Far Eastern promise
October 1st 2005

When it comes to taking advantage of flourishing Chinese manufacturing, Samuk is leading the way. Charlotte Stonestreet spoke to Sir Neville Bowman-Shaw to find out more

Over the past few years Samuk, headed up by Sir Neville Bowman- Shaw, has seen significant changes in the supply of its trucks. Always known as the distributor of Clark lift trucks in the UK, when the manufacturer when into liquidation and the lift truck division was sold off, it soon became clear that Samuk needed to change its allegiance to another manufacturer.

For most this kind of upheaval might represent a veritable business nightmare - not so for Sir Neville. In fact, in many ways he views Clark’s demise as a stroke of luck for Samuk and now imports the company’s forklifts from the Hangzhou Company in China. Always keenly interested in commerce across the world, when it came to sourcing a new supplier, Sir Neville recalled a visit he had made in 1993 to the Hangzhou site in China, which was manufacturing lift trucks for Nissan at the time.

Transformed

"By the time I visited again in 2002 the operation had been transformed into a privatised company with a young aggressive management," says Sir Neville.

"It is also now extremely well funded, which is particularly important because of the huge costs associated with developing new products."

The catalyst for the changes that had occurred since Sir Neville’s first visit to the company came about when collaboration between Nissan and Mitsubishi resulted in Nissan withdrawing all manufacture from the site. At is point the facility had been manufacturing Nissan trucks for eight years and was essentially left with all the latest designs and manufacturing equipment.

"Hangzhou had had everything given to them on a plate and now it was all going to waste," says Sir Neville. "It was because of this that the young management team recognised a great opportunity and drove forward the company’s privatisation."

Since then the company has leapfrogged from third to, Sir Neville predicts, almost certainly first place in 2006 in the league of Chinese lift truck manufacturers and is not too far behind its competition in the west.

He accredits this success to a number of factors. Unlike the other major lift truck manufacturers in China - Heli and Dalian - Hangzhou is not state owned and subject to the restrictions that this inherently brings. Sir Neville is also of the opinion that the more mature management teams in these nationalised organisations are something of a handicap when it comes to development on the international business platform.

Another advantage that Sir Neville draws attention to is Hangzhou’s ‘horizontal design concept’. "This encourages the use of the latest components from leading manufacturers, reducing the cost and time it takes to update models.

This enables the company to be dramatically more responsive to market demands than ‘vertical’ manufacturers, who completely redesign and test every part of a truck inhouse each time a new model is launched."

Construction

In August of this year, Sir Neville made a further visit to the Hangzhou site. On this occasion he reports three new buildings under construction: a 150,000ft2 assembly hall devoted to IC trucks up to 5t capacity; a new hall for electric and reach trucks; and a warehouse with ten container bays to ensure dry trucks are loaded into dry containers, preventing superficial rusting while in transit. Two of the older buildings were also being updated to accommodate the static build of 5 to 19t yard trucks and a spare parts centre.

On the product side, the company is in the process of updating six different ranges of trucks, and plans no less than two major new launches per year. The latest of these to become available in the UK through Samuk is the HG Series 4-wheel electric.

This 1.5 to 3t capacity range features Danaher high performance AC Gen2 systems for heavy duty use combined with reduced maintenance requirements. A DC SEM option is also available for less demanding applications.

The ergonomically designed operator’s area provides easy, non-slip access to a full suspension Grammer seat from either side of the truck. Good all-round visibility of load, forks and road is achieved with a wide mast window and an integral side shift made from small section high tensile steel.

Manufactured to ISO9001-94, sample trucks have been tested to BITA standards by Manchester University and have achieved 140% plus on all test requirements thanks to the low centre of gravity and the heavy drive axle, which makes the trucks more stable without a load.

Such is Sir Neville’s confidence in the quality of the HG Series that, like all trucks from Samuk, it comes with a threeyear/ 4000 hour powertrain warranty free of charge.

The new truck is typical of the quality product that Sir Neville reports from his recent visit to the Hangzhou Company in China where, he says, "fthe growth rate, ambition and financial backing is truly awe inspiring".

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