Renewing the future

From its base in Dandenong South, the family-owned Haulaway provides a diverse range of waste management services using a variety of on-road vehicles from its fleet of more than 40 trucks ranging from 4×2 rear lifts performing litter collection, to B-doubles hauling bulk loads of waste.

Suburban kerbside pickups are one of the few areas of waste collection not falling within Haulaway’s remit.

The company does perform some tasks for local councils such as rubbish collections from parks and gardens. Industrial waste contracts from small and large factories are an area where recycling streams are becoming more important and Haulaway is able to offer total solutions for their customers.

Haulaway also provides a full suite of services for commercial premises ranging from shopping centres to high rise apartment and office buildings.

The company also has the necessary licences to transport asbestos to an approved facility where it is processed according to regulations.

Infrastructure projects are also contributing to Haulaway’s growth and the company has recently been successful with providing waste services for the Melbourne metro tunnelling project, the Westgate Tunnel contract and the majority of the multiple level crossing works currently being undertaken around Melbourne.

The Haulaway trucks concentrate on handling the waste from the demolition and construction operations and the removal of spoil is left to be performed by other specialised contractors.

Family owned and operated Haulaway has a reputation for being an industry leader in the adoption of new technology to cope with the multiple changes affecting the growing waste management sector.

“With technology, if you’re not surfing ahead of the wave then you’re getting swallowed up by it,” says Haulaway Sales Manager Jake Hilbert, who just happens to be the grandson of the company’s founder. He represents the fourth generation in the waste industry.

Telematics and vehicle connectivity, according to Jake, can deliver live reporting for clients on their sustainability and financial outcomes.

“The technology is key to our internal management processes and procedures and delivers the metrics for management KPIs for senior staff members,” says Jake.

“Day to day monitoring of our trucks on GPS for logistical efficiencies, fuel consumption management and managing driver fatigue also fits with the latest legislation making sure we are legally transporting materials at, and never exceeding, weight limits.”

Because Haulaway is increasingly monitoring its fleet, the technology in the Scania commercial vehicles it has invested in is exceedingly interesting
for Jake.

“We are monitoring our fleet more and more now, which is why the technology in the Scanias is so interesting. It is not something we have focussed on a lot in the past, but lately we are because we can see the efficiency advantages available to us from knowing where a truck is located, where it has been and how much it was carrying,” he says. “At present most of our operation is generally paperless and we aim to transition to become completely paperless by beginning of 2020.”

The decision making process applied to Haulaway’s’ choice of truck brand takes into account the available on-board technology, safety, comfort and fuel efficiency and following the recent addition of some Scania’s to the fleet Jake says the service he has received from Scania, and the all-encompassing Scania Total Transport Solutions concept is what has impressed him the most.

“We have found when dealing with Scania you’re not just buying a truck. We have been impressed with the whole package from start-to-finish. It’s a holistic approach. The truck is no longer a piece of metal with an engine in the middle, it is a tool we use every day, as part of the business,” Jake says. “The truck is a part of the family.”

The company has recently taken delivery of three New Truck Generation P 450 8×4 hooklifts, finished in the corporate colours of gloss black, with gold livery and the readily identifiable bright green crocodile named Charlie.

This brings the number of Scanias at Haulaway to seven. A typical day for the Scanias is between six and ten drops, which means the driver is in and out of the cab a lot, so accessibility is important.

“One of the biggest advantages of the new trucks is the fuel burn is so much better. We’re getting up to 3.0 km per litre from a truck which has only done 8,000 km. That’s a massive difference from the 2.4 we were getting from our older trucks we have now replaced.”

The hooklift NTG P 450s on the Haulaway fleet can carry up to 28.5 tonnes gross and handle bins ranging from six to 31 cubic metres, with the latter able to be filled with a payload of up to ten tonnes. The on-board weighing systems ensure that there is a sufficient margin to avoid over loading.

Some Scania’s are working on a fixed term contract with a specific client so it follows that the trucks are on a Scania five-year Repair and Maintenance contract which gives Jake peace-of-mind.

“I didn’t want the potential of ups and downs of maintenance costs. I just wanted to know that every month I would have the exact same cost. The insurance and fuel we can budget for, but unforeseen maintenance and repairs can’t be budgeted for. And another factor we really like is the uptime promise of MAX24, because these trucks are in use 20 hours a day, five to six days a week, so they have very limited downtime,” Jake explains.

“The Scania Repair and Maintenance contracts make the overall cost of the truck cheaper. The cab chassis may be more expensive than the competitors but the actual cost of running the truck over the lifetime of a Scania comes in probably about ten per cent better off.”

Driver acceptance of the Scania’s has been an interesting process to observe.

“In the beginning I had drivers who thought other brands were the ants’ pants, but we are starting to see a shift in that space now. Some of our people were concerned about the driver scoring system and how that worked and was this a case of Big Brother watching? Now they have seen they can get their own scores on their phone for themselves and that it’s not really us watching them, it’s a case of us giving them feedback and they’ve actually been really happy with it. And having a fridge as standard helps too.”

The drivers have also been very supportive of fitting forward facing cameras to provide reliable witness to what happens in front of the truck. Reversing cameras are fitted as well due to much of the work involving constricted approaches.

Access can be a problem for waste collection vehicles and the manoeuvrability and driver vision of the NTG Scanias has been boosted due to relocating the front axle forward 50 mm and also repositioning the driver’s seat closer to the windscreen and the door, coupled with the redesign of the ‘A’ pillars and repositioning of the door mirrors.

In addition to skip and hook bins Haulaway has over recent times expanded to add bulk bins as well as walking-floor trailers and now has a new supply of four cubic metre Morrell bins.

“We have diversified a lot lately,” Jake says. “We have moved on from just rigid hook and skip trucks to prime movers to pull semi-trailers and B-doubles, and now we’re looking at A-doubles as well. It is a constantly diversifying business.”

The walking-floor trailers carry recycling material, general waste, and garbage to land fill as well as mulch, compost and garden waste. Haulaway began with one trailer set and now has nine as this part of the business has grown very quickly in just two years.

Curiously enough the waste industry wasn’t Jake’s first aim as a career. 

“I was headed towards the finance sector but gravitated back to the family waste management business. I started picking up cigarette butts and cleaning bins and washing trucks and there were no favours given,” he recalls.

Most of its operations are centred in Victoria yet Haulaway has several contracts that it manages interstate.

“We don’t yet have a heavy footprint there nor do we have collection licences. However, there are always aspirations,”
Jake says.

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