- Email: [email protected]
Trucks and road transport towards 1992
002+6031/88
Long Range Planning, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 45 to 49, 1988 Printed in Great Britain
Trucks and Road Towards 1992
Pergamon
$3.00 + .OO
45
Press plc
Transport
Giorgio Garuxxo
The truck is a machine tool for the transport industry and it should be seen as a system from which hauliers and operators expect maximum productivity. The task of the truck industry is the development of a system to decrease the transportation costs-not an easy task in a sector of the automotive industry considered as mature.
Trucks, light, medium and heavy, are the machine tools of the transport industry. Businesses, big and small, expect maximum productivity from a van, a 7.5 tonner or the maximum weight truck. Their total profits, in the case of haulage contractors, or at least a large slice of their overheads, in the case of firms with their own transport arrangements, are bound up with them. The first consequence out continual accurate and comparison of the performance, running of different trucks.
of this is that operators carry and sophisticated assessment technical data relating to the costs, quality and durability
Ease of maintenance, reliability and the efficiency of after-sales service are assessed in terms of total ‘down-time’ over a year, just as in the case of large computers, though the mobility of trucks introduces further complexity into the process. Selection from the different products on offer is made by people involved in the transport industry, informed customers, who have assessed the technical data and compared the whole range of trucks on the market. Where trucks are concerned, the ‘home market’ within the EEC is already with us, well in advance of 1992. In any European country, any individual pany customer thinking of buying trucks Giorgio
Garuzzo
is Managing
Director
of Iveco.
or comwill seek
advice from almost all the big European manufacturers, which means that the competition is unlimited. For this reason, apart from some exceptions for special-purpose vehicles, there is no longer any reason, in Europe, for promoting purely national truck manufacture, and governments are now aware of this. It is no longer possible to support national industries just for reasons of prestige if these industries are unable to compete because they are not producing on a large enough scale. In such circumstances keeping the loyalty of home customers becomes too great a burden, and it is impossible to make inroads into markets abroad.
Model Variability
and Legislation
The second consequence of trucks being machine tools is that they are sold with specifications tailored as far as possible to meet the requirements of the individual operator. This means a large number of versions and variants. Identical trucks coming out of factories rarely number more than a few dozen. Subsequently they may be fitted with many different options of body and equipment, produced by specialist manufacturers. In this respect it could be said that a truck is only a semi-finished product. For manufacturers like Iveco and its subsidiaries, which produce more than 110,000 trucks annually, this presents a highly complex technical and logistic problem. This complexity, which is good for the productivity of the transport industry and will become more pronounced, also tends to create a barrier which producers in other parts of the world trying to sell into Europe will find difficult to overcome, if not helped to do so by the Europeans themselves. Advanced European
specialization of this kind has provided industry in general with a stimulus to
Long
46
Range
Planning
Vol.
21
August
innovate and to develop more and more sophisticated techniques, giving it undisputed leadership over the rest of the world. For this reason although the importance of the unification of the regulations governing the weight and dimensions of trucks within Europe is tantamount it should not be demanded at all costs. Transporting heavy loads on the plains of central Europe, on English roads, or on the mountain routes of central Italy are very different challenges. European manufacturers are used to meeting the different requirements and coming up with the most appropriate solution in terms of vehicle configuration, engine power, driveline, wheelbase, optional equipment and so on. So they would rather like to see the abolition of the many irksome restrictions which stand in the way of a real European truck industry : restrictions related to exchange regulations, customs duties, taxation and industrial relations. In Europe today it is not even possible to incorporate a truck manufacturing company having European legal status. Iveco, for example, which has R & D, design and production facilities in five major European countries has had to set up five different companies, plus a central holding company in Holland (see Table 1). This has given rise to problems of every kind: costs and inefficiency difficult to evaluate but of considerable significance, puzzled looks from the various national governments, and the awkward attitudes of some political parties and trade unions unsympathetic to internationalism. In the light of this experience we doubt whether a true European common market can be set up by 1992. Where market
trucks as a product are concerned, the could not be more open and competition
could not be more intense, whereas the liberalization of goods transport problems are still there. Harmonizing Table
and integrating
1. The Iveco
with regard to by road, many
European
road trans-
companies
Holding company lveco BV, Holland Main lveco lveco lveco lveco lAstra
sector companies Fiat SpA, Italy Unit SA, France Magirus AG, West Germany Ford Truck Ltd, U.K. VI, Italy
Employees 1986
36,053
(in Italy 22,685)
lveco companies: 63 subsidiaries world-wide. lveco is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of diesel engines with a 1986 output of 262,000 units, two-thirds of which were sold to Fiat Group companies, and to other customers *Manufacture of quarry/construction cent share of Italian market in these
site and defence sectors.
