that supports decision-making at the highest level.

"We have a dedicated team supporting the daily business needs of Freightliner in its drive for service excellence, while our expertise in ports and terminals means we understand customer needs within this fast moving, deadline-driven environment."

All 10 of the new reachstackers are fitted with the Hyster Tracker wireless asset management system, enabling Freightliner to monitor asset activity, individual driver performance and promote driving best practice. Meanwhile, the service level agreement will be managed using Briggs' market-leading online asset management tool, BE Portal. Key performance indicators are accessible 24/7 via the system, enabling both Freightliner and the Briggs team to measure equipment performance by terminal, by individual machine and across the entire company to effectively manage the fleet.