Following a Management Buy Out which was completed in March 2018 and led by the group’s sales manager now Sales Director Paul Rooney and his brother now Dealer Principal Steve Rooney, Sparshatt Truck and Van begun a wide-ranging renovation programme group wide.
This focused on the £2m redevelopment of a new 1.8-acre site in Kennet Road, Dartford which began in November 2018 and was completed in June 2019. The new Dartford site is three times larger than the previous Sparshatt-leased site in Dartford – providing 4,475 square metre building giving space for 12 state-of-the-art truck servicing and PDI bays, and 13 dedicated Van Bays, in addition to 3,500 square metre external area for service vehicles and visitor parking.
Sparshatt Sittingbourne benefits from more than £500k investment
Sparshatt Truck & Van group headquarters remains in Sittingbourne. Sparshatt has two sites in the industrial area of Sittingbourne. It recently completed a £330,000 relocation and refurbishment project to create a state of the art Bodyshop about half a mile from the main Truck & Van Sales and Service Centre and group headquarters.
Recent renovations in the headquarters building included £200,000 creation of a new dedicated Van Centre on the site of Sparshatt’s old Body Shop. The 529 square metre Van Service Centre offers eight new van bays. Its new dedicated Van Centre reception area has created three new administrative roles which it is currently recruiting for. One additional service technician has already been taken on and two more technicians are set to be hired to staff the new Van Centre through the night, following the winning of a major 24/7 contract for van servicing from Tesco.
The now dedicated Truck Service Centre still offers 14 truck bays. The site services Mercedes’ Actros, Arocs, Antos, Atego and Econic models and FUSO Canter light trucks for a wide range of construction, haulage and other commercial fleets. It also is a service franchisee of EvoBus (Mercedes-Benz and Setra), buses and coaches. Increased throughput following renovations has created five new job vacancies which Sparshatt General Manager of Aftersales Kevin Wise hopes to fill by the end of 2019.
Vicki Ponder, Group Projects Manager at Sparshatt, explains:
The move to create dedicated Van and Truck service centres, completed in April 2019, was consistent with Mercedes-Benz dealership specification requirements. It had another advantage of taking our total bay numbers across both parts of the Sittingbourne site from 16 up to 22 promising a 27 per cent increase in capacity over time. Across both the Truck and Van Centres we’re handling up to 30 service vehicles per day right now. We are expecting that number to rise now as the night shift in the Van Centre fills out.
Finally, it delivered an improved customer experience – ensuring van service customers are routed directly to a dedicated parking area well away from the Truck parking and servicing areas. Sittingbourne’s new Van Centre has dedicated parking for 25 vans immediately outside. For example, the Van Centre is developing a new dedicated service reception area where they can drop and pick up their keys and be handled by van service advisors.
Sparshatt Sittingbourne Traka key cabinets leave space to increase capacity
A 540-slot Traka Automotive key management system originally deployed in Sittingbourne’s Truck Service Centre in May 2015, was networked with a new 180 slot capacity key cabinet in the new dedicated Van Centre in time for its opening in April 2019. The Van Centre’s cabinet is using 80 of the 180-total capacity of that cabinet, while the Truck Service Centre cabinet has 30 slots left available for expansion as business volumes increase across both Service Centres.
The installation team was able to provide access to all Traka Automotive key cabinets via existing HID access control proximity fob system which controls all Sparshatt employees’ access to different parts of the building.
All installation and training was completed in a single day in the Sittingbourne Van Centre and two days in Dartford. Reaction to the system, now it has been rolled out to all service centre technicians and service reception staff, has been very positive as Vicki Ponder explains: “Once our staff understood that they could use the Traka Automotive system to tell them exactly where every vehicles’ keys were and who had them last it was amazing how rapidly the system was adopted across both the Sittingbourne and Dartford sites. It took just a couple of days for all staff to start using the system properly.”
Kevin Wise, General Manager - Aftersales, Sparshatt Truck & Van Limited adds:
The results from our focus on improving operational efficiencies across both the Van and Truck Centres here in Sittingbourne - underpinned by our Traka Automotive system here - is that we’ve already reduced lead times on all servicing from over five days to under two days. This translates to a real improvement in turnaround times which can only help build our reputation.