vehicles;
20 per
1988 port will be a difficult and painful process, not least because of a basic contradiction: I find it incongruous to expect individual states to become more liberal and at the same time to retain complete responsibility for their national budget. They will of necessity give priority to their own balance of payments, the trend of their own exchange rates, their own interest rates and the progress of their own economy. This is taking the bull by the tail rather than by the horns. For instance, how will the haulage contractors of outlying areas of Europe such as Scotland or the south of Italy or Greece compete with operators in central Europe in a totally free market? The wealthier areas will become wealthier and the weaker areas weaker, as far as the transport industry is concerned. It does not surprise me that the central Europeans believe in free trade, while the governments of the more outlying countries militate to protect the marginal areas. The real solution to this problem is a truly integrated economy. Taking the bull by the horns means a single European budget, one European currency, and a consistent common development plan, but today this appears wishful thinking.
The Demand for Road Transport and the Demand for Trucks There is a marked difference, not always clearly understood, between the truck and car markets in estimating demand. As a matter of fact the number of trucks sold in Europe is not directly determined by the trend of national economies, nor does it grow in direct proportion to the growth in demand for road transport. European manufacturers have continually improved the performance of their trucks in terms of payload and use of load space, operating time and durability, with reduced down-time for maintenance. On the one hand, gross vehicle weight for example, legislation has tended to favour these developments; on the other hand other requirements and restrictions on emission, noise, safety and so on have not made the task easier. too, have become more Transport companies, efficient in a number of significant ways: increased integration of distribution, programmed maintencance and reduced down-time mean that each truck is used more intensively; some big operators make use of highly sophisticated data collection from branch depots to central systems. This has enabled the transport industry to improve productivity by several percentage points each year, putting it almost in line with the most advanced industries in
Trucks and Road Transport Towards 1992 other fields. The measure of goods moved in tonnes (or cubic metres) per kilometre per hour by the same size population of trucks has shown a continual increase. If we also take into acount improvements in fuel consumption, expressed in tonnes (or cubic metres) per kilometre per litre of diesel, we find even greater progress in energy saving. Considering the effect of transport costs on the value of all goods traded within Europe, I believe the contribution made by the truck industry to the overall economy deserves recognition. This is an achievement of which truck manufacturers can rightly be proud. This makes me all the more unhappy about the attitude prevalent in nearly all European countries towards granting customers’ discounts, large discounts when compared with the listed prices of trucks. A policy of this kind might be appropriate in sectors dealing in high-volume commodities, but not in specialized, high-technology sectors. Undisciplined use of discounts as a selling incentive could seriously damage the industry, because it diverts resources from research and investment and distracts sales forces from their proper professional task of solving customers’ operating problems. A price war has not, of course, broken out without reason. The European market peaked in 1979/1980, which was followed by a fall-off in demand. I do not believe the truck market to be in a state of crisis, as is often said. The underlying trend, at least for heavy trucks over 16 tonnes and light vehicles from 3.5 tonnes, has shown steady growth over a long period. The peak years were exceptional, and in those years there was also an exceptional demand for trucks from countries outside Europe, mainly in the OPEC area, whose development had been boosted by exceptional receipts from oil sales. Unfortunately the European industry chose to set its production capacity with reference to the peak figures rather than the underlying trend. The existence of an excessive number of manufacturers, each trying to improve its low level of profitability by an increase in output, favoured this choice. This policy caused stresses and strains once the reaction to the peak years had seriously reduced the size of the ‘cake’. The end result was that the European market shares of the main producers remained substantially the same, because any action by one manufacturer was met by an equal and opposite reaction on the part of its competitors, but levels of profitability fell across the board (see Figure 1). This has led to events in Europe in the past months which could prove of historic significance for our business: General Motors has closed down its Bedford operation, DAF has acquired control of
