Capital Equipment News October 2016

TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS NEWS IN BRIEF

Cargo Coil Rail loads into market At IAA Commercial Vehicles 2016, Kögel launched its new Cargo Coil Rail with FlexiUse body and RoRo equipment. The trailer is flexible for the transport of coils and split strips by road, rail or sea. Thanks to its large adjustment range, the FlexiUse body of the semi-trailer can be easily adapted to varied transport tasks. Another highlight of this body for trucks without drop sides is the new double rail codification. As a result, the trailer not only solves even more transport tasks, but it also saves time and money, because it is easy and simple to use on a wide variety of railway lines. Merc’s Future Bus Mercedes Benz has shown its semi- automated Mercedes-Benz Future Bus with CityPilot at IAA 2016, said to be even safer, more efficient and more comfortable. It is said to show what local transport services of the future will look like. Connectivity, camera and radar systems, as well as the use of data fusion catapult city buses into the future. The technology behind CityPilot in the Future Bus is based on the self-driving Mercedes-Benz Actros with Highway Pilot, which was unveiled two years ago at the IAA. Due to its specific application in a city bus, the technology was further developed in a targeted manner, seeing the addition of numerous additional functions. Accordingly, CityPilot can recognise traffic lights, communicate with them and drive safely over junctions equipped with traffic lights. It can also detect obstacles and, above all, pedestrians on the road, automatically braking in response to them. tasks and high-volume transport. The internal height of 3 m makes it the ideal trailer for the just-in-time business in the automotive sector. Loading and unloading stacked pallet cages is simple, thanks to the standard mechanical/hydraulic lifting roof. This increases the side and rear through- loading height to more than 3 m. The standard Kögel integral roof tarpaulin also guarantees improved handling with an open roof. Thanks to the roof straps being integrated in the roof tarpaulin, sagging straps are a thing of the past. This eliminates the straps snagging on the load. b Kögel’s Mega Trailer with individual equipment At IAA Commercial Vehicles 2016, Kögel exhibited its Mega Trailer, which is perfect for classic, standard

100 TH TRUCK SALE FOR FAW HARRISMITH FAW Harrismith, awarded Best FAW Dealer of the Year Award in 2014, has delivered its 100 th truck, a first among FAW’s Southern Af- rican dealers to sell this many units through a single FAW franchised dealership.

Jianyu Hao, CEO of FAW Vehicle Manufac- turers South Africa, says the sale milestone by a single dealer marks an evolution among the FAW representatives across southern Africa. “Our representative sales and service dealers are passionate about our brand and are certainly advancing their skills, knowl- edge and ability to compete with other established commercial vehicle retailers,” says Hao. “We thank the customer, VKB for the faith in the brand and congratulate the dealership team for exceptional resilience in a tough market and their commitment to excellent customer service.” Juan Wiggill, dealer principal at FAW Harrismith, credits his entire 26-person staff with the achievement. “Here at FAW Har- rismith we all have a passion for the brand and are dedicated to customer service, whether on the sales or the aftersales ser- vice and maintenance side. The key asset to any good dealership is good, well-trained, right-attitude staff.” The 100 th sale was delivered to VKB, which added a FAW 28.380FT to its existing FAW fleet. Bryan Boshoff, logistics manag- The South African commercial vehicle mar- ket continues to track various industry pre- dictions with the forecasted decline in new truck sales recorded during August. This is according to the latest results released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa, Associated Motor Holdings and Amalgamated Automo- bile Distributors. At the end of August, the truck market was 4,2% down on the corresponding period in 2015, reaching 12 154 sales. On a year-to- date basis, only the Heavy Commercial Vehi- cles (HCV) and Bus segments managed to re- main in the black, recording growth of 1,6% (3 487 units) and 7,3% (789 units) respective- ly. Medium Commercial Vehicle (MCV) sales have declined by a significant 18% to 5 409 units so far this year, while sales in the Ex- tra Heavy Commercial Vehicle segment de- clined by 7,5% to 7 878 units. According to Gert Swanepoel, acting vice-president of UD Trucks Southern Africa, the EHCV segment in particular is heavily impacted by the lack of business confidence in the local economy. “In essence, fleet operators are ‘sweat-

er at VKB, says that not only are the FAW vehicles giving the company good fuel con- sumption figures, but are also lowering total cost of operations. More importantly Boshoff praises the FAW Harrismith dealership for providing VKB exceptional service, main- tenance and parts support for their whole FAW fleet, which includes the 4 t FAW 7.130, the newer 5 t FAW 8.140 and a number of 13,5 t FAW 28.330 units. VKB runs a fleet of 60 trucks and 400 LCVs to deliver gener- al goods, flour and fertiliser, among others, across South Africa. “Downtime is a critical element when it comes to our own service delivery. So, it’s great to have a truck partner who understands this and the effect it has on our business,” adds Boshoff. b Juan Wiggill, dealer Principle at FAW Harrismith (right) congratulates Bryan Boshoff, logistics manager at VKB for his new FAW purchase. ing their assets’ or adopting a wait and see approach,” explains Swanepoel. “However, there has been some positive activity over the past few weeks in specifically the con- struction sub-segment, but we will have to see how all of this pans out during the com- ing months and if it will have any significant impact on sales.” He points out that a drastic decline in com- modity prices has also impacted buying from the mining industry, which usually makes up a big portion of EHCV sales. UD Trucks ex- pects the market to remain flat during the next quarter. The company advises truck owners to scrutinise all costs in order to eliminate any wastages and not to let vehicle maintenance fall behind as this can be more costly in the long run. “We understand that there are always cycles to our business, so we place more emphasis on looking after our customers efficiently, professionally and dependably – whatever the market conditions. An in- teractive partnership between us and our customers is the best medicine,” comments Swanepoel. b

Commodity prices and declining economy impact SA truck sales

CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS OCTOBER 2016 37