MAN Truck & Bus
Specialist on the mountain
Relaxing at the wheel Ewald Ehrlich starts his working day in a MAN HydroDrive truck.
The old town of Klagenfurt am Wörthersee with its narrow streets is a popular destination for tourists and walkers. It has been Ewald Ehrlich’s job for more than 30 years now to make sure that full waste bins do not spoil the city’s picturesque character; he starts his working day at five in the morning on the premises of the Klagenfurt branch of FCC Austria Abfall Service AG.
“I make 55 stops on my way into the city centre,” Ewald says. Until just over a year ago, the 56-year-old had to turn back at around the halfway point to empty the waste in a time-consuming process because the amount of rubbish being collected exceeded the capacity of his three-axle truck. “I don’t have to do that any more with the MAN four-axle truck,” he said. The MAN TGS 35.420 8x4H-6 BL with on-demand hydrostatic front-axle drive makes maximum use of the loading capacity that is 50% greater than that of three-axle vehicles, especially for heavy household waste. “The truck runs like it’s on rails, consumes hardly any additional fuel and – thanks to its steering axles – is just as manoeuvrable as a three-axle truck in tricky places,” the man from Carinthia says. After a year of use, during which the MAN TGS 8x4 with Hydro-Drive was put through its paces in Klagenfurt and clocked up 42,400 kilometres and 2,450 engine operating hours, Jürgen Springsits, Head of Group Logistics at FCC Environment CEE, draws a clear conclusion from the pilot phase: “It’s passed the endurance test!” FCC plans to deploy three more MAN four-axle collection vehicles in Carinthia by 2020. Other locations throughout Austria are also going to investigate whether it would be useful to replace end-of-life vehicles with MAN four-axle trucks.
FCC Environment CEE was founded in Vienna in 1988 as a state-owned company under the name of Abfall Service Austria. Acquired in 2006 by the globally active Spanish group Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), which operates in the field of infrastructure and environmental services, the subsidiary has subsequently developed into a leading waste-management company in central and eastern Europe. At present, it employs around 4,400 people in eight countries.
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work for the FCC waste-management company, which is represented in
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across Europe.
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make up the fleet.
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of the vehicles bear the MAN logo and convince with their long service lives.
EQUIPPED FOR ALL EVENTUALITIES
The range of services that the Austria-based company provides is broad: As a partner to local authorities, FCC Environment deals comprehensively with all aspects of waste management, from the development of models for charges and logistics to the efficient recovery of raw material at its own recycling centres. The company maintains urban infrastructures through services relating to street cleaning, green-space maintenance and sewer networks. Business customers from the fields of industry, trade and commerce are able to benefit from the know-how at FCC Environment by sustainably outsourcing their tasks relating to the management of their resources and the waste they produce. These demands on use are reflected in the fleet, which comprises around 1,400 special vehicles and trucks. One third of the vehicles bear the MAN logo.
One of Jürgen Springsits’ tasks in his position is to keep an eye on how MAN is doing compared with other manufacturers. “One of MAN’s greatest advantages over its competitors is the high quality of its vehicles,” the engineer, who has been with FCC for 13 years, says. “That’s decisive because it’s our strategy to make trucks last for 10 years.” FCC wants its collection vehicles to achieve a service life of around 25,000 operating hours and a mileage of 750,000 kilometres. “The maintenance and repair contracts with MAN ensure that we are able to calculate costs over the long term and without risk,” Jürgen says. “Every hour of operation and every kilometre driven is accounted for at rates that are precisely fixed. We are able to meet our budgets by working with MAN.”
When things get tight The MAN TGS 8x4 with HydroDrive winds its way effortlessly through the narrow streets.
The ten-year contracts that the partners conclude within an international framework agreement at all the waste-disposal company’s locations – except the one in Klagenfurt which runs its own workshop – also cover proactive maintenance management, the servicing of wearing parts, maintenance and servicing as well as the repair to entire vehicles. “We’re able to push the vehicles to their performance limits because trained MAN workshop personnel guarantee that maintenance and repair work is carried out professionally,” Jürgen continued.
RELIABLE SERVICE, FAST REPLACEMENT
MAN maintains an extremely dense service network in Europe, which helps minimise downtimes. “Spare parts are made available incredibly fast,” the 44-year-old says. That’s why FCC only needs to keep a few vehicles in reserve – a requirement for which the partners have also come up with a solution. “Due to the fact that FCC and MAN cultivate their relationship that has grown organically on trust, we are able to work together in the development of new objectives, e.g. the Substitute Trucks pilot project,” Marc Avril, Senior Manager Global Services at MAN Truck & Bus, says. FCC is granted access to two replacement vehicles for one year. It is then able to acquire those two trucks at favourable conditions when that period comes to an end.
“We’re very, very satisfied with MAN,” Erich Stampfer, Logistics and Production Manager at FCC for the Carinthia Region, says. Its fleet in Klagenfurt comprises 40 trucks – most of which are MAN vehicles. “Ewald, what’s your professional opinion of the new vehicle?” Erich asks his long-time employee jokingly and gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “It couldn't be better,” Ewald says enthusiastically. “I didn't have to put the snow chains on this winter thanks to the HydroDrive. Everything is much easier now.”
Because FCC and MAN cultivate a relationship of trust, we are able to work together in the development of new objectives.
Through snow and ice
Winter Landscape Sometimes conditions in the Carinthian mountains can get difficult for FCC Austria Abfall Service AG. But the drivers are able to master the icy terrain in trucks by MAN.
Text Ralf Kalscheur
Photos Michael Königshofer
