Lavendon launches Nationwide Platforms

Today (Mon 3 November) The Lavendon Group officially launched Nationwide Platforms, the company which results from the merger of Nationwide Access and The Platform Company.

The new entity is now the UK's largest powered access rental company with a fleet of some 10300 platforms operated from locations throughout the UK

Nearly a year ago Lavendon announced that it would operate two brands in the UK: Panther and Nationwide. Panther operates on a local level it was officially launched in September and includes the AMP, Kestrel and Higher Platforms businesses. Nationwide was to encompass the Rise Hire, Wizard Workspace and Skylift businesses and work on a national level - the acquisition of The Platform Company in April 2008 introduced another dynamic.

Because of the dominance of both the Nationwide Access and The Platform Company brands the name Nationwide Platforms was decided upon. The business has been reorganised into 17 depots with 11 satellites. Each depot has a general manager and a hire desk.

Peter Douglas managing director of Nationwide Platforms North said that one of the important features of the reorganisation is the increased number of hire desks. Previously Nationwide had created centralised hubs for customers to contact but the company discovered that customers prefer a localised approach, "People want to speak to someone local," said Mr Douglas, "more hire desks in more locations provides the local knowledge which customers think is very important."

Each of the UK business units will have in excess of 250 rental units and the satellites will average 156 machines. Mr Douglas said "Now that the two biggest forces in the UK's powered access industry have come together, Nationwide Platforms can offer unsurpassable benefits to our customers, both prospective and present - greater machine choice, better coverage and the best team in the business to keep these services in place."

Grant Woodward managing director of Nationwide Platforms South said, "The merger of Nationwide Access and The Platform Company has involved a lot of hard work and has definitely been a learning process in many areas. Nationwide Platforms can now take the benefits of experience from two companies and work towards consolidating the UK's powered access market through one business."

The rental fleet covers the usual booms and scissors; truck and van mounts come from the Nationwide Access fleet and The Platform Company adds its range of telehandlers. The Platform Company had experienced a rapid growth in telehandler rental driven from a customer requirement. Peter Douglas said, "We are moving forward committed to telehandlers." This extends the traditional Lavendon access range.

Andy Wright, chief executive of Lavendon Access Services said that the merger of the companies has brought financial and scale benefits to both Lavendon and its customers, "The locations are bigger and we have eliminated duplication of resources where they existed as well as improving sites which were under resourced," he said. "Upwards of 70% of rehire can now be carried out within the company."

Mr Wright says that investment in new equipment will be limited over the next few months but the TechX (on going technical excellence programme) system which is being implemented across the whole company is helping Lavendon to manage, the maintenance and servicing of it equipment more efficiently. "The average age of our fleet is four and a half years," he said, "we could take a capex [capital expenditure] holiday next year if we needed to."

Look out for more information about Lavendon's TechX programme, its investment in its staff and health and safety and environmental programmes in the January/ February issue of Access International.