Australian haulage company Crawfords Freightlines has detailed how it saved AUD$40,000, (equivalent to roughly £20,000) by streamlining the oils and other lubricants it uses in its maintenance operations.
Crawfords’ national maintenance manager, Josh Conners, is responsible for the company’s 600 vehicles, of which 123 are large trucks. Some 20 mechanics service the vehicles over five workshops. Conner was keen to improve workplace safety and enhance efficiency, so he got in contact with Viva Energy, the exclusive supplier of Shell lubricant products in the country.
After switching to Shell Rimula for their go-to commercial vehicle oil, as well as streamlining other lubricant products, the company saw the savings mentioned above, but the benefits did not stop there. Viva energy also supplied two oil-change machines made by ESOC.
This made the oil-change procedure safer, cleaner, and quicker, and Conners indicated that mechanics now go about extracting old oil by attaching the ESOC unit, adding:
“You then select how many litres you want to put back into the engine, and it will pump it back in while priming the filter.”
According to Connors, this alone has cut service times by 15%. He also said:
“That doesn’t sound like much but when you’re doing 1,200 oil changes a year, it does add up on the wages’ side, especially when you’re a family company.”
The workshop is now a much cleaner and safer place, with spills and burns a thing of the past. There are even fewer drums laying around to store waste oil.
