Gray & Adams News SPRING 2022
In this issue > Gray and Adams featured in the top 500 businesses in Scotland > A lifetime of value for for Rizza’s Ice Cream > Sunswap and Gray & Adams: Innovation through collaboration
Introduction Contents Message from our directors
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Record Christmas fundraising for Gray & Adams
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65 years of innovation - the evolution of our trailers
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Championing our relationships - Gray & Adams and David Payne & Son (Coachbuilders) Ltd
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Measuring our success - Gray & Adams featured in the top 500 businesses in Scotland
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KCL Logistics and Gray & Adams
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Getting back to our roots: The past, present and future of the Gray & Adams Body Shop
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The BIG interview - David Steven, Managing Director of D. Steven & Son
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Reflecting on a lifelong career Stuart Martin, Sales Director, Ireland
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Gray & Adams: A lifetime of value for Rizza’s Ice Cream
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Innovation through collaboration: Gray & Adams and Sunswap
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Staff spotlight: Robert Downie
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On the road to training success: Technical 3D animations deliver high impact results for Gray & Adams
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Celebrating a lifetime of value: Long service thanks
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As we now move firmly into 2022, Gray & Adams will be marking the occasion of its 65th anniversary this year. Despite the last two years presenting challenging conditions for the industry, we are proud that our reputation for putting our customers first, still remains. For this, we would like to extend our utmost thanks to our customers, whose continued support and partnership helps drive Gray & Adams forward, our suppliers for their commitment to our business and lastly, our people, for their hard work, dedication, and passion. Since our inception in 1957, and humble beginnings as a body repair business in Fraserburgh, we have grown to serve the UK cold chain industry and become well renowned for innovation and the quality of our products. This was reflected when Gray & Adams was placed at number 63 of the top 500 businesses in Scotland. Read more about the listing on page 8. We have also spent time reflecting on our roots by exploring the body shop business, which is still an incredibly important part of Gray & Adams today. You can read more about the work it does on (page 10). As part of the look back on our history, we have an interview with Drawing Office Manager, Neil Gilland, on how the initial steps of production of Gray & Adams trailers have evolved from hand drawn plans, to computer aided designs, which you can read on page 5. As ever, it is the people behind the scenes at Gray & Adams who are the key to our success. In this newsletter, we speak with Fraserburgh’s Robert Downie and Ireland’s Stuart Martin about their roles within the business in our staff spotlight features (pages 