Steel specialist invests with Scania
Glossop-based High Peak Steels has invested in a fleet of specialist delivery wagons as part of its growth strategy.
High Peak Steels is an independent specialist steel stockholder and supplier, serving a range of specialist engineering steel to a number of manufacturing sectors, including automotive, aerospace and renewables.
It has recently commissioned seven Scania P280 Rigid Dropside 18-tonne wagons, bringing its total fleet to 11. The P-series offers low weight, low-height mounted cabs with great visibility and driveability. Scania claims it is its most versatile cab range, suitable for urban and regional operations and well-proven for construction and other demanding conditions.
High Peak MD Mark Thornley says: “Choosing Scania was not the cheapest option. However, when looking at reliability, longevity and employee conditions, they were the most logical choice.
We’ve run our own fleet of wagons for around 20 years. With our dedication to on time and in full service, we know only too well the disruption a breakdown can cause to customers and our logistics team, not forgetting the wagon driver as well. The choice of marque was central to our decision as we looked at long term reliability. Of course, for drivers, a premium cab is a major bonus.”
The new vehicles include fully connected telematics, plus six camera systems, live footage and live tracking. The fleet also boasts state of the art adjustable load bearers to help with variable loads and easy access when delivering to customers.
The investment in new vehicles is part of an ongoing programme of capital, estate and material investment at High Peak Steels. The firm has recently invested in an additional 20,000ft2 of warehousing, enabling them to offer more storage and availability of engineering steels.
Mark continues: “We’re facing increasing demands for tonnage. Many of our customers work on a ‘just in time’ basis for their supply chain, so we need to carry sufficient specialist steel stock to meet a range of demand from our broad client base.
The increased warehouse capacity means that we can carry an increased depth of stock and draw this down for specialist cutting and dispatch. We can also respond quickly to our customers’ demands for a reliable flow of high quality engineering specialist steels.”
The firm has also invested in its warehouse management systems. Mark says: “We reviewed our existing warehousing and have systematically re-arranged our racking systems, as well as our cutting facilities to fully optimise our storage volumes and despatch times.”
