Headquartered in Paignton, Devon, the company has signed up FSGB to manage out-of-hours calls and launched a three-month maintenance management pilot, which it anticipates resulting in a fully fledged contract.
Amberon specialises in the provision of temporary traffic lights 24×7, 365 days a year with core clients being local authorities and utility companies. In the last 18 months the size of its light commercial fleet has more than doubled to some 330 typically 3.5-tonne flatbed vehicles, but also including 20 HGVs and additionally 20 company cars.
The fleet and out-of-hours calls were previously managed in-house by general manager Terry Musson. However, he explained that the rapid expansion of the fleet as a consequence of business growth meant the company wanted to “plug into” the knowledge and expertise of an external provider.
Allied to the appointment of a third party management company has been the recruitment of Jay Lanchbury as Amberon’s transport manager.
FSGB, which officially launched in April this year, took over responsibility for the out-of-hours service after Amberon’s initial partner pulled out of offering the solution.
The out-of-hours service sees FSGB’s own call centre handle an average 150 calls a month between 6pm and 7am. On receiving a call in respect of both planned and unplanned emergency activity, staff direct the work to the nearest available duty engineers.
That success subsequently led to Amberon extending its business relationship with the maintenance management trial in place of its previous partner, the same supplier as for the out-of-hours service.
The majority of the vehicles are owned by Amberon and all undergo remedial work through FSGB’s nationwide independent garage network.
Due to high annual mileages and the stop-start nature of the driving, light commercial vehicles are serviced every 15,000 miles irrespective of manufacturer intervals. Additionally, regular vehicle inspections help to efficiently manage the replacement of wear and tear parts such as brake pads and discs.
Musson concluded: “FSGB’s operational management team has many years of experience. We are using their vehicle expertise and marketplace knowledge to further improve management of the fleet and we are confident that operating costs will reduce as a result.”