47
Mercedes 22.4%
-Renault
11 .O%
I 7.65
MAN 4.4% Others 21.7%
Figure 1. The European truck market (1987) market shares; vehicles over 3.5 tonnes Leyland, and Ford has joined with Iveco in a joint venture in Britain. A number of manufacturers have reduced their capacity. Iveco, for example, tries to maintain its work-force at a level corresponding to demand. We do not predetermine our sales volume and then attempt to force the market, but try rather to respond to the demands of the market. Clearly this course is beset with difficulties, including at times a shortage of finished trucks. I do not believe the reorganization I have mentioned is sufficient and would expect to see further structural changes for the better among the European producers. This should not make us pessimistic about the future. In the medium and long term, demand from countries outside Europe should return to more satisfactory levels-even if not the level ofthe record years. In these countries trucks are a vital part of the infrastructure for moving goods, including basic necessities. In 1987 exports of trucks from Europe did not amount to very much and it is unlikely that the situation will improve in 1988, but the increase in oil prices and the fact that the truck fleets of these countries are ageing makes it likely that there will be a recovery after 1989. Within Europe, road transport of goods is bound to respond to economic cycles. It will also be affected by the increased productivity of the transport industry, as I have described, but this also has a positive aspect: road transport of goods is essential to a developing continent, and is in fact more efficient than transport by other means. In some countries political preferences for rail transport have come to the fore. This is a curious development because often such policies are motivated by ecological considerations, as if trains did not run on electricity which needs to be produced in nuclear or conventional power stations-power
48
Long
Range
Planning
Vol.
21
August
stations which the very same countries are then reluctant to build! Or the aim is to improve traffic conditions in favour of the private motorist. Anyone would think passengers could not travel by train, whereas in fact, unlike goods, they can load and unload themselves and get to their final destination under their own steam! I believe that the political preference accorded railways derives largely from the fact that they State-owned, but this bias will not prevent natural trend towards coexistence: coexistence the car and the truck and coexistence, within planned framework, of road, water, rail and transport systems.
to arc the of a air
Meanwhile, 1987 was the best year for the European market since 1980. The sales threshold of 400,000 trucks over 3.5 tonnes g.v.w. has been surpassed. Clearly, improved economic circumstances have encouraged the renewal of truck fleets; to put it another way, the growth in demand for road transport has had a more than equal effect on the demand for trucks.
Innovation, Automation and the Role of the Supplier Industry It is possible that the general public is not aware
of the extent to which truck technology has advanced over the years. All the new developments affecting cars have had a corresponding application to trucks, too. Almost always, there has been the need to adapt them to meet different and often more exacting requirements, given that trucks are the work-horses of motor transport and their dimensions, toughness and endurance must be that much greater. In addition to innovations of this kind--the common property, we might say, of the motor industry as a whole--there has also been a wide range of new developments specific to the needs of trucks. Examples of innovations common to both sectors are too numerous to be worth detailing. Whatever new development comes to mind in car engineering or bodywork will have also been applied to trucks. I would just like to take time to consider two significant examples. Taking the comfort of long-distance truck cabs as an example, the cab of the Iveco Turbo Star, like the cabs of the best of its rivals, is in the same class as the most luxurious motor cars as regards suspension, systems for cutting out engine vibration, airconditioning and accessories. The air-sprung seat is a masterpiece of modern engineering, at a reasonable cost. The bodywork is almost up to the standard of a luxury car, with the additional requirement that it must tilt to give access to the power unit.
