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28th June 2018, 12:15 | #1 |
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| Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective The Commercial Vehicle (CV) industry is the behemoth that carries the rest of the country (and the world) on its gargantuan shoulders. At first glance, it seems to tower over everything. This is evident in many areas. Separate lanes for container traffic, motorists who scramble to make way for a heavier vehicle (purely in the interest of self-protection), and so many other manifestations. However, there is another facet to the industry. I wouldn't go so far as to call it the darkside but there are a few niggling issues that make it extremely difficult for the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and their partners, operators and eventually everyone down the chain. I have tried to list down and elaborate the seemingly minor issues so that one can enlighten oneself about the predicament of these stakeholders. There is a lot of material to read, so brace yourselves!
Now I can't say that these are show-stoppers in the CV industry. Every business/industry has its own set of challenges. I just wanted to throw light on a few issues that are continually a thorn in the side of all stakeholders and I wonder if there are simple technological solutions as well. On a closing note, I should let you know that this is the collective informal opinion of many people in the CV industry and across ALL OEMS. I would like to invite my colleagues from the industry and beyond to weigh in. Last edited by harikrishna.te : 10th August 2018 at 12:13. |
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11th August 2018, 08:08 | #2 |
Team-BHP Support | re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing! |
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11th August 2018, 10:53 | #3 | |
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| Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Quote:
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11th August 2018, 21:29 | #4 | |
Distinguished - BHPian | Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Very interesting topic, and nicely written up - it made for interesting and enlightening reading! Quote:
Last edited by arunphilip : 11th August 2018 at 21:31. | |
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11th August 2018, 21:46 | #5 |
Distinguished - BHPian | Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective |
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11th August 2018, 23:04 | #6 |
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| Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Brilliant article. Thank you for putting it together. Rated 5 stars. I was a part of this industry in the 1980s. This article could apply equally to 1982 expect for availability of drivers which is a real issue today and wasn't back then. Then in a world (largely) without TV and completely without mobile devices a driver was not exposed to a different aspirational world beyond his reach. Alas no more. Delays by the cops is as bad now as it then. If one travels a few hours in a truck cabin it is easy to appreciate Nitin Gadkari's proposal to air-condition the cabin. |
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12th August 2018, 00:38 | #7 |
Senior - BHPian | Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective As an aside, after having watched the BEST buses move from manual transmission to automatic, I think having an air conditioned cabin, power steering and automatic gearbox should be made mandatory in the trucks. |
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12th August 2018, 03:00 | #8 | |
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| Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective What an article dude! Thank you so much for sharing. Got a few insights about the challenges that the CV industry, fleet owners and the drivers face today. Quote:
PS: 240p resolution alert! | |
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12th August 2018, 08:00 | #9 | |
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| Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Quote:
The solution, of course, is to drain/fill each compartment as fully as possible and not have all of them partially filled. Unfortunately, tanker drivers in Oman didn't always follow this rule. | |
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12th August 2018, 09:08 | #10 |
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| Why not have bottom channel baffles running along the length axis of the truck inside the tanks? This will prevent sudden shifts of liquid from side to side? Had made a sketch but somehow the app crashes everytime I try to upload. Last edited by sudev : 12th August 2018 at 09:10. |
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12th August 2018, 14:35 | #11 |
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| Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Thank you for the wonderful thread. My organization owns 7 Eicher 11.10 Trucks which we use exclusively for the delivery of the products we produce. The reason we have our own trucks is the perishable nature of our goods. I can relate very well to the challenges the drivers and the owners face in this industry which you have elaborately pointed out. Firstly, I would like to say that the roads and the CV industry has improved drastically in the last decade not only in terms of technology but also in terms of the outlook of the industry. Secondly, the recent regulation of increasing the payload of all CVs by 25% is a welcome move as a minimum of 10-25% overloading was already commonplace in the industry and not something the vehicle's mechanicals can't handle. My opinion on some of the topics mentioned in your post: a. Driver - owner conundrum: Since our logistics doesn't involve high GVW trucks and long distance hauling, short-haul in light-midsize trucks is generally considered to be an easier job for the drivers and the industry pays accordingly. There is definitely an acute shortage of well-trained drivers and diesel pilferage is a constant menace many in the industry face. b. Indian vs European: With the introduction of new players in the market, the technology is now being value engineered to the Indian market where the perspective of the Indian customers are different like you mentioned. Many like BharatBenz seems to have already perfected this. Eicher's JV with Volvo is also paying off as the TCO of their vehicles today are very attractive. The introduction of Vehicle service & maintenance contracts at the dealer level in the last decade has definitely made things easier and has lowered the TCO drastically as we have accurately compared to the TCO numbers of a vehicle being maintained without the maintenance contracts either at the ASC or other mechanics. The shift from looking at just the Initial capital cost of the vehicle to looking at the TCO of the vehicle by the industry and the manufacturers acknowledging the same is a welcome move. |
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12th August 2018, 15:42 | #12 |
