Hydraulink franchise business truck tour

This vehicle is another example of a franchise brand that knows their business and trade inside and out. 

Wayne Abbott, National Franchise Manager, Hydraulink, took us on a detailed tour, and demonstrated the amount of detail and planning into the vehicle to give the maximum amount of efficient operating space for franchise partners use on the road.

The tour (in text)

“I’m Wayne Abbott, National Franchise Manager for Hydraulink Hose and Fittings, we’re here at the Sydney Franchise and Business Opportunities Expo. We're discussing franchising opportunities with Hydraulink. 

So we have two different models. 

One is the mobile service technician, what we call the Hydraulink sales service technician, and we have a pathway model right the way through to a full time hose centre. 

So right now I'm going to take you on a journey with our mobile trucks and show you what it's all about. 

Why so bright yellow?

First thing you'll notice is this bright yellow everyone comments about the bright yellow colour scheme of our vehicles. The branding stands out, but also from a safety perspective, because our franchisees find themselves working in precarious environments on the side of a road, on a broken down machine. 

So these bright yellow trucks really stand out for people and they make sure our technicians and our franchisees are operating safely. The other thing you'll notice is the body is made of aluminium, aluminium construction. It won't rust. 

Aluminium body can be transferred

The other great advantage of this is that out of an aluminium body, you might get 10 to 15 year service life out of the body of the truck. And as the life of the vehicle expires, you can update the vehicle easily by transferring the body onto the new vehicle. 

Now, I'll take you around to the side of the truck and I'll show you how we store everything in there. 

The secret to storing a volume of hose fittings

We try to maximise the space as best as possible in these vehicles because they are operating to their maximum load and weight bearing capacity. 

So we have little secret compartments for hand-washing, water reservoirs. In here will be safety triangles, reflective cones to set up in their work environment, so our technicians are safe, the reflective vests. 

Now, this is where we store all the fittings. This is a little secret as to how we maximize our space. Most regular hose and fittings companies, when they have a fitting, it's a one piece fitting. So you have what's called the tail and the ferrule. 

Most companies have one piece, so if there's ten different types of tails that go on to a hose, that's a lot of weight these trucks have to carry. Our competitive advantage is it's two pieces. So you carry the ten tails, but only one type of ferrule that helps us maximize the amount of space we can fit in, either a wider range of product or deeper range of product, and there's less load that we’re carrying in the truck. 

Now, I'll take you around to the other side. 

All right. So once you've selected your product, you've grabbed your tools, we move around to this side of the truck where all the action happens. 

The work bench space

So what you'll notice here is we have what's called a saw, a hose saw, so you can select what type of hose you need for the application or the job you're repairing. You use the hose saw to cut the hose. 

From there we have a fin powered crimper. So in these smaller vehicles, we have a crimper that can cut up to an inch and a quarter, inch and a half, and then we crimp those hose and fittings onto there. In in our larger trucks where you have a 24 volt truck, you have the larger two inch gripper in there. 

But hose racking, cut your hose. You have the crimper here, the crimps the Ferrell onto the tail. We do obviously carry fire extinguishers, first aid kits, again maximizing every space on the vehicle, secret little compartments. 

Compartments galore

These compartments will hold things like consumable products for cleaning up, dealing with oil spills like oil granules to deal with oil spills. So we're keeping the environment friendly. Usually a machine has dropped oil. 

So this is how a truck works, we try to keep it as concise as possible. 

You can work around the truck, obviously, the gullwing doors give you a bit of an environment to work under in the elements because our drivers find themselves outside in the elements. 

National fleet deals

We have a national deal with Toyota fleet, so most of our technicians use the Hilux in two wheel drive or four wheel drive versions, and we put a GVM upgrade so they can maximize the carrying capacity. For some dealers, they'll use a Hino truck or a Hino truck and those will carry up to four and a half tonne. 

So in the four and a half tonne, you can still drive that on a conventional driver license as you don't need a special driver's license. 

So in closing, we're here at the Sydney Franchise and Business Opportunity Expo. We think you'd look great in one of these Hydraulink trucks, you'd look great in yellow, and if you'd like to know more, just go to our website, join Hydraulink.com and we look forward to talking to you shortly.”