Adding Value
He's not really this old
The motivation for requiring certification of draw beams and drawbars came from a spate of fatal accidents involving heavy motor vehicles where the drawbars or beams had worn out and the heavy trailer had parted company with the truck. The operators knew when it was time to replace a drawbar or beam because it was then in two pieces
Today is vastly different. Certification costs are in the region of $250-$450 bearing in mind that this certification includes additional components which weren’t around 22 years ago. In real terms certification costs are probable only 25% of what there were then. NZ Transport agency now set the bar.
Do I think things have gone backwards—absolutely?
22 years ago, from a design point of view, things were pretty dreadful—there were some abhorrent designs. A four axle stock trailer with a 100 x 75 rhs pole (had been upgraded from 75 x 75 rhs after it had broken and the trailer had hit the Awatiri. Most drawbeam required upgrading but because we designed to fatigue criteria and as weld has a much lower fatigue allowance than parent metal, the upgraded drawbeam were reminiscent of battleships. Got a lot of ribbing, some good natured, some not so good. After a period of time 5 to 10 years later I thought overall the standard of design and manufacture had improved significantly. Good robust designs made by manufacturers who knew what they were about.
What’s happened now is that we have a whole new generation of designer’s certifiers and regulators. The regulators have added a lot more complexity to the compliance regime in the name of consistency. Many of the new designers have little practical experience about why things are the way they are and rely heavily on the regulators for guidance! They challenge the old heads, saying in not so many words that we are stupid, not realizing that the old heads know full well that this is a numbers game—you can never eliminate the possibility of things going wrong but you can as sure as hell reduce the odds!
The benefit of employing a specialist engineer within your business is, I guess, confidentiality as well as you the business owner or manager being able to call the shots. The dis-benefit is that the cost of employing someone is usually 2.5 to three times their pay (divide that by the number of hours that they are actually doing the job they were paid to do) – they can get up and leave any time. Pay that experienced designer say 80k PA ($40/hr) , say they do that type of work 65% of the time that they work for you equals a real productive cost of $185/hr.
The benefit of employing us is that our fee rates range from $90 to $175 per hour, we have around 250,000 man hours of data based information on tap, we have a range of skilled individuals to call on, we are totally confidential, have been around for 22 years and intend to be around for much longer
Bearing in mind the above, Randall and Associates Ltd would like to offer a helping hand, by way of fixed fee service contract, to all good operators, manufacturers and suppliers on a national basis which recognizes your excellent standing in the community. We would undertake the following services on a national basis
- “Design and certification” and or “design and issue of statements of design compliance” covering all aspects of heavy vehicle manufacture or modification
- Sales drawings, promotional drawings, concept sketches
- Provision of standard designs specification either on our letter heads or yours
The benefits to you of a fixed fee contract are
- You just pick the phone up and ask for something to be done—you do not have to worry about cost,
- Better staff utilization,
- National coverage, national consistency for design and specification,
- Reduced compliance and design hassle (one organization to work with).
The benefits to us:
- Better use of our staff and expertise,
- Better use of our data based knowledge,
- Better way for us of dividing up the work day.
Call to action—contact Nigel to find out more
Last 5 posts by Nigel
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