Customcare

Business Development Director, Robert Drewery, followed Brian Maybin with a much briefer presentation in which he said, ‘Customcare is an integral part of our total vehicle proposition and this is ever more the case with growing numbers of vehicles in operation, coupled with the fact that we are now supporting significant numbers of complete vehicles.’

The development plans will see the opening of a second service centre in the South East of London, supporting the existing one in Wembley, and the appointment of an additional 12 mobile service engineers, nine of them by the end of the second quarter, who will join the existing 24.

The current call referral service is to be replaced by a 24/7 ‘end to end, track and trace’ service that will initially be run as a pilot in the Northern and South Western regions in the first quarter of 2014 before full national roll out by the end of June. It will provide real time performance and fault analysis; a web based reporting suite; digital voice recording and enhanced management information and KPI measurement/tracking. The warranty management system will also be updated to enable earlier identification of trends and improve issue resolution with suppliers.

Robert predicted, ‘We will also see growth in products such as extended warranties, service contracts, full R&M contracts and even contract hire, as customers increasingly look at ways to minimise risk and fix the costs of their operations according to their individual circumstances.’

New Bus for London

The New Bus for London was much in evidence at the event, on the production lines in Antrim and as our means of transport. On roads much freer of traffic than its haunts in London, it proved capable of sprightly performance, though it also provided a reminder that the wheelbase is considerably longer than that of the Routemaster that inspired it.

It has achieved a major international presence in recent months as part of the UK Government’s GREAT international promotion drive which has seen examples travel to countries including America, Colombia, South Korea, Malaysia, Hungary, Austria, Turkey and Hong Kong. It might have gone further had the German border authorities been a bit more accommodating. The GREAT scheme is to continue, so who knows where next for it.

The fourth route to be converted to NBfL operation, the Metroline operated route 390, began running with 23 vehicles shortly after the press conference on 30 November. This took the number of NBfLs in service over the 100 mark.

We were told that it will move to Euro6 in the early months of 2014.

Other developments

Fitting a Daimler engine in the bus range is not the only link up with the giant German manufacturer. The group recently signed a partnership agreement with Daimler India that will see Wrightbus act as a bodywork design consultant partner. The operation will be based in Chennai but no other details have yet been released, although Mark did say, ‘we are looking at how we can improve the cost base in Ballymena and also at CKD. We’ve learned a lot about what is out there in a very competitive market. We need to tap into what is available overseas.’

With strong sales in Hong Kong, Wrightbus has come to an arrangement with the Guangtong Automobile Company based at Zhuhai near Macau whereby GT Bus will assemble Wrightbus kits for this market. The first kits have already been delivered and they are now starting to deliver finished product.

Wrightbus has made quite a number of appointments and one that is particularly customer facing is that of new National Accounts Manager, John Hartley, who is now undergoing his induction training after a lengthy period gardening following his departure from Optare, where he was originally at East Lancs. Apparently he used some of his gardening time to obtain his Driver’s CPC.

Last word

There was almost too much to take in on my visit to Northern Ireland. We were given extensive access to the management team which was very helpful but the presentations were lengthy and the factory visit hurried which did not help in absorbing the detail. Furthermore, a ban on photography other than of a couple of vehicles outside the plant meant there were not the images one normally relies on to jog your memory when writing, nor the illustrations one would have wished for to accompany this article, as those in the press pack were disappointing.

Wrightbus have done a huge amount of development in a short period of time and have some really impressive products to show as a result. A concern for me is that their strength has historically been as a bodybuilder, particularly on Volvo chassis. Becoming an integral manufacturer is always a difficult transition for a coachbuilder, and while New Bus for London and the Streetlite together with some integral Gemini orders give a degree of breathing space in which to become established, the new relationship with Daimler will have disconcerted Volvo, its most important and longstanding partner. At the same time, Volvo starting to import the 9700H will have been noted in Ballymena. Though positive noises were made about the B5TL and B5LH double decker, I don’t recall mention of any single deck body on chassis products, other then the VDL, and the Streetlite presentation was critical of full sized ‘heavyweight’ single deckers in general. Mark Nodder stressed that there was no change in the relationship with Volvo but he will be aware that many UK and Far East Wrightbus customers are also Volvo customers, perhaps primarily Volvo customers.

By Stuart Jones