1988 The second example is significant for a different reason: this is an area of technology common to the whole motor industry but which, in its application to trucks, has found an environment favouring more sustained development. I am referring to turbo-charging and intercooling for engines: developments for an elite minority in the car world, but essential and now standard features on diesel trucks. Original developments specific to trucks arc less well-known but perhaps even more important. These have been concerned particularly with diesel engine technology ; driveline : the pursuit of perfection in the relationship between gearbox, axle, transfer box and retarder; types of suspension (mechanical or pneumatic) ; braking systems (pneumatic or hydraulic), and so on. In the future, innovations on cars will certainly continue to be modified and adapted to the needs of trucks, but there will be increasing emphasis on original research and development. This is to be equally true in arcas where cars have been making the running: electronics, pollution control and the use of new materials. One clear example is that of the application of electronics to gear-changing. With transmissions of 13 to 16 gears, like those fitted to our heavy road vehicles, it may mean that mechanical components perform only the transfer of torque. Gear-change and synchronization functions will be electronically actuated; one day even the decision of when and how to change gear may be taken electronically. Also there will be other functions to be electronically monitored: from fuel injection to suspension, and diagnostic checks on and off the vehicle. Fleet management with their E.D.P. print-outs, which at the end of every year measure the fuel consumption of each truck and compare the different makes, will then register a few further percentage points in fuel economy-a further reduction in costs to the transport industry. Innovations in manufacturing technology deserve a chapter of their own. In this respect trucks started way behind cars. Until now the truck industry has been held back from imitating the car industry’s success in introducing automation by almost insurmountable obstacles: very much smaller production volumes, the variability of models, and the vastly greater dimensions of parts. The situation is now changing rapidly and very big investments are being made in truck plants. Production technology has come up with appropriate solutions, of a different nature from those applicable to cars. To put it simply, we might say that technological software is becoming more important than the related hardware, to the point of linking up
Trucks and Road Transport Towards 1992 with the company’s central system software. This tendency, which is very costly in that it absorbs much of a company’s qualified resources, is related to the process of restructuring manufacturing industry in Europe. At this point it is timely to stress the vital role that suppliers have to play in this field, whether they supply components or production systems. The suppliers to the European truck industry are, in my opinion, second to none. In the years ahead their role will not be an easy one. Inevitably they will be expected to maintain their present lead in technology while at the same time reducing costs. They should not get too indignant about this. The pressure exerted by customers on the manufacturers of finished vehicles and, in future, the pressure which will come from other parts of the world, must inevitably be passed on, at least in part, to them. After all, even for manufacturers like Iveco, who produce the major components such as the engine and the cab themselves, still 60 to 70 per cent of the cost of the finished product is made up of bought-in components. Therefore, suppliers who can go the extra mile in terms of performance, quality and cost, will be doing very profitable
49
business in the 1990s protected by technological barriers and by close relations with the European truck producers, which will prove both advantageous and lasting to them. In the future as in the past, the most successful component manufacturers will be those who are aware of the difference and are wholly committed to trucks or, at least, commit specialized departments and resources to them. The truck, as was stated at the beginning of this article, can be seen as a machine tool for the transport industry: indeed, it is a whole system from which hauliers and operators expect maximum productivity with minimum costs. The task of the truck industry is to work for developing such a system so as to decrease transportation costs with respect to the goods transported. Certainly it is not an easy task. Nor a limited one-as sometimes one might think reading abstract macro-economic definitions which label the sector as ‘mature’. On the contrary it is a task which requires initiative and endless creativity in the search for new answers to new demands.
