One of the world’s leading truck and bus manufacturers, Scania, has implemented a new initiative which it calls the “Complete Vehicles Program”. This concept is designed to reduce the amount of time between order and delivery of heavy vehicles to Australian clients.

Scania has started this initiative with two vehicles but is expected to increase the range of products in the program in the future. The first of these is a Scania chassis ready-built in Holland with a Hyva Hooklift that is shipped to Australia complete and ready to start earning a return on the client’s investment. This solution uses a Scania 8 x 4 twin-steer chassis fitted with a Hyva Hooklift.

The second solution is the Scania Curtainsider. The body is built locally and, because it is ordered at the same time that work commences on the chassis and the progress of each is coordinated by Scania, it is ready to be married to the chassis the moment it arrives in Australia. Previously, the body would be build after the chassis arrived. The chassis would sit idly at the body builders while raw materials were ordered and a production slot was allocated. Through this process, the customer would suffer weeks of delay waiting for a new capital asset to become productive.

Scania conducts the entire process so there is only one point of contact for the client and a single workshop for servicing of both the body and the chassis.

Both the Hyva Hooklift and the Curtainsider have been designed to specifications derived after consultation with operators but, should the standard specifications not be appropriate for a particular customer’s needs, Scania is able to build chassis configurations to meet the specific needs of a customer and still fit this into the “Complete Vehicles Program”.

The initiative has already been successfully introduced in Europe and the feedback in Australia is already encouraging.