STILL ensures high flexibility and scalability

These rental and service centres specialise in supplying customers with customized financing options and rental variants. The intralogistics specialist opened two more rental and service centres in Kassel and Neu-Ulm as recently as May and June 2017 (following Rostock-Bentwisch and Ravensburg in 2016) to enable pooled competence to be offered to clients in these regions as well.

The motivations for greater efforts in the rental and service areas are firstly that many of STILL’s clients need to tailor their logistics to respond to large seasonal fluctuations, and secondly the growth in worldwide market dynamics, with shorter change cycles that confront companies in particular with logistical challenges. To maintain long-term competitiveness, businesses must be able to react to changes quickly. Intralogistics must therefore be flexible and scalable. As a major supplier, STILL drives this development forwards through accurately tailored financing offers, different rental variants, and the sale of reconditioned used trucks.

As well as a total of 14 branches in Germany and 21 other national subsidiaries, STILL now operates 19 rental and service centres – including the new locations in Kassel and Neu-Ulm –that have focused on the subjects of financing, rental and used trucks. Carsten Ernst, STILL’s Short-Term Rental Manager, explains “Through our rental and service centres, we establish competence centres throughout Germany, advise customer based on extensive know-how, and offer customised solutions for their requirements and needs. Due to the additional locations and short distances, our clients can always respond flexibly to changing situations in their company.”

In the financing area, for example, STILL offers all types of right-to-use contract through the TotalFlexible contract, e.g. leasing, rental and lease-purchase. This offer is rounded off with a full-service package covering truck servicing and repair. Financing has the advantage that the operator always receives the latest technology, since as a rule trucks are exchanged at the end of the contract term. This not only minimises service costs but also allows the customer to constantly adapt his truck fleet to meet current demand. He also benefits from innovative developments in new generations of trucks that may contribute to more efficient truck use. The BasicDynamic tariff offers maximum flexibility together with low residual risk: it gives optimum adaptability to changing capacity utilisation by, for the first time, taking the relation between truck use and costs as a basis when calculating the monthly instalment. Thus, if there is greater use, the customer pays the hourly rate accordingly. In the event of reduced use, the customer receives a credit note on the same basis. This allows maximum cost certainty.

Among the rental options, short-term hire ensures high flexibility. For example, with this option, a truck can be leased for a few days or weeks at peak times. To ensure customers receive a truck to match every application, STILL offers more than 70 different truck types throughout Germany. STILL has 7,500 rental trucks accessible in Germany at present. There are currently 26,500 rental trucks available throughout Europe. Special equipments, e.g. the FM-X reach truck with a lift height up to 13 m, the EK-X and MX-X narrow-aisle trucks, electric trucks with a load capacity up to 8 tons, diesel trucks up to 16 tons, and an equally extensive range of special accessories and attachments, e.g. fork positioners, custom forks, bale, roll or double pallet clamps are available for hire to give an optimum match between the trucks and the application requirements. STILL can also offer a wide range of work platforms, all-terrain and telescopic trucks through partners in this country and abroad. Ernst explains that “By hiring trucks, customers can increase their productivity during seasonal peaks, while at the same time keeping their liquidity for future investments.”

The reconditioned trucks market has now also developed into a significantly important branch of the industry. Clients have increasingly recognised that a truck need not always necessarily be “new”, and that a good used machine can solve the task in hand equally well. The advantages of used trucks are obvious to the customer: with a truck reconditioned to manufacturer’s quality, he receives a guaranteed level of quality. The warranty together with the full range of STILL’s Partner Plan, including financing options, are included. The price advantage for a used truck is indisputable, and the machine is available immediately.

STILL was early in recognizing this development, and established special reconditioning centres where used STILL trucks are fully overhauled and brought to the latest state according to a uniform quality standard so they can be remarketed as premium used trucks. Since 2008, the reconditioning centre in Stuhr near Bremen has helped used trucks in Germany to gain a second lease of life. STILL brought other reconditioning centres into operation in 2014 and 2015 in Rokietnica in Poland and Lisses in France, where trucks are visually and technically reconditioned for the European market. A third reconditioning centre will be opened in Lainate, Italy, in autumn 2017 to meet the rising demand for premium used trucks.

To ensure high quality reconditioning, the Hamburg based company already introduced used truck classification into gold, silver and bronze categories in 2003. This system, which is standardised throughout Europe, classifies each used machine according to the attributes of engineering, warranty, visual appearance, age of machine and – for electric trucks – battery condition. While trucks in all classification levels are FEM-tested (FEM = European Materials Handling Federation), the silver category, for example, includes new high-quality paintwork, checking/testing all the technical components and a three-month warranty. Gold class trucks can even have a six-month guarantee, again fully new paintwork and a general overhaul of the engineering.

Ann-Kathrin Wolpert, Product Manager for Used Trucks, explains that “STILL’s entire product portfolio, including the STILL Partner Plan, also applies to the used truck business. Everything from customised maintenance contracts (Basic, Comfort, Premium or Excellence) to Full Service is also possible for used machines.” STILL even guarantees 95% spare parts availability: delivery of spare parts overnight within 24 hours is still guaranteed even up to twelve years after production of the truck ceases. The intralogistics specialist also offers a guarantee or defects warranty depending on the classification category.

Wolpert also says “These services in the used trucks area have provided STILL with a steadily growing demand. On average, there is now one used truck for every two new machines that are sold. Each year we receive ten thousand returns from financing, as well as trucks from leasing that are still quite young, and these are also suitable for reconditioning.”

Moreover, a new truck doesn’t make sense for every company. Wolpert points out that “Investment in a new machine is often too expensive for start-ups or small businesses that need a truck only once or twice a day. Especially as our product range is very large, and a truck is available for every application.” STILL offers a selection of more than 50,000 trucks and warehouse technology machines, used or available for hire, throughout Europe every year.

However, STILL focuses increasingly on high-quality used trucks not only in sales but also for fleet solutions. Under the STILL Re-Use name, the company offers customers a leasing solution in the form of mixed fleets consisting of new and used trucks. According to Carsten Ernst: “In contrast to purely new machine offers, this increases competitiveness in the fleet business. Our aim when developing the product range was to create a sustainable leasing solution that fully takes into account the economic life-cycle of STILL’s premium products.” Thus quality also counts when reconditioning industrial trucks. “Anyone who looks at a fully reconditioned STILL truck will be astonished how difficult it is to detect the difference compared to a new machine.”