Long Range Planning, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 45 to 49, 1988 Printed in Great Britain
Trucks and Road Towards 1992
Pergamon
$3.00 + .OO
45
Press plc
Transport
Giorgio Garuxxo
The truck is a machine tool for the transport industry and it should be seen as a system from which hauliers and operators expect maximum productivity. The task of the truck industry is the development of a system to decrease the transportation costs-not an easy task in a sector of the automotive industry considered as mature.
Trucks, light, medium and heavy, are the machine tools of the transport industry. Businesses, big and small, expect maximum productivity from a van, a 7.5 tonner or the maximum weight truck. Their total profits, in the case of haulage contractors, or at least a large slice of their overheads, in the case of firms with their own transport arrangements, are bound up with them. The first consequence out continual accurate and comparison of the performance, running of different trucks.
of this is that operators carry and sophisticated assessment technical data relating to the costs, quality and durability
Ease of maintenance, reliability and the efficiency of after-sales service are assessed in terms of total ‘down-time’ over a year, just as in the case of large computers, though the mobility of trucks introduces further complexity into the process. Selection from the different products on offer is made by people involved in the transport industry, informed customers, who have assessed the technical data and compared the whole range of trucks on the market. Where trucks are concerned, the ‘home market’ within the EEC is already with us, well in advance of 1992. In any European country, any individual pany customer thinking of buying trucks Giorgio
Garuzzo
is Managing
Director
of Iveco.
or comwill seek
advice from almost all the big European manufacturers, which means that the competition is unlimited. For this reason, apart from some exceptions for special-purpose vehicles, there is no longer any reason, in Europe, for promoting purely national truck manufacture, and governments are now aware of this. It is no longer possible to support national industries just for reasons of prestige if these industries are unable to compete because they are not producing on a large enough scale. In such circumstances keeping the loyalty of home customers becomes too great a burden, and it is impossible to make inroads into markets abroad.
Model Variability
and Legislation
The second consequence of trucks being machine tools is that they are sold with specifications tailored as far as possible to meet the requirements of the individual operator. This means a large number of versions and variants. Identical trucks coming out of factories rarely number more than a few dozen. Subsequently they may be fitted with many different options of body and equipment, produced by specialist manufacturers. In this respect it could be said that a truck is only a semi-finished product. For manufacturers like Iveco and its subsidiaries, which produce more than 110,000 trucks annually, this presents a highly complex technical and logistic problem. This complexity, which is good for the productivity of the transport industry and will become more pronounced, also tends to create a barrier which producers in other parts of the world trying to sell into Europe will find difficult to overcome, if not helped to do so by the Europeans themselves. Advanced European
specialization of this kind has provided industry in general with a stimulus to
Long
46
Range
Planning
Vol.
21
August
innovate and to develop more and more sophisticated techniques, giving it undisputed leadership over the rest of the world. For this reason although the importance of the unification of the regulations governing the weight and dimensions of trucks within Europe is tantamount it should not be demanded at all costs. Transporting heavy loads on the plains of central Europe, on English roads, or on the mountain routes of central Italy are very different challenges. European manufacturers are used to meeting the different requirements and coming up with the most appropriate solution in terms of vehicle configuration, engine power, driveline, wheelbase, optional equipment and so on. So they would rather like to see the abolition of the many irksome restrictions which stand in the way of a real European truck industry : restrictions related to exchange regulations, customs duties, taxation and industrial relations. In Europe today it is not even possible to incorporate a truck manufacturing company having European legal status. Iveco, for example, which has R & D, design and production facilities in five major European countries has had to set up five different companies, plus a central holding company in Holland (see Table 1). This has given rise to problems of every kind: costs and inefficiency difficult to evaluate but of considerable significance, puzzled looks from the various national governments, and the awkward attitudes of some political parties and trade unions unsympathetic to internationalism. In the light of this experience we doubt whether a true European common market can be set up by 1992. Where market
trucks as a product are concerned, the could not be more open and competition
could not be more intense, whereas the liberalization of goods transport problems are still there. Harmonizing Table
and integrating
1. The Iveco
with regard to by road, many
European
road trans-
companies
Holding company lveco BV, Holland Main lveco lveco lveco lveco lAstra
sector companies Fiat SpA, Italy Unit SA, France Magirus AG, West Germany Ford Truck Ltd, U.K. VI, Italy
Employees 1986
36,053
(in Italy 22,685)
lveco companies: 63 subsidiaries world-wide. lveco is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of diesel engines with a 1986 output of 262,000 units, two-thirds of which were sold to Fiat Group companies, and to other customers *Manufacture of quarry/construction cent share of Italian market in these
site and defence sectors.
