Multi-award-winning fleet management expert, Rivus, has been appointed by SGN to provide a complete fleet management solution for its commercial fleet.
Gas network company, SGN, has awarded Rivus the complete fleet management contract for its 1,700 critical LCV fleet vehicles. SGN owns and operates one of the UK's largest and most innovative gas distribution networks, operating across Scotland and southern England.
The multi-million-pound Service, Maintenance & Repair (SMR) and Accident Management contract was awarded in December 2022, following a rigorous tender process where SGN sought a long-term partner to keep its critical fleet moving. The contract will start in April 2023.
Faced with ongoing supply shortages of new vehicles and increasing maintenance costs, the key priorities for SGN were to operate a safe fleet, reduce vehicle off road times, and access an extensive garage network that can deliver a high-quality service to maximise vehicle availability. As experts in managing critical fleets, Rivus was able to demonstrate its ability to minimise down time and mitigate unplanned costs through its independently owned garages and data driven approach to SMR.
Lucie Nash, Business Development Director at Rivus comments: "Partnering with SGN is a significant new business win for Rivus. We set out at the start of the bid journey to really understand the unique needs of the SGN fleet to find the best solution for their operation.
"What makes Rivus different is that we are a data-driven fleet partner. We can see where we have capacity across our garage network, we know the common parts and faults within a fleet, so can get them ordered in advance or keep them in stock. We get vehicles booked into one of our nationwide garages, conduct the necessary service, maintenance and repair work and get them back out on the road."
As well as an extensive independently owned garage network, market leading vehicle off road times, and quality technicians, SGN were also attracted by the fleet provider's critical fleet management expertise. Lucie explains, "SGN's fleet is hyper critical to the success of its operation. They have higher utilisation periods for certain LCVs, so by analysing their vehicle and ancillary servicing data we can merge vehicle and power take off servicing into one single downtime event. This, as well as phasing servicing events by region, means we can remove peak times from the servicing schedule and enable higher vehicle availability during SGN's peak periods to help SGN deliver its critically important customer service levels."
Mark Johnson, Head of Fleet at SGN adds: "Throughout the tender process, Rivus consistently demonstrated a strong safety culture with a very proactive approach to fleet management. Their positive, can-do attitude and commitment to deliver the high levels of service were just a few of the reasons we've chosen them to support our critical fleet.
"Safety is at the heart of everything we do at SGN, so having a safety-focused and reliable expert looking after our fleet is essential. We're looking forward to working with the Rivus team to deliver excellent service to our drivers and the SGN business".
Rivus stood out to SGN due to its independently owned garages, combined with the Rivus Approved Garage partner network. SGN also cited the Rivus Insights platform as another key differentiator. Rivus Insights is an innovative management information platform that provides valuable customer specific dashboards and easy to use reports on areas such as vehicle availability, regulatory compliance, and incident management insight from an individual vehicle level, up to depot, region and national level.
The new contract with Rivus starts on 1st April 2023, for a period of up to seven years. Further digital innovations from Rivus, such as its proprietary Vehicle Check App and TCO modelling for alternative fuel vehicles, will support the SGN fleet in transitioning to 2030 and beyond to achieve SGN's ambition to operate BEV, PHEV or alternatively powered vehicles wherever possible across its fleet.
For more information on Rivus complete fleet management solutions visit: https://www.rivusgroup.co.uk/.