The Tudor Griffiths Group is best known to the public as a builders’ merchant with a chain of six outlets in Cheshire, Shropshire and Powys, providing a full range of tools and construction materials to the building trade. The Group’s other activities are on a more industrial scale, in quarrying sand, gravel and aggregates and more recently the move into waste recycling and landfill. This includes the processing of building demolition, bricks and rubble which are crushed and used on construction sites to reduce the consumption of primary aggregates.
Tudor Griffiths is also one of the largest privately owned ready mixed concrete suppliers in the UK. Plants are logistically well located to cover the North West Midlands and North & Mid Wales. These are supported by a modern fleet of truck mixers which are based at the Group’s main quarry site in Wood Lane south of Ellesmere, Shropshire.
This location also includes the Materials Recycling Facility and the Group’s headquarters operations, logistics, engineering and plant maintenance.
[quote]Provides all the functionality we need and the data remains under our control,” Jamie Jones Transport Manager.[/quote]
In addition to the mixers the transport fleet comprises HGV tippers and delivery vans. There are also around 200 items of plant machinery operated within the quarry facilities, including loading shovels, dump trucks and tractors. Monthly fuel consumption during normal operations is around 45K litres of diesel and 25K litres of gas oil for the off road machines.
“Transport touches almost every aspect of the group’s operations,” explains Transport Manager, Jamie Jones. “Fuel consumption has become a significant element in our cost accounting and we want to have a better understanding of how this is being used.”
Current investments include the implementation of a state-of-the-art fuel management reporting solution as part of a major upgrade to the Group’s depot fuelling facilities. The work is being undertaken in conjunction with service support provider D&R Forecourt Services of Oswestry.
The diesel pumps at Wood Lane have been replaced with Merridale units incorporating electronic monitoring. The Merridale system was selected following a thorough review of alternative solutions.
“Our IT department ruled out a web service as it our policy to keep our data in house and under our control. We looked at the latest version of the equipment used previously as well as a web based system and we looked at articles in trade magazines. In the end we made up our minds from the excellent references from other transport operators in Shropshire who are already using the Merridale system.
Now that the system is in operation, we have full fuel management on this site with regards to stock control and the refuelling of all mobile plant, trucks and light commercials. The Merridale system gives me instant reporting on a daily basis cialis deutschland. This includes an mpg fuel economy analysis and a complete record of the transactions, showing which vehicle has fuelled, how much was drawn and the date and time.
As a key based system only authorised vehicles can draw fuel. The fuelling point is monitored by CCTV providing absolute security. Transactions are recorded automatically and there is a wireless link back to our main servers in the office. All of the data is backed up every evening.
The reports allow better stock control with automatic reconciliation following deliveries.
From an operational point of view we can make better informed decisions on the purchase of vehicles and we are collecting cost data that will enable our commercial department to maximize profit margins. By measuring fuel economy performance we are also better able to manage CO² emissions.
Another advantage of the Merridale software solution is that all updates are incorporated automatically at no extra charge. Basically we can be assured that we are always working on the latest standard and no upgrades will ever be required.
Following the successful implementation at the headquarters site, a second installation has been ordered for the Tudor Griffiths facilities at Tattenhall, near Chester. This will be a self contained fuelling point based on a fully bunded dual compartment tank providing storage for 10K litres of diesel and 5K litres of gas oil.
