48 | High demand for services Gary Douglas Engineers’ main business is building custom bodies on new trucks and trailers. Gary Douglas Engineers T T Hugh de Lacy ENGINEERING TOTAL TRUCK SPRAY PANELBEATING & SPRAYPAINTING Proudly Supporting Gary Douglas Engineering Ph: 06 355 4100 Fax: 06 355 4603 totaltruckspray@gmail.com Laser Cutting • Waterjet Cutting CNC Pressbrake Folding • Robotic Welding Sheetmetal Fabrication www.advancedsheetmetals.co.nz | (06) 355 9107 info@advancedsheetmetals.co.nz A rush to get truck bodies built in advance of the inevitable long delays in the arrival of the imported cabs-andchassis on which they will be mounted has Palmerston North firm Gary Douglas Engineers struggling to keep up with demand. Established in 1972 as a family-run business, it was sold in 2018 by the founder, whose name it still carries, to Dwayne Zander and Chris Rooney who now operate it as joint directors. The company, which has two factories employing around 45 staff, started out building concrete batching and quarrying plants before moving into structural and general engineering, then finally settling into its current core business as transport engineers. The main plant of 2000m2 is on Skerman Line, about five kilometres west of Palmerston North, but the company also maintains a small shop with four staff in the city itself. Gary Douglas Engineers’ main business is building custom bodies on new trucks and trailers for a wide variety of on-road uses, from crane trucks, tippers and traffic management trucks to road maintenance service units like road=sweepers, to specialised vehicles for electricity companies. The work on some trucks can require the reduction of the wheelbase or an addition to the number of axles, and the general repairs and maintenance for both trucks and trailers imported by the company’s clients, and they include most of the big names in heavy transport: Hino, Isuzu, Mack, Volvo, Scania, DAS and UD (Nissan). A problem for the engineering company’s clients is the long waiting times for truck deliveries and components like cranes that still plague many industries as a result of the Covid pandemic. This is prompting clients to get their truckbody orders in with Gary Douglas Engineers as much as 18 months before the trucks themselves are due to arrive in the country, and it’s contributing to a heavy workload in the transport engineering sector. Dwayne Zander says his company is “pretty much fully booked for 2024: we’re facing huge demand. “The transport engineering sector is highly competitive but everybody’s busy because fleet sizes are growing nationally, there have been skilled labour shortages and there are “The transport engineering sector is highly competitive but everybody’s busy because fleet sizes are growing nationally....” fewer people doing what we’re doing. “These are busy times, and everybody’s run off their feet.” Gary Douglas Engineers’ biggest client is the country’s largest vehicle rental and lease company, TR Group of Auckland, founded in 1992 by the Carpenter family. It has a fleet of 6500 vehicles leased out through 14 branches in New Zealand and Australia. The strength of its market has meant that Gary Douglas Engineers has had to expand its factory footprint twice since 2000 to meet demand. Its work force is dominated by fully qualified fitters and turners and fitter-welders, some of whom have been with the company for more than 20 years. It employs its own design division and its own New Zealand Land Transport-approved Heavy Vehicle Certifying Engineer. Every vehicle and trailer the company builds or modifies has to be signed off by the certifying engineer who’s accountable for such things as chassis modifications and repairs, towing connections, load anchorages, static roll thresholds and swept path certification (exemptions for travel time restriction “We’ve got a fully outfitted workshop, and just down the road in Palmerston North we can find any outside assistance we might ever need,” Dwayne says.
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