So you operate in the skilled trade industry and rely heavily on your vehicle to support the operations of your business. You have decided to purchase a new 300 Series Hino truck with class leading levels of safety, power and efficiency while also delivering benchmark levels of on-road performance and superior levels of interior ergonomics and comfort. However, what about the right service body?
In this article, we chat with Hidrive’s National Engineering and Innovation Manager – Roger Eagle, to provide you with the required information to easily deliver a reliable and fit for purpose service truck body that will help move your business forward.
Buying a truck with a customised configured service body will greatly improve the efficiency and productivity of a business. What is the first thing a Hino owner should do when choosing the best service truck body for their business?
Along with new model truck releases come the added benefits of new technologies, driver comfort and safety features. You’re making an investment that will make your mobile workforce safe, efficient and effective. It may also help your organisation attract new skills and new customers, so it’s important that you get it right!
Here are some essential points when considering any body installation on your new Hino truck:
- Safety and compliance is #1. The body manufacturer should verify the calculated axle weights and payloads for the completed truck. These will be calculated by the dealer in cooperation with the body builder and will guide your build.
- It is essential that the body manufacturer’s engineers are in close contact with the engineering and technical support resources provided by the vehicle manufacturer. Hino Bodyworx supports us with critical engineering and vehicle systems information.
- The body manufacturer should have an engineered, configurable and proven system so that you are assured of safety, compliance and reliability.
- Your body manufacturer should have ability to easily provide representations of the finished result that provide practical visualisation of how the body will function.
- Last but not least…ensure that you have a clear delivery date, and that the gates in the process of the build are clearly identified. Remember that when a body installation is completed there is still pre-delivery and registration to be carried out by the dealer. A well organised body manufacturer and dealer can identify these tasks right up front.
What kind of information should the prospective Hino owner come prepared with to make this process easier?
They will need a good understanding of the deliverables required from their new service trucks and the requirements of their field service people. Once this is determined, a standard body can be selected and a service body configuration easily established. The truck model/variant can then be selected using the service body requirements as a baseline.
The build process and installation typically takes from four to eight weeks from order depending upon the final body and vehicle configuration.
What’s involved in each stage of the build process?
First and foremost always keep this process fast, easy and simple. Generally the client’s field service contact will have high involvement around their requirements. This detail is then aligned with a Hidrive body model which is configured to meet their operational needs.
Based on these inputs the Hidrive engineering team verify the proposed configuration to ensure that axle weights and payloads are compliant, the client will also receive details on the price point and suggestions to keep the build within budget.
3D design drawings are then submitted to the client, these are easy to read and provide clarity to enable a practical visualisation of how the specific configuration will work for their organisation. Any revisions to the configuration are turned around quickly until the client approves of final design.
As soon as the order enters production, the Hidrive FleetAssist team will step in to coordinate the delivery. Our FleetAssist team provide all stakeholders with regular status reports to ensure that the process is transparent and efficiently coordinated with all stakeholders. Hidrive will ensure that the end user, the client, the Hino dealer, and the FMO if involved, are all kept informed right through to delivery.
How do you benefit from having direct contact with Hino engineering staff through Hino Bodyworx?
From the viewpoint of specialists in the design and manufacture of service bodies the Hino engineering staff and the Hino Bodyworx platform are key to getting it right first time. All Hidrive service bodies are configured on an engineered modular platform, the different variants of this platform expand out to 580 (yes five hundred and eighty) standard service body configurations, so strong communication with Hino Bodyworx is essential.
Another benefit of Hino Bodyworx is the ability for Hidrive to pre-engineer all bodies so that they do not require to be ‘chassis built’ (i.e. Where the body is built up on the truck chassis on the fabrication shop). The advantages of this are huge, including that bodies can be shipped from the Hidrive manufacturing plant ‘installation ready’ to any national Hidrive installation location to match up with the Hino truck installation. This results in a huge decrease in delivery times and cost for all stakeholders.
Is the overall customer experience of a finished vehicle build improved due to Bodyworx?
Both Hino and Hidrive’s interpretation of a great customer experience is that the product is safe, compliant, reliable and delivered on time and well supported nationally.
A positive customer experience for the new Hino owner is facilitated through Hino Bodyworx and the Hino Engineers having comprehensive technical information and data that is easily accessible and able to be interpreted by Hidrive’s engineering team.
We are in a market where our clients have high expectations, Hino’s Bodyworx platform certainly enables these expectations to be realised resulting in a quality overall customer experience.
Thanks Roger!
Get in contact with Hidrive at:
Website: https://hidrive.com.au/
Ph: 1300 368 161
Email: team.aus@hidrive.com.au
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HidriveGroup
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hidrive-group
Hino BodyWorx: https://www.hino.com.au/bodyworx/
Hidrive is an ISO 9001 certified Australian company that designs manufactures, installs and supports its product through five locations nationally.