Working with partner Speedy, Keltbray made a saving of £240k by streamlining its supply chain
Over the years, Keltbray has expanded into new sectors and territories, which has provided many opportunities but also challenges. As the business has taken on new ventures, it has also taken on their supply chain.
Keltbray Group consumed over 9 million litres of fuel in 2019 (5 million white diesel and 4 million red diesel), which makes it a high profile commodity for both the environmental and economic pillar.
With this in mind, Keltbray’s Environmental and Procurement departments decided to join forces and set the business the objective of streamlining its supply chain, and improving the way the supply of red diesel for site operations is managed.
To do this, Keltbray had meetings with all existing suppliers and also key players within the industry. The objective was best service and cost, and the supplier who came out on top was Speedy.
By expanding its partnership with Speedy, Keltbray made a huge saving of just under a quarter of a million pounds. Within the construction industry (Built Environment Services), the business has achieved £140k worth of savings and for the rail and infrastructure sector (RI) saved another £100k.
The process required Keltbray to invite all existing suppliers and understand their capacity, and also their procedures.
It was also very important to understand and question how fuel is currently supplied – the answer is very basic, when a site representative requires fuel, they ring the supplier, and the supplier provides within 48 hours. However this raises 2 possible issues:
- By the time the supplier is contacted the fuel may be required within less than 48hours, so the site runs the risk of running dry.
- The supplier comes in with the intent of filling in an entire bowser, but the bowser is not completely empty, making the journey inefficient.
Both issues arise from human error, however, both have an impact on the environment and the cost of the project, so this was something that also required tackling.
A method that multiple companies have started to catch up on is a very similar system which Keltbray uses to assess the efficiency of its plant and lorries, which is also used to maximise the effectiveness of its planned maintenance.
This method is the use of Telematics; telematics are units which transfer specific information allowing the user to access its performance remotely.
Whilst the business uses them to assess the performance of different equipment, Speedy will use them to assess how much fuel is left in a fuel bowser.
Keltbray Group concluded this project and expanded its partnership with Speedy, achieving a better cost of the fuel for the entire Group but also setting the objective of automating its fuel supply procedure, via the use of telemetries in its fuel bowsers.
Speedy is the UK’s leading tools and equipment Hire Company. In addition to their industry-leading range of high quality and fully tested products, they also provide training, testing inspection and certification services, as well as consumable and equipment sales. Speedy operate in the UK construction, infrastructure, industrial, utilities, events and facilities management markets. Keltbray has worked with Speedy for a number of years and they became a key supplier to the business in 2018.
