MANAGERS:Bob McGuire and Mark Swift
TITLES:Vice president/director of logistics and vice president of field maintenance-North Central region, respectively
FLEET:Alpha Baking Co., Chicago, IL
OPERATION:Alpha operates four bakeries, 16 production lines and over 350 delivery trucks distributing fresh bread in the Midwest and frozen bread nationwide
Problem: It’s one thingto talk about the virtues of switching to an alternative fuel such as propane, but it’s quite something else when a fleet starts looking at the operational impact of making such a switch.
That’s the situation that Chicago-based Alpha Baking Co. faced when it decided to integrate propane-powered trucks into its delivery fleet, according to Bob McGuire, the company’s vice president and director of logistics.
The baking firm decided to buy 22 Ford Motor Co. E-450 delivery trucks this year. Each vehicle is equipped with Roush CleanTech propane autogas technology to help save on fuel costs and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2 million lbs. over the expected service lifetime of those units.
“We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do,” McGuire notes. “First, these propane-powered bread delivery trucks will emit fewer emissions, and our company has been extremely progressive in doing the right thing for the environment. Second, propane is produced here in the U.S. and is therefore good for our economy. Lastly, this strategy reduces our dependency on foreign oil.”
But the question remained: What are the maintenance needs of these vehicles?
Solution:Alpha Baking decided to outsourcethe maintenance of its new propane-powered truck fleet to Penske Truck Leasing, its long-time vehicle leasing partner. This not only eliminated the expense involved in taking care of the trucks themselves, but also the challenge of finding and hiring experienced propane vehicle technicians or funding training initiatives to bring technicians up to speed on the technology.
“Alpha Baking is a long-time lease customer, and our lease sales team helped the company identify alternative fuel truck options,” says Mark Swift, Penske’s vice president-field maintenance for the North Central Region.
Brought in as an adviser to the propane vehicle acquisition process, the decision to ultimately buy those 22 Ford E-450 trucks equipped with the Roush propane system relied in part on Penske’s detailed experience with that particular technology. “That’s why we’re now the exclusive maintenance provider for these 2013 trucks,” Swift notes.
He added that no changes were required to any of Penske’s maintenance shops to service propane-powered trucks, either.
“Our company is familiar with propane technology; our logistics business uses propane forklifts in its warehouse operations,” Swift says. “Prior to acquiring this service contract, we did our due diligence by working with our corporate safety office to ensure we were following Illinois state laws and regulations.”
Swift also points out that Penske’s technicians took multiple training classes offered by Roush to make sure they were very familiar with all the components of the propane fuel system.
“We started the training in the spring, shortly before the units arrived, so the training was still fresh in their minds,” Swift adds. “The [propane] system itself is pretty basic and the technology has been around for some time so that helped us during the implementation. Overall, the amount of training hours was not significant.”
While he notes that Penske’s technicians are still learning the particulars of servicing Alpha’s propane-powered trucks, they’ve adhered to prescribed OEM maintenance intervals and service standards so there haven’t been any cost issues or unexpected vehicle downtime.
“I feel like we have made a very successful transition,” Swift says. “Our technicians are among the best in the business, and they enjoy working on the different types of trucks. They were excited to get this new equipment in and begin working on it.”
