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How Expensive is Cheap

HOW EXPENSIVE IS CHEAP

Part 1of 5

The General Concept

Here is an odd look at an awkward term “How expensive is Cheap”.

We will look at areas of

* Initial outlay

* Decision- reception to end users

* Culturally effects on efficiency

* Short to long running costs

* Extension if business ideology

This overview will effect company’s small to medium business. 2-200 people

AS a quick snap shot of modern business

* High standard of competition business

* More people increasing into self-employment rather than adding to larger resource pools

* Lower average age being lower every year.

* Greater skill shortages

* The challenges of business of finding correct people, that represents a outward standard

* Rising running costs whether by regulation or advertising budgets

* Greater liability with insurance complexity and workplace safety, including litigation

* Greater demands of clients standard as globalisation sets commercial and lead-time milestones

By the time all the other considerations have happened people are generally look for the cheapest products and plant to offset mounting costs from above. The understanding is that if something technically qualifies as a tool to produce the service as promised by the business, then it is the decision that is made

GENERIC Plant and equipment

The equipment that is the most effected by low bottom line initial outlay are

* Tipper trucks

* Mulch bodies

* Vacuum Trucks

* Tilt trays

* Mini Excavators

* Water Trucks

* Pantechs

* Plant trailers

* Earthmoving buckets

* Hydraulic hammers

* Table Top Trucks

The one thing all these have in common is they are all very generic, where influx of new business in construction will generally start with one of these machines. This generally drives down the initial

purchase price on new items as well as the service life of second-hand equipment generally will move through up to 5 owners through the peace of plants service life. Being recycled down from principal contractors down to low budget business starters.

This creates a culture of manufacturers that put cheap before quality is mostly 80% of potential buyers of these machines will be looking purely for bottom-line cost to get the units on the road.

PURPOSEFUL Plant and equipment

This is equipment that has a specific purpose where safety or hire of failed plant on tenders or specific contracts is not easily found. This tends to lead to a culture of plan manufactured to be suited to reliability and efficiency. Some plant is as follows

* Garbage compactors

* Road profilers

* Hammer mills

* Directional drills

* Elevated work platforms

* Cranes

mostly businesses that have moved into areas that use these types of plan above. I realise that reliability and efficiency is a fundamental part of the formula of their hourly rate based on the forward workload. So here is the minority of price not being the key dictator of the decision of the final equipment that receives the purchase order as an asset.

Looking back at how the generic plans can be reassessed to find cheaper alternatives to a better product.

Accountants are always experts and everything regardless of their experience. That’s because the simple belief that businesses money they are experts of money so the experts and everything to do with business. This is a fairly honest objective account of how decisions are made within businesses and organisations. But no accountants can tell you confidently that they can factor in KPIs or have a account in the chart of accounts that directly relate to cultural impact of premature deterioration via disconnect of plant and people.

Meaning ratio of time that plant can survive within the company when there is no cultural adoption of the item. The reason accountants can’t fix algorithms to this is because it is a perspective rather than a unit of measure. But extremely real nevertheless.

The reason why I have outlined relationship of accountants and plant, is because it is became a growing trend over the last 20 years where the disconnect of man and machine has come through labour that has respected the required tasks and projects instilled on been supplied with equipment that they are aware as experts is of subgrade and eventually breaks down which adds cost, downtime which ultimately makes the projects that these teams are on become unprofitable, with explaining to do. When discussions of plant quality are always raised with the people who’ve made the decisions 95% of the time queries of low quality plan are answered by. “While other people were out there using them´ why can’t you, they come from a big company they must know what you’re doing. We doing wrong for them these items to break in your care´

This is an extremely common occurrence in companies we can imagine that when those types of comments are made to teams are using that equipment. The problem is that now the plants failure is increasing frequency and cost to the company will be more money in repairs and downtime to prove the point; with unfortunate circumstances where these plant tend to break down on contracts that one in front of principal contractors and government departments.

If a non-management company representative is on-site who’s company owns this plant they will be too often be happy to offer up that the decision-makers in the company lack of consider to reliability and quality when buying equipment.

Manager’s owner’s or supervisor’s underestimate that these comments do paint a picture of the business that result down the line could cost between thousands or millions of dollars in lost revenues.

So conclude part1 (general concept)

URGENT TRANSPORT BULLETIN

Q: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE IN THE HEAVY VEHICLE TRANSPORT SUPPLY CHAIN?

A: EVERYONE!

