Disposal and repurposing of tyres is a specialised form of waste manage work. S&J Australian Scrap Tyre Disposals is a company that specialises in disposing of scrap tyres. To do so efficiently, the S&J Australian Scrap Tyre Disposals team needed the right equipment to meet the company’s requirements. One of the key elements to its business is its fleet of Isuzu trucks.
They are an integral part of making sure the operation runs smoothly. The business has a variety of vehicles ranging in size, the smallest being an Isuzu ute, with the biggest being the Isuzu FXL 240-350, which is the heavy, rigid model.
Operations manager of S&J Australian Scrap Tyre Disposals, Josh Hayes, has been thoroughly impressed with his Isuzu FXL 240-350 walking floor trucks.
As the name suggests, these trucks take a lot of the manual labour out of picking up tyres.
“Our day-to-day operation is that we pick up scrap tyres from councils, tyre stores and from anyone that generates waste tyres,” Hayes said.
“They’re brought back to a depot for recycling. Where walking floor trucks come into it, is that they can reduce the manual handling side. Some of the high-volume tyre stores have the tyres rolled up and ready to go when our guys arrive. They can load the truck in 15 minutes thanks to the walking floor trucks.
“Then when you get to the depot you just press a button and they more or less unload themselves.”
The trucks have a capacity of about 800 passenger units, which is about 400 four-wheel drive tyres or a couple of hundred truck tyres depending on their size.
This is paramount to the operation of the business as it provides efficiency for the team’s workday.
The company bought its first Isuzu truck back in 2008, and it is still in service. Initially, S&J Australian Scrap Tyre Disposals used cage trucks with an open top to pick up the tyres, whereby they could roll a tarpaulin over the top to prevent tyres coming loose.
Loading and unloading of scrap tyres is labour intensive. With the health and safety of its workforce in mind, the business has been innovating and implementing reductions in manual handling in a continuous process to better care for its workers. Investing in their Isuzu Fleet has saved the company on down time as well.
“With the local runs, we’re saving at least an hour of work,” Hayes said. “At the end of the day, when the guys have just driven back from loading the truck, they want to be able to wrap the day up quickly with the press of a button, get the paperwork out of the way, and then go home.
“The other good thing about these trucks is that when they arrive back at 9-10 o’clock in the morning after their first run we can reduce that bottleneck if the unloading happens quickly and efficiently.”
The expansion of the Isuzu Fleet has reduced overtime markedly, which has led to higher productivity, and being able to carry heavier loads with an increase in efficiency, and of course less strain on the workers.
Hayes chose to go with the automatic transmission for the fleet in a smart move to increase the pool of candidates for the company’s workforce.
“Almost all the trucks are now automatic, which is handy because our job applicants have licences driving automatics, but less applicants have a manual licence, which means the prospective pool of job hopefuls has increased,” he said.
But by far the biggest part of the Isuzu equation is the back-up service.
Realising time is money for its clients, Isuzu Trucks’ service workshop operates at night, which means S&J Australian Scrap Tyre Disposals can drop a truck off for an overnight service and pick it up in the morning, with less down time for the company.
“To be able to drop off our FXL 240-350’s on a Thursday or Friday night means we can plan a schedule for regular work on the following day,” said Hayes.
“Because if we miss a load due to a truck being serviced, it’s very difficult to catch up unless you’ve got the additional capacity in the fleet.”
The company has been happy with its relationship with Isuzu Trucks and plans on using them in the future to meet its fleet needs.
“We started buying Isuzu Trucks because of the price but we have continued to do so because of the reliability,” Hayes said.