Operation optimised
April 1st 2006

The Kerrygold Company sells its Irish dairy products products across 80 countries.

Since 2002, Davis Derby has supplied and fitted TruckLOG access control, shock sensing and data logging modules on to Kerrygold's 30-strong fleet of reach, counterbalance, man up and down, rotareach and ride-on forklift trucks.

Unlike many manufacturers, Kerrygold owns the majority of its fleet with others on hire purchase and operates a pro-active regime to protecting its assets, limiting damage and controlling associated costs in-house. Optimising the reliability of its materials handling equipment is seen as a central part of this.

Kerrygold has properly integrated the data captured by the TruckLOG system in to its day-to-day management practice. The company actively improves safety and damage reduction on an ongoing basis, and has achieved a return on investment for the system within the first six months of installation.

Manufacturing services manager, Nigel Windsor, explains: "The biggest benefits have been realised through improved driving practices, leading to significant improvements in efficiencies and contributing to a large reduction in chargeable costs to fleet, infrastructure and products.

"Davis Derby has helped us in identifying the condition of our floor areas. We experienced a number of FLT repairs where floor bolts were shearing and subsequently drive motors and gearboxes were getting damaged, and our fleet maintenance charges were very high. The shock data reported by the system facilitates a more proactive approach to site problems. In this instance, we responded to the information provided by repairing poor floor surfaces, which otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

This has stopped this particular incident recurring and has further led us to negotiate a significant reduction in maintenance charges with our hire company.

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