vehicles;
20 per
1988 port will be a difficult and painful process, not least because of a basic contradiction: I find it incongruous to expect individual states to become more liberal and at the same time to retain complete responsibility for their national budget. They will of necessity give priority to their own balance of payments, the trend of their own exchange rates, their own interest rates and the progress of their own economy. This is taking the bull by the tail rather than by the horns. For instance, how will the haulage contractors of outlying areas of Europe such as Scotland or the south of Italy or Greece compete with operators in central Europe in a totally free market? The wealthier areas will become wealthier and the weaker areas weaker, as far as the transport industry is concerned. It does not surprise me that the central Europeans believe in free trade, while the governments of the more outlying countries militate to protect the marginal areas. The real solution to this problem is a truly integrated economy. Taking the bull by the horns means a single European budget, one European currency, and a consistent common development plan, but today this appears wishful thinking.
The Demand for Road Transport and the Demand for Trucks There is a marked difference, not always clearly understood, between the truck and car markets in estimating demand. As a matter of fact the number of trucks sold in Europe is not directly determined by the trend of national economies, nor does it grow in direct proportion to the growth in demand for road transport. European manufacturers have continually improved the performance of their trucks in terms of payload and use of load space, operating time and durability, with reduced down-time for maintenance. On the one hand, gross vehicle weight for example, legislation has tended to favour these developments; on the other hand other requirements and restrictions on emission, noise, safety and so on have not made the task easier. too, have become more Transport companies, efficient in a number of significant ways: increased integration of distribution, programmed maintencance and reduced down-time mean that each truck is used more intensively; some big operators make use of highly sophisticated data collection from branch depots to central systems. This has enabled the transport industry to improve productivity by several percentage points each year, putting it almost in line with the most advanced industries in
Trucks and Road Transport Towards 1992 other fields. The measure of goods moved in tonnes (or cubic metres) per kilometre per hour by the same size population of trucks has shown a continual increase. If we also take into acount improvements in fuel consumption, expressed in tonnes (or cubic metres) per kilometre per litre of diesel, we find even greater progress in energy saving. Considering the effect of transport costs on the value of all goods traded within Europe, I believe the contribution made by the truck industry to the overall economy deserves recognition. This is an achievement of which truck manufacturers can rightly be proud. This makes me all the more unhappy about the attitude prevalent in nearly all European countries towards granting customers’ discounts, large discounts when compared with the listed prices of trucks. A policy of this kind might be appropriate in sectors dealing in high-volume commodities, but not in specialized, high-technology sectors. Undisciplined use of discounts as a selling incentive could seriously damage the industry, because it diverts resources from research and investment and distracts sales forces from their proper professional task of solving customers’ operating problems. A price war has not, of course, broken out without reason. The European market peaked in 1979/1980, which was followed by a fall-off in demand. I do not believe the truck market to be in a state of crisis, as is often said. The underlying trend, at least for heavy trucks over 16 tonnes and light vehicles from 3.5 tonnes, has shown steady growth over a long period. The peak years were exceptional, and in those years there was also an exceptional demand for trucks from countries outside Europe, mainly in the OPEC area, whose development had been boosted by exceptional receipts from oil sales. Unfortunately the European industry chose to set its production capacity with reference to the peak figures rather than the underlying trend. The existence of an excessive number of manufacturers, each trying to improve its low level of profitability by an increase in output, favoured this choice. This policy caused stresses and strains once the reaction to the peak years had seriously reduced the size of the ‘cake’. The end result was that the European market shares of the main producers remained substantially the same, because any action by one manufacturer was met by an equal and opposite reaction on the part of its competitors, but levels of profitability fell across the board (see Figure 1). This has led to events in Europe in the past months which could prove of historic significance for our business: General Motors has closed down its Bedford operation, DAF has acquired control of
