Case Study

LKQ Euro Car Parts – VanMate – Portable delivery solution for oil drums

LKQ Euro Car Parts replaced three separate tools with our modular VanMate system – lifting up to 250kg, moving drums, engines and gearboxes safely and efficiently. Lightweight, portable and adaptable, VanMate reduces manual handling risks, cuts costs and enables smaller, more efficient delivery vehicles without compromising performance.

Case Study:

LKQ Euro Car Parts – VanMate – Portable delivery solution for oil drums

Client:

Euro Car Parts

Product:

VanMate VM1

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LKQ Euro Car Parts – VanMate – Portable delivery solution for oil drums

LKQ Euro Car Parts replaced three separate tools with our modular VanMate system – lifting up to 250kg, moving drums, engines and gearboxes safely and efficiently. Lightweight, portable and adaptable, VanMate reduces manual handling risks, cuts costs and enables smaller, more efficient delivery vehicles without compromising performance.

Customer

LKQ Euro Car Parts is the UK’s leading distributor of car and light commercial vehicle parts, supplying garages, bodyshops and independent workshops with more than 100,000 products
Challenge:
Across UK&I operations for LKQ Euro Car Parts, they have an ongoing requirement to deliver 205L drums, engines and gearboxes both branch-to-branch or branch-to-customer.
LKQ previously deployed 3 separate pieces of equipment to carry out these goods movements;
  1. A drum handler; to move drums from the premises to the van
  2. A van-mounted hydraulic crane; to lift the drum into the van, which was permanently mounted in the van and limited the driver to carry only one drum.
  3. A lipped sack truck; to manually tip the drum and pull it to the customer premises.
These three pieces of equipment had costs triple that of a single VanMate system.
A more cost effective and versatile solution was required.
VanMate drum lifting kit moving oil drum
Concept Development:
We set about creating an evolution of our existing lifting technology, making it light, portable and efficient, with a separable, modular design that could assemble quickly and easily, rather than a fold-up product, which would be bulkier and heavier for one person.
The concept was developed in 3 parts:
  • A trolley, for supporting the lifting mast and being able to move goods around on wheels
  • A lightweight mast system, capable of lifting and lowering a load of up to 250kg by 800mm.
  • A removable drum attachment, using our own lightweight claw technology.
VanMate drum lifting kit Euro Car Parts
Trialling:

Exploring the journey of a drum from branch to customer revealed that, after loading the drum into the vehicle, there was still a manual handling challenge involved in moving the drum up to the bulkhead for load securing and axle stability in transit. For this purpose, we developed VanMate Slider, Using a simple, yet effective rail and tray system to transfer the drum effortlessly.

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An Extended Solution:
We worked closely with LKQ during the initial VanMate deployment and later identified that a similar handling challenge existed, to transport and deliver engines, gearboxes and smaller 60L drums throughout the network.
We developed a series of attachments including forks, a lifting plate and a belt securing attachment to fit the existing universal VanMate mast system already owned by LKQ.
VanMate Slider and Handle with oil drum
Outcome:

The resulting solution is a single piece of equipment that loads, unloads and transports goods from the vehicle to the customer and back with minimal physical exertion from the operator.

The solution is significantly more cost-effective than a tail lift or similar - and the same equipment can deliver the goods direct to threshold for most customers.

VanMate engine lifting kit

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What our clients say

“At Euro Car Parts, VanMate has proved to be the optimum solution for delivery of goods to our customers. Daily deliveries of oil drums, AdBlue bulk drums, reconditioned engines, and gearboxes are seamless using VanMate, replacing three separate pieces of equipment used previously. Further, where a larger Boxer van was previously used for oil deliveries, this equipment allows us to employ the smaller and more efficient Partner and Connect vans due to VanMate’s portability and light weight.

Richard Stanyard
Head of Operations, Euro Car Parts UK