Building firm revamps extensive forklift fleet

The new fleet covers 61 sites on which the groups’ businesses operate and consists of a range of Hyster forklifts, Combilift sideloaders / multi directional forklifts and JCB Teletruks.

The Bradfords Group has ambitious growth plans for the next five years. This significant investment in the new fleet will support the growth through improved productivity and the tools to manage the whole fleet with a complete transparency that was previously unavailable, in turn driving cost efficiency for the group.

Briggs has also been making significant investments in its own resources and systems which will in turn strengthen the support it can provide to customers such as the Bradfords Group.

What reinforces the partnership is Briggs’ capability to provide the full materials handling solution; from account management through a dedicated team of experts, to flexible asset financing using the in-house solution BE Finance, the provision of BE Portal as an effective fleet management tool and full engineer backup from a team of over 600  mobile engineers.

The privately owned group signed the ten year contract hire agreement for 108 new Hyster trucks, 71 Combilift machines and two new JCB Teletruks. Additional features designed to improve site safety were introduced, including Pedestrian Awareness Lighting (PAL), high visibility masts and a maximum speed of 5mph as a pre-set condition on the trucks.

With a fleet of this scale, and spread over so many sites, it was previously very time consuming for the group to have complete transparency on maintenance and usage of the fleet. The introduction of Briggs’ online fleet management tool BE Portal, means the group now have complete visibility on all aspects of the fleet from group, company and site level, enabling them to make informed business decisions on their new assets.

Martin Caddick, head of transport for the Bradfords Group says: “After a rigorous procurement process Briggs Equipment offered the best all round package tailored to suit the individual needs of the Bradfords Group. The package worked for us from not only a finance point of view, but just as importantly taking service and back up into account from the moment the deal was signed.

“This investment will allow us to achieve our MHE uptime target of 99%, delivering greater Customer Service and Improved Efficiencies, all while including industry leading safety benefits for our Bradfords Group team and customers alike.

“Image and presentation is crucial to the Bradfords Group. With this in mind, Briggs worked with us to ensure each piece of MHE will be delivered in our Group colour scheme, and each brand being clearly represented by its own individual livery.”

Darran Baker, head of key accounts, adds: “We are extremely proud to have been chosen as the intra logistics supplier to such a well-known and well respected business which has its heart in the South West. By working in true partnership with Bradfords, Briggs have been able to support them in facilitating the significant change in moving from a 100% customer owned fleet over to a 100% contract hire fleet. The Briggs team lead by Luke Hill (key account manager) and myself has been supported across all areas of the Briggs business to make this a real success and we are grateful to the hard work and support that the team at Bradfords have put in to ensure our partnership has developed into one which is built on trust, openness and respect. The future ambitions for both companies is clear to see and following the success of the new truck fleet, we are already looking at other opportunities together which will further cement our relationship for many, many years to come. We thoroughly look forward to the future and are fully committed to support Bradfords on the road ahead as their business grows by offering high levels of account management and industry leading creative solutions.”

The Bradfords Group comprises Bradfords Building Supplies, Snows Timber and Crendon Timber Engineering.