47
Mercedes 22.4%
-Renault
11 .O%
I 7.65
MAN 4.4% Others 21.7%
Figure 1. The European truck market (1987) market shares; vehicles over 3.5 tonnes Leyland, and Ford has joined with Iveco in a joint venture in Britain. A number of manufacturers have reduced their capacity. Iveco, for example, tries to maintain its work-force at a level corresponding to demand. We do not predetermine our sales volume and then attempt to force the market, but try rather to respond to the demands of the market. Clearly this course is beset with difficulties, including at times a shortage of finished trucks. I do not believe the reorganization I have mentioned is sufficient and would expect to see further structural changes for the better among the European producers. This should not make us pessimistic about the future. In the medium and long term, demand from countries outside Europe should return to more satisfactory levels-even if not the level ofthe record years. In these countries trucks are a vital part of the infrastructure for moving goods, including basic necessities. In 1987 exports of trucks from Europe did not amount to very much and it is unlikely that the situation will improve in 1988, but the increase in oil prices and the fact that the truck fleets of these countries are ageing makes it likely that there will be a recovery after 1989. Within Europe, road transport of goods is bound to respond to economic cycles. It will also be affected by the increased productivity of the transport industry, as I have described, but this also has a positive aspect: road transport of goods is essential to a developing continent, and is in fact more efficient than transport by other means. In some countries political preferences for rail transport have come to the fore. This is a curious development because often such policies are motivated by ecological considerations, as if trains did not run on electricity which needs to be produced in nuclear or conventional power stations-power
48
Long
Range
Planning
Vol.
21
August
stations which the very same countries are then reluctant to build! Or the aim is to improve traffic conditions in favour of the private motorist. Anyone would think passengers could not travel by train, whereas in fact, unlike goods, they can load and unload themselves and get to their final destination under their own steam! I believe that the political preference accorded railways derives largely from the fact that they State-owned, but this bias will not prevent natural trend towards coexistence: coexistence the car and the truck and coexistence, within planned framework, of road, water, rail and transport systems.
to arc the of a air
Meanwhile, 1987 was the best year for the European market since 1980. The sales threshold of 400,000 trucks over 3.5 tonnes g.v.w. has been surpassed. Clearly, improved economic circumstances have encouraged the renewal of truck fleets; to put it another way, the growth in demand for road transport has had a more than equal effect on the demand for trucks.
Innovation, Automation and the Role of the Supplier Industry It is possible that the general public is not aware
of the extent to which truck technology has advanced over the years. All the new developments affecting cars have had a corresponding application to trucks, too. Almost always, there has been the need to adapt them to meet different and often more exacting requirements, given that trucks are the work-horses of motor transport and their dimensions, toughness and endurance must be that much greater. In addition to innovations of this kind--the common property, we might say, of the motor industry as a whole--there has also been a wide range of new developments specific to the needs of trucks. Examples of innovations common to both sectors are too numerous to be worth detailing. Whatever new development comes to mind in car engineering or bodywork will have also been applied to trucks. I would just like to take time to consider two significant examples. Taking the comfort of long-distance truck cabs as an example, the cab of the Iveco Turbo Star, like the cabs of the best of its rivals, is in the same class as the most luxurious motor cars as regards suspension, systems for cutting out engine vibration, airconditioning and accessories. The air-sprung seat is a masterpiece of modern engineering, at a reasonable cost. The bodywork is almost up to the standard of a luxury car, with the additional requirement that it must tilt to give access to the power unit.
