12 BULKDISTRIBUTOR
Road Tankers and Trucks
January/February 2016
Volvo fuels Belgium’s armed forces
V
olvo Trucks Belgium and Stokota last year
delivered 16 tanker trucks to the Belgian
army.
This year, 10 more will follow while the Belgian
Air Force receives a total of 25 trucks and the
country’s Navy one. Orders placed by the Defence
Ministry are deemed to be complex and
demanding, so for the public service sales division
of Volvo Trucks Belgium the contract is being seen
as a great achievement.
The vehicles - tankers adapted for refuelling
aircraft and helicopters - are FM Volvo Trucks with
the superstructure supplied by Stokota, based in
Lokeren. The 6 x 2 trucks have hydraulic steering
axle direction and are equipped with an engine of
430hp Euro 3 standard.
“These supply vessels will not only be committed
in Belgium and Europe, but also during missions
overseas,” said Philip Van Wymeersch, manager of
the Volvo Trucks division. “In some countries, fuel
quality is more than random, with a with a Euro 6
engine, the failure risk can be too high. The
Ministry of Defence therefore requested - and
received - approval to acquire trucks with Euro 3
standards.”
Each tank has a content of 18,000 litres, but
with the addition of a trailer hook it is also
possible to tow a trailer containing an additional
18,000 litres of kerosene.
The truck is designed for air bases at Koksijde,
Melsbroek, Kleine Brogel, Florennes and
Beauvechain. They are used for refuelling C130,
Alpha Jet, F16 and other aircraft. One of them, to
be delivered to a base in Zeebrugge, will be
assigned to supply helicopters.
“In the past, economic ‘compensations’ were
included in the purchase records by the Ministry of
Defense, added Van Wymeersch. The presence of
the Volvo Trucks plant in Ghent was therefore an
asset. Compensation mechanisms are today
banned in Europe. The records are judged purely
Addressing an
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on the technical qualities of the vehicles and their
superstructure, their price, after-sales service and
other services, such as training,” he said.
“This achievement is a textbook case of ‘key
account management’, consultation, flexibility and
collaborative thinking, both in the different
divisions of our organisation by the factory and
dealer,” said Van Wymeersch. He added that
although the Belgian army evolves with the times,
the process of orders is always complex and long.
“The first contacts for this order date back to
2012. Together with Stokota, we introduced a
dossier that year and we won the tender. After a
series of audits, we delivered the first prototype at
the beginning of last year,” he explained. Since
then, a little over half of the vehicles have been
delivered and training provided on the various air
and naval bases.
“Meanwhile, we have set up a whole system
with local Volvo Trucks service centres. In case of
failure, in fact, we must intervene as soon as
possible, while respecting the special procedures
of the military,” concluded Van Wymeersch.
Organised by
19/01/2016 08:41:48
B
lue Tree Systems has published a new white paper that
looks at an important but infuriating problem for truck
fleet managers: “how can you measure accurately the fuel
burned by each truck in your fleet?”
The core problem is that fuel consumption data reported from
truck engines is not accurate, the company says. One can’t rely on
the fuel economy figures from most truck electronic control
modules (ECMs); Blue Tree has found that the reported figures are
typically overstated by 5-10 percent. In almost every case, truck
manufacturers’ stated MPG figures will be significantly better than
an operator’s own calculated MPG.
The white paper suggests that the only robust solution to
inaccurate fuel consumption ECM data is to calibrate it – for every
vehicle in the fleet. Once this is done, it becomes possible to
compare drivers objectively, measure the performance of one
vehicle to the next or compare a make and model with another.
“If you are a transport manager trying to reward drivers for safer
and more economical driving – or a fleet manager trying to decide
which truck to buy – or a fuel specialist investigating possible fuel
theft, you need to be able to rely on your fuel consumption
figures,” said Gary Sheedy, UK and Ireland sales director for Blue
Tree. “Accurate measurement of fuel in the tank at both the start
and end of the audit period, automated purchase receipt data
and reliable fuel burned data are the cornerstones of these
decisions.”
Blue Tree Systems has developed the Fuel Auditor, a technology
that applies a software calibration on fuel CANbus data collected
from the engine. By totalling the amount of fuel burned as
reported by the truck’s CANbus, and then applying a calibration
factor to remove the inaccuracy, the Fuel Auditor shows any
discrepancy between fuel purchased and fuel burned. The
calibration calibration is applied on the fuel data in Blue Tree’s
database and not on the truck engine itself.
Fuel Economy: How much fuel are your trucks really burning?
can be downloaded at www.bluetreesystems.com