Two new Mercedes Benz Actros 2644LS/33 road haulers have been delivered to Bell Equipment, whose core business is the manufacture and distribution of Articulated Dump Trucks.

Steve Martin Bell Equipment’s General Manager: Logistics said, “The two trucks join the company’s existing fleet of three Mercedes Benz 8-ton trucks, which are used to transport parts between the factory and offsite warehouses in Richards Bay, and are part of a drive to improve cost efficiencies and controls relating to logistics.

“Currently we receive about 60 containers a month from the Port of Durban. These include various components that are imported, predominantly from Europe, such as tyres, engines and transmissions. At the same time we dispatch about 20 containers a month, which house semi knock-down kits of our Articulated Dump Trucks for our Germany factory. Based on our business model we anticipate a 15 to 20% cost saving using our own Bell trucks to move these containers.”

Gary Bell, Group Chief Executive, adds: “Transportation costs are our single biggest input cost after our salary and wage bill. As part of our strategy to ensure that we remain globally competitive and continue to offer our customers greater value in the products we supply, we will continue to focus on and reduce our logistics costs as we go forward.”

“We fully understand the lifetime running costs of our Mercedes Benz powered Bell machines and are hopeful that our new Actros Trucks will deliver similar benefits to our bottom line.”