1988 The second example is significant for a different reason: this is an area of technology common to the whole motor industry but which, in its application to trucks, has found an environment favouring more sustained development. I am referring to turbo-charging and intercooling for engines: developments for an elite minority in the car world, but essential and now standard features on diesel trucks. Original developments specific to trucks arc less well-known but perhaps even more important. These have been concerned particularly with diesel engine technology ; driveline : the pursuit of perfection in the relationship between gearbox, axle, transfer box and retarder; types of suspension (mechanical or pneumatic) ; braking systems (pneumatic or hydraulic), and so on. In the future, innovations on cars will certainly continue to be modified and adapted to the needs of trucks, but there will be increasing emphasis on original research and development. This is to be equally true in arcas where cars have been making the running: electronics, pollution control and the use of new materials. One clear example is that of the application of electronics to gear-changing. With transmissions of 13 to 16 gears, like those fitted to our heavy road vehicles, it may mean that mechanical components perform only the transfer of torque. Gear-change and synchronization functions will be electronically actuated; one day even the decision of when and how to change gear may be taken electronically. Also there will be other functions to be electronically monitored: from fuel injection to suspension, and diagnostic checks on and off the vehicle. Fleet management with their E.D.P. print-outs, which at the end of every year measure the fuel consumption of each truck and compare the different makes, will then register a few further percentage points in fuel economy-a further reduction in costs to the transport industry. Innovations in manufacturing technology deserve a chapter of their own. In this respect trucks started way behind cars. Until now the truck industry has been held back from imitating the car industry’s success in introducing automation by almost insurmountable obstacles: very much smaller production volumes, the variability of models, and the vastly greater dimensions of parts. The situation is now changing rapidly and very big investments are being made in truck plants. Production technology has come up with appropriate solutions, of a different nature from those applicable to cars. To put it simply, we might say that technological software is becoming more important than the related hardware, to the point of linking up
Trucks and Road Transport Towards 1992 with the company’s central system software. This tendency, which is very costly in that it absorbs much of a company’s qualified resources, is related to the process of restructuring manufacturing industry in Europe. At this point it is timely to stress the vital role that suppliers have to play in this field, whether they supply components or production systems. The suppliers to the European truck industry are, in my opinion, second to none. In the years ahead their role will not be an easy one. Inevitably they will be expected to maintain their present lead in technology while at the same time reducing costs. They should not get too indignant about this. The pressure exerted by customers on the manufacturers of finished vehicles and, in future, the pressure which will come from other parts of the world, must inevitably be passed on, at least in part, to them. After all, even for manufacturers like Iveco, who produce the major components such as the engine and the cab themselves, still 60 to 70 per cent of the cost of the finished product is made up of bought-in components. Therefore, suppliers who can go the extra mile in terms of performance, quality and cost, will be doing very profitable
49
business in the 1990s protected by technological barriers and by close relations with the European truck producers, which will prove both advantageous and lasting to them. In the future as in the past, the most successful component manufacturers will be those who are aware of the difference and are wholly committed to trucks or, at least, commit specialized departments and resources to them. The truck, as was stated at the beginning of this article, can be seen as a machine tool for the transport industry: indeed, it is a whole system from which hauliers and operators expect maximum productivity with minimum costs. The task of the truck industry is to work for developing such a system so as to decrease transportation costs with respect to the goods transported. Certainly it is not an easy task. Nor a limited one-as sometimes one might think reading abstract macro-economic definitions which label the sector as ‘mature’. On the contrary it is a task which requires initiative and endless creativity in the search for new answers to new demands.