Demolition and waste management specialist Collard Group has completed a move to fitting Genuine Volvo Parts across its fleet of more than 100 Volvo trucks, which it maintains in- house.
Roddy Taylor, Transport Director for the Hampshire-based firm, led the change in procurement after identifying that Genuine Volvo Parts could help increase uptime – replacing a company policy of sourcing non-genuine parts from factors.
He says: “Reliability is paramount for us; if a truck goes down, it can directly impact our ability to deliver a vital service to a customer, add to the running costs, and result in poor driver utilisation as well as potential recovery costs. We identified that certain non-genuine parts were failing a lot earlier than expected, leading to costly downtime, and putting more pressure on our workshop.
“We began using Genuine Volvo Parts for certain key components, and they performed incredibly well, leading to a noticeable uplift in reliability and performance. It sparked a process which has seen us steadily increase the mix of Genuine Volvo Parts we fit to our Volvos up to five years old; recently hitting 100 per cent for the first time. Moving forwards, we wouldn’t accept anything less for our fleet.”
Collard Group sources its parts from local dealer Volvo Truck and Bus Centre South & East in Reading, which makes twice-daily deliveries to its site.
“Availability and first-time pick rates are excellent,” adds Taylor. “We phone our orders in, and the parts arrive on the next delivery – which is normally same day for most routine items ordered before 09.00hrs, or next day if it’s coming from the main Volvo parts facility in Rugby. On occasions the dealer has even sent a third delivery on the same day to help us out. Nothing is too much trouble; the support we get is what you would expect from a main dealer.”
Volvo Trucks is the Collard Group’s primary truck brand, accounting for more than two-thirds of the company’s 138 heavy goods vehicles. The FORS Gold-accredited fleet includes everything from a flagship Volvo FH16 750 8×4 heavy haulage tractor unit, to 80-tonne FH tractor units, 32-tonne FMX 8×4 tippers and tipper grabs, 15-tonne FL 4×2 plant bodies and some FL 4×2 skip loaders.
Genuine Volvo Parts are backed by a 12-month warranty when fitted by the customer, or 24-months in an authorised Volvo workshop – plus Collard Group benefits from the dealer’s technical support. The parts are tested rigorously, fit perfectly and interact flawlessly with other Volvo components. Most importantly, they’re built to Volvo’s quality standards, and continue to be available for at least 15 years after a model has ceased production.
Collard Group, which incorporates R Collard, was founded in 1995 and has become one of the UK’s best known and most respected companies in the construction and waste management sectors. It operates from its headquarters in Eversley, delivering demolition, waste management and haulage services to main contractors, consultancies, property developers and public sector organisations.
Collard Group’s in-house maintenance team were recently named runners-up in the inaugural RHA Heroes 2021 campaign, for keeping the fleet on the road despite 50 per cent of the team isolating during the last year. Taylor says: “It’s not about meeting the minimum industry standards set to keep vehicles and the public safe, it’s about setting the bar well above it and raising the standards in the industry; preventative maintenance is key to reliability and performance. This team delivered in challenging times and that’s why they are all unsung heroes!”
