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Emma Penny reports on a firm that's tackled fuel economy head-on and saved £100,000 in two years.
CORE BUSINESS
Denholm: what the company does
Denholm Industrial Services specialises in scaffolding and containment, providing bespoke scaffolding for tricky areas. Recent scaffolding jobs included Wells Cathedral's spire.
Its design and engineering subsidiary, Ably Shelters, produces aluminium roofing systems, and specialises in temporary structures that are used extensively by the defence and construction industries. Some of its shelters are currently being used to protect army helicopters in Iraq,
Denholm Industrial Services is part of the J&J Denholm Group, which has three other divisions-shipping, logistics and seafoods. It's a private company, founded by John Denholm of Greenock in 6 16 866 and still controlled by his descendants. It has a turnover in excess of £100m, and employs more than 1,400 people around the world.
The figures are astounding: a saving of £1000,000 since 2002,fewer vehicles on the road, fuel consumption down by 20% - and all achieved while expanding a business. It sounds like an impossibility, but Yeovil-based Denholm Industrial Services has proved it can be done.
Transport isn't the company's core business but the firm's logistics manager, Nick Matthews, says it's a vital - and often undervalued -part of the operation. Without the 9 79 trucks, vans and cars in the fleet its £50m annual turnover wouldn't be possible.The bespoke scaffolding it offers has to be delivered throughout the south of England by truck or van, to hugely diverse sites.
When Matthews took over as logistics manager he could see inefficiencies in the firm's fleet, which ran to 112 vehicles.
"I think we were similar to everyone else in terms of inefficiency," he says. "When it's not your core business you perhaps don't pay attention to it, and as we didn't have any data no-one really knew the costs.The perception was that transport didn't really cost anything."
The first move to tackle the problem came with an invitation to a Business Link seminar on fuel efficiency in late 2001 .As a result, Matthews signed up for a site visit under the Fuel Economy Advisors' scheme, run through the Road Haulage Modernisation Fund.This entitled the company to a visit from a fuel efficiency specialist, an in-depth report and...