A big legislative step in awareness and regulation of safety and compliance in Australia was the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNR) (originally a schedule to the HVNL Act 2012 (QLD)). The HVNL came into force on 10 February 2014. The ACT, NSW, SA, QLD, Tasmania and Victoria each passed a law adopting or duplicating the HVNL with some modifications and some differences (eg ACT is missing some sections). If you are in WA or NT the law still applies to you once you are driving in the jurisdictions which have the HVNL. The HVNL is administered by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) with administers the HVNL and 4 sets of regulations.

‘Everyone’ (in the heavy vehicle transport industry) needs to be aware of the recent legislative amendments relating to ‘Chain of Responsibility’ (CoR) which have just come into effect on 1 October 2018.

The heavy vehicle transport supply chain is an industry value chain with each link representing a primary activity. 165 000 businesses in that chain were consulted in relation to these recent amendments.

The Chain of Responsibility (CoR) is not a new policy concept in Australian transport legislation. The gist is that legal obligations are placed on parties in the transport supply chain.

The amendments place a primary duty clearly and transparently on each party (‘link’).

The primary duty is to minimize risk by doing all that is reasonably practical to ensure safety.

Before the changes, various players in the supply chain could be punished however there did not seem to be consistency in who was issued infringements/charges and punished. Further problems included that members of the supply chain pressured other members to not comply with safety obligations and companies could ‘contract out’ their obligations.

The following roles are examples of those who are involved in the transport supply chain. As can be seen the net is wide –

-loading manager, -loader/unloader, -packer

-consignee/consignor

-operator

-scheduler

-employer

-executive officer

-prime contractor

-if you own premises where 5 or more heavy vehicles unload or load each day.

Often legislative amendments can be ambiguous and difficult to understand. However, these amendments, and the corresponding obligations are currently the subject of an intensive education campaign by the NHVR and, in NSW, the RMS.

The goal is safety.

HOW TO FIND OUT INFORMATION EASILY:

* There is a helpful CoR checklist regarding who are involved in the transport supply chain on the NHVR website (nhvr.gov.au)

* There are a series of short helpful seminars on the NHVR website.

* There is a CoR ‘gap assessment tool’ on the website by which you can answer questions both to assist you to determine your role and where you are deficient in your business practices and systems etc. – you are issued with a list of recommendations to assist you to strengthen your ‘compliance and safety management responsibilities’.

* You should look at your own industry codes of practice.

* The Crane, Forestry and Livestock industries already have Codes unique to their particular industry and how interactions occur with the NHVL – eg specifically what is carted; how it is loaded/unloaded; how cranes are designed.

* National Roads have issued an information package – ‘Safety Management in the Chain of Responsibility’.

* The Australian Standard ISO13000 relation to Australian industry risk management generally is obviously instructive.

* The NHVR portal has established a free service for those who have fleet to be able to check and monitor registration currency and other details.

Watch this space for commentary on how the amendments unfold and further developments including a ‘Master Code’ of practice for the transport industry which is currently being developed.

How to choose the right truck body!

There  are many factors that need to be taken into consideration when choosing the right truck body for your vehicle. Weigh loads, power-ancillary equipment, and type of material are among the most important things to have in mind. Weigh loads come in different shapes and loads, such as pallets, lose boxes and cargo, etc,. Overlooking these could create mayor logistical and operational issues that will ultimately be quite costly. This will also help to determine the dimensions of your body truck, as every inch counts. A truck body too high  will end up adding extra fuel to your bill and added drag to your truck. Check our Truck Body Chassis table to see some of the common shapes and pre-design chassis available at ACE. Powered-ancillary equipment is a common feature  for truck bodies. Items such as refrigeration motors, cranes, electric lifts among others are often required. Effective and efficient designs will always dictate that less or more, is not good when it comes to vehicles and features. You should aim to find the right size feature that matches the size of the truck engine so no added stress and fuel consumption is put on the truck. Our knowledgeable staff at ACE can guide you on the right direction to achieve the highest productivity with less cost over time when adding or modifying your truck body feature! The material you choose will determine the longevity and fuel consumption of your truck.  High quality steel, although heavier than Aluminium, has been the prefer choice for truck bodies throughout the last decades. Quality steel provides the strength needed for a variety of demanding loads against other materials. It is important to protect any steel truck body with a good galvanic layer to protect the body from rust. At ACE all our body trucks are made of  high quality and galvanise steel. High quality steel mixed with expert engineering and the right features will give you an efficient and durable truck body that will provide you with value over time. Give us a call or email us so we can help you with all your body truck needs! Do you know what you are after? Get a Quote here!