In the past, the company, which has enjoyed over 50 successful years in business, purchased its fleet vehicles outright using a mix of capital and finance.
The arrival of General Manager, Simon Rennison, saw this change.
He says, “I spent much of my early months in the job looking closely at the fleet, its utilisation and flexibility. We knew our existing 16t vehicles were good for deliveries to smaller customers in towns and villages locally, even farm shops down country lanes, but needed something bigger for bulk orders to larger customers.
"Then, the Contract Hire option with Dawsongroup offered us the chance to keep capital in the business for other areas of investment. So I talked with the directors and other colleagues and we reached agreement that a strategic change would be beneficial. Hence the two 18t vehicles.”
Walker Humphrey services large and small UK businesses with our wide range of ambient, chilled and frozen products. It took on its first DAF 18t from Dawsongroup as a short-term trial, on rental, but Simon Rennison quickly realised the greater capacity the vehicle afforded was the way forward.
The company now has that truck and a similar companion vehicle, both on two-year contract hire with Dawsongroup, and envisages taking up the option to roll this out to four or five years before looking to renew.
So productive has the new fleet profile started to prove, the company has just ordered its third DAF CF 18t addition, again with Dawsongroup truck and trailer and on an immediate five-year contract.
As its business continues to grow, Walker Humphreys is now looking at replacing all its 16t vehicles through Dawsongroup and plans to add road cameras on all new vehicles going forward.
The 18t DAFs are fully liveried with the company’s colourful branding and are equipped with Dhollandia 1.5t tail-lifts, all as part of the Contract Hire arrangement. “It’s such a convenient way of operating for us and makes perfect economic sense as we get a fixed budget for the duration of the contract. Dawsongroup then takes care of all the regular servicing, maintenance and routine checks, as well as tyres and tax, so we can concentrate on planning routes and loads for our customers.”
Dawsongroup uses one of its local authorised service workshops to look after the vehicles. “This was another bonus,” says Simon Rennison. “We have always run DAFs, but, though they are very good, the local dealer is over an hour away, so we no longer have to factor that into our planning. It saves us time and money, without lowering our own high standards."