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| Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Visit the 'transport nagar' of your town if you have not done so already. Given that trucks transport the bulk of our goods (more than our creaky railways) the transport nagars or depots should be well laid out spaces with facility to load-unload, to turn around trucks, to refuel, with rest areas for the crew blah blah blah. They may not be as swanky as an airport but the functional amenities should all be there. But sadly these are slushy dirty unpaved areas where trucks trundle in churning wet earth or blowing dust depending on the season - there will be individual transport firms' office cum utility shacks - no toilet (what's that??) - no proper area for loading or unloading - I could go on. These 'transport nagars' have not changed a jot since I worked for a truck OEM in the 1980s. Because the trucking industry is largely in the semi-organized or unorganized sector, because truck owners are not from sophisticated English literate segments of society (albeit rather well off very often), because the poor drivers are from the poorer strata of our society we as citizens and our worthy bureaucrats look down on the people who own and man the industry. We let our feudal instincts dictate and precious little investment has gone into the industry from the Govt in building the right infrastructure. Some of that is changing now thank fully with regard to roads but not for proper cargo transport depots. The worst factor still remains the delays and corruption of the police and other road authorities. I would not be surprised if our transportation costs are higher by 10% to 15% only due to our neighbour hood traffic cop. |
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12th August 2018, 22:19 | #13 | |
Team-BHP Support | Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Logistics sector is actually one of the hottest automobile sub-sectors in India. Lots of private equity funding flowing into new-age logistics companies. Examples: www.rivigo.com www.blackbuck.com www.delhivery.com www.lobb.in Each of these tech enabled logistics startups have raised $100 to $200 million. There are 10 other startups that have raised anywhere between $10 to $100 million. Most of them are B2B marketplaces that connects customers with fleet owners, thereby increasing the efficiency of overall industry and increasing fleet owners' profitability. RIVIGO is a bit different because they actually own 3000 or 4000 trucks. The key focus is on using technology to solve problems and inefficiencies. Incredibly, this truck operator even has a coding challenge for young techies! https://www.rivigo.com/rcc Except for the maamu problem, technology enabled logistics companies and B2B marketplaces are likely to reduce the problems in the sector significantly. And by the way, these new age tech logistics companies are increasing revenues exponentially: To give you an idea about how quickly these companies are growing, the well known Transport Corporation of India (or TCI) clocked revenues of just Rs. 2,000 crores - and that is for a 60 year old company Quote:
Last edited by SmartCat : 12th August 2018 at 22:43. | |
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13th August 2018, 04:30 | #14 |
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| Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Very interesting thread. Truck industry is a sector in which a new entrant will struggle to enter due to the reasons you have already discussed. Maybe just a coincidence, MAN has already announced their exit from the Indian market. Similarly, Nissan and Navistar have also exited from their JVs. I have developed high regards to the truck drivers after seeing them commuting from Mumbai to Pune. They are staying away from family for a long time and managing with poorly maintained trucks. Not to forget they have handout a good amount to all those cops hiding on the way. |
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13th August 2018, 11:56 | #15 | ||||||||||||
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| Re: Niggling Issues in the Commercial Vehicle industry - An Insider's Perspective Quote:
Here's another anecdote. A customer once parked two vehicles in front of the dealership gates, asking the company to take the vehicles back because they were, in his own words, horribly fuel inefficient. He calculated that the kmpl was only 3.6 instead of the 7 promised by the company. The dealer and the company then had to fit fuel gauges (that could measure up to 1 ml of fuel) and show the customer that the problem did not lie with the vehicle. Quote:
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To conserve fuel, manufacturers and operators prefer an automated manual than a purely automatic transmission. The downside is that these AMTs are not refined and often have drive-ability issues like jerks and pitch. Quote:
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As far as the bottom channel baffles are concerned, I have not seen such a design in my limited experience. For the POL industry, every liter is gold and anything that takes up extra volume is sacrilegious. Also keep in mind the fact that these drivers drive around with tons/litres of inflammable liquid. They don't have enough information about the nature of these liquids and are not often educated on the best ways to drive them. Quote:
If a 25 ton rated vehicle can be loaded up to 29 tons (legally), the operator will further load it by about 25% (on average) because his/her perception is that any vehicle can be overloaded by up to 25%. If this applies to vehicles already on the road, they would have to bear an additional load - 25 tons rated, approximately 35 tons (actual load). Also, the issue is not so much with the mechanical systems as it is with the cooling system. Since the engine has to be kept running at an optimum temperature and this calibration is based on load, reliability will take a hit. The new overloading rule isn't very clear and is the source of much confusion. Quote:
On the value engineering part, one has to concede that the European entry has provided a completely fresh perspective to the market and the product itself. Some of their standard practices are considered 'innovations' in the Indian market. Another example here. Most European manufacturers use the humble cable tie to make sure their wires and harnesses stay intact and look presentable. The Indian market views these cable ties as excesses that can be 'value-engineered'. However, with no public information available on the profitability of the European trucks in India (the key word is India), it is difficult to qualify them as value engineered products. They may simply be shelling out more from their deep pockets just to capture the market - which is no bad practice, as the e-commerce industry would attest. Quote:
Where is the innovation in the CV industry today? It is not just in the products, but in the whole logistics sector! Rivigo for example has a model hitherto unknown to the Indian logistics market (there are exceptions, of course). Almost all their vehicles are on the road 100% of the time. This poses a new reliability challenge as well. Some of these vehicles have clocked over 200000 km in just under a year, which is a first for the industry. Technological solutions like geo-tagging, geo-fencing and driver assist will definitely help bring down the incidents of pilferage and also driver fatigue. A lot of companies from across the spectrum and and eminent academia are working towards such solutions today (more than you can imagine). Quote:
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Navistar couldn't really hit the ground running with M&M but I would be surprised if they too didn't pick up something useful. Quote:
And the cops aren't hiding anymore - they are in plain sight and demand and get what they want. A word on the intercity and tourist bus drivers - it is not often that you see a well rested driver on your bus. Some of these guys moonlight as mechanics during the day and often don't get the requisite hours of sleep. Maybe an airline type rule would be prudent here. But how it will be enforced is another matter altogether. Last edited by harikrishna.te : 13th August 2018 at 11:59. | ||||||||||||
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