The two Black Country businesses have been formally tied since Bevan acquired a stake in A&R last summer, and will be sharing a stand for the transport industry’s biggest event of the year, at the NEC in Birmingham (29 April – 1 May).
Bevan Group’s rapid response mobile aftercare service covers truck and van bodies, as well as ancillary equipment – particularly tail-lifts. A&R Vehicle Services, meanwhile, is an accident repair and refurbishment specialist.
Halesowen-based Bevan Group looks after some 2,400 vehicles on a repair and maintenance contract or pay-as-you-go basis, a figure that represents a 45% increase on the same point a year ago, and which continues to rise.
Explaining the popularity of the service, aftercare manager for Bevan Group, Simon Dryburgh, said: ’Operators value the fact that rather than recovering the vehicle to a workshop, our highly-trained mobile technicians are able to fix the vast majority of problems either at the roadside or at the customer’s own premises.
‘The loss of a tail-lift, or a jammed roller shutter door, effectively renders a vehicle useless. And as many are purpose-built for the job, operators can’t simply hire a replacement. Our industry-leading service therefore represents a big saving in all-important downtime, as well as minimising hassle and expense for customers.’
Bevan operates a 24-hour Breakdown Line –08443 222 333. Its strategically located team of 28 mobile technicians are on call round-the-clock, and Bevan Group claims they can reach 86% of breakdown scenes within 90 minutes of being “scrambled”, although in most cases the attendance time is a lot shorter. 'We continue to employ more mobile technicians and are working constantly to improve our response performance,' Dryburgh said.
Meanwhile, A&R Vehicle Services is fully equipped to undertake major accident repairs that cannot be completed at the roadside or at the operator’s own premises, as well as offering vehicle refurbishment programmes.
A&R continues to invest heavily in its facilities at Wednesbury, near Wolverhampton, and recently carried out a full, £40,000 refurbishment of one if its three paint booths. It has now launched a night shift to meet growth in demand.
In addition to its three commercial ovens the company operates a fully recycled shot blast facility, specialist chassis straightening equipment and a hydro test centre to support tanker operators, who have to adhere to strict testing regimes.
A&R managing director, George Simpson, added: ‘The partnership with Bevan represents a big adventure for our companies, and we’re both winning new orders for the extended range of services we’re now able to offer our respective customer bases.’