A Melbourne based transport business has saluted the role Swedish truck maker Scania has played in the development of its business from a single second hand truck in 2011 to a fleet of 15 Scania’s operating across a range of different tasks.
Peter and Kirsty Chugh founded the fledgling business in Dandenong in 2011, armed with just the one second-hand Scania prime mover along with a large helping of grit and determination.
The company said that customer service has driven success for the small family-owned operation that has grown its offerings for customers exclusively using Scania.
The company has evolved from its original removals work into container cartage and recently added warehousing and container unpacking services at its new, larger premises with its fleet of 15 Scanias.
The new Chugh facility has benefited from exposure to passing traffic on busy Remington Drive, boosting awareness, and luring new clients.
“It’s a big opportunity for us to expose ourselves more in the market,” said Kirsty Chugh.
“Moving to Remington Drive in March this year, we expanded our footprint from 5,000 cubic metres to 12,000 cubic metres, boosting our onsite capacity from 100 to 500 containers, but already we’re getting full,” Kirsty said.
“We will be looking at securing additional holding space for the trailers in the short term,” she added.
“For us to move into this building was very exciting, and it was a massive achievement for us to get a place on a main road and know that we’ve got the capacity to bring 15 trucks in here.
“At our previous location in Fowler Road there was no through traffic,” she said.
Much of the business is focussed on carting containers on A-doubles and B-
doubles off the wharf in Melbourne and delivering to the yard, as well as using the company’s six side-loaders to deliver to customers’ premises.
With 20 employees on the books, mostly truck drivers along with the all-important reach stacker drivers, the business has grown organically from the early days when the two directors were doing everything themselves.
Peter and Kirsty Chugh have around 40 years of transport industry experience between them, initially starting in Queensland.
As the operations manager for a transport company, Kirsty was transferred to Melbourne and Peter came with her.
He had worked with Wridgways Removals prior to its demise and managed to secure one of its Scania trucks, a 4×2 P 360, and used this in Melbourne to start Chugh Transport.
That truck now has more than a million km on the clock and was recently overhauled, so it is still able to earns its keep when required.
While Peter Chugh started off driving for Chugh Transport, Kirsty managed the business, but now Peter is now out of the driving seat and focussed on building sales, while daughter Georgia helps out on the front desk in between her nursing studies.
Initially, the work was removals and then carting to and from the wharf for freight forwarders but now delivering directly for customers is becoming a growing component of the daily schedule, along with warehousing.
The business purchased its second truck after a couple of years, a second-hand R 480 prime mover from the Scania Used Truck team in Campbellfield.
“That truck cost $125,000, which was a great deal of money for us,” Kirsty said.
“ We recently we put down $1.2 million on three new Scania trucks, so the times have changed, because early on we bought three or four second-hand Scanias, before we started buying new ones.”
Peter Chugh said the tempo of purchasing has increased.
“I am looking forward to the day when I can order 10 in one go,” he said.
Kirsty said Peter’s love of Scanias started long ago.
“He had driven Scanias in previous jobs and just liked the way they drove, so, he wanted to keep buying them.
“We formed a good working relationship with Tevfik Onguc, and then with Mat Staddon, both Scania account managers at the Dandenong branch, and so it just went from there.
“Last year we bought three brand newies, and this year we have bought three as well; G 560 six-cylinder prime movers and R 590 V8s, with the V8s pull the A-doubles and the G 560s pull the side loaders,” she said.
The fleet also includes a G 440, 130-tonne rated R 590 V8, an R 620 V8, 460 P Supers and an R 540.
Chugh Transport has bought into the Scania total transport solution offer of a range of services that take the pressure off running a business in a very competitive industry.
“All our new trucks are on Scania repair and maintenance contracts, and we have used Scania Finance Australia since the very first used truck we bought in 2013, and we have had the Scania Driver Trainers in, and we’re also use Scania fleet monitoring,” Kirsty said.
“We can’t speak highly enough about Jade Saddler at Scania Finance and Amanda Buckley before her. We have financed all the trucks through them and Scania Finance has always come up with a solution that works for us. We know they work hard for us and to keep us. We’ve never had a call to go elsewhere. We do have a finance company that will look after us for trailers and forklifts, but Scania looks after all our financing for our new vehicles.
“We were very excited when we took delivery of our first brand new Scania, and in five years it has never missed a beat. We’ll be looking at trading it in maybe next year, it has only around 350,000 km on the clock. We work our trucks hard, and they deliver,” she says.
“We are starting to log bigger annual km now that we’re expanding our customer base and our services, but probably not more than 85,000 km per year on average across the fleet,” Peter says.
“We are really pleased that the new Scania Supers that we have had on the fleet have been delivering what we were promised in terms of fuel efficiency improvements. We do monitor the fuel use, and we have a 60,000-litre tank on site, which is another way of keeping our fuel bills down,” Kirsty says. “The combination of buying bulk fuel and the fuel economy of the new Scanias is making a big impact on our fuel costs, given we use around 25,000 litres each month.”
“Reliability is a strong point and that’s come from the Scanias as well,” Peter says. “We have had two side of the road breakdowns in 11 years, and that’s down to the reliability of the trucks, and the servicing that’s carried out by Scania 
Dandenong. If we do have a truck off the road for an extended period Anna Marie Taylor from Scania Truck Rental gets us moving again with a rental unit. But we have a back-up truck in the fleet especially because we wouldn’t want to use a smaller truck for the bigger loads if one of those goes down. Our rule is we have designated trucks for designated work.
The biggest cost after fuel is drivers, but the Chughs are proud that they have a stable driving crew, many of whom have been with the business many years.
“The drivers love the Scanias. We try to keep the same driver in the same truck, and they really look after them, they’re spotless inside,” Peter said.
“We try to make this part of our culture, and they see that the bosses are neat and tidy, and they follow that example, kitting the drivers out with company uniforms, with their name on the shirts, so they feel proud to represent us.
“The trucks are kept as clean as possible outside as well, and we have devised a new bold livery that really stands out on the road,” he said.
“We have employed many drivers and they have to have to be able to pass a driving assessment before they get the job, including reversing, because you have to be able to back onto docks at some places, and everyone is always watching.
It not’s just about safety but professionalism,” Peter said.
“Operationally, we only have company drivers, no subbies, and they are proud and loyal workers,” he added.
Kirsty says the company has fitted AI cameras on its trucks, which watch both the driver and the road, triggering an alarm in the office if they detect fatigued distraction, or heavy braking and harsh acceleration, but we get very few alarms,” Kirsty said.
Peter added that the heavyweight wharf work has necessitated running the trucks under mass management to benefit from the extra weight concession.
“We’re coming off the wharf between 54-58-tonnes all up,” Peter added..
Moving boxes around in Melbourne is highly competitive, and within spitting distance of Chugh’s premises in Dandenong South there are six heavy-hitting competitors plus a gaggle of smaller operators, so we asked wha the secret to t Chugh Transport’s success was.
“It’s service, our customers know that they can talk to the boss at any time, especially if there’s an issue,” said Kirsty.
“With the bigger players you wouldn’t get to speak to the guy who owns the business, and we don’t operate a call centre, so customers can get through straight to the directors, which is a feature many of ourclients appreciate,” she said.
“We’re hustlers, and we go hard, whether it’s a big player or a small players, we take on the challenge.,” she said.
“Customers are very demanding and it’s a very competitive market so I think the difference with us is we’re a family business, and we give that one-to-one customer service, because we know every single customer and wee know the directors, too,” Kirsty said.
“We know who’s moving containers with us today, who’s moving containers with us tomorrow, who’s got containers booked with us next week, so part of our success is that we’re not reliant on freight forwarders.
“We have a lot of direct customers, and they can see the benefit in using us.because our business is probably about 60 per cent direct to customer, and the rest is with freight forwarders,” she said.
The company says it is now expanding into warehousing, because previously it didn’t have a warehouse, which means they are now undertaking some container unpacks as well something the company had never done before, which Kirsty said allows them to offer a much more rounded service
Scania’s account manager looking after the Chugh Transport business at the Dandenong branch, Mat Staddon said the company is an excellent example of a business that has let Scania do all the hard work keeping the business rolling,
“By using our financial services expertise, our company trained technicians and our repair and maintenance contracts, their trucks deliver unparalleled uptime, at a predictable cost, which means Peter and Kirsty can focus on their customers while we look after their trucks, which is win-win for all,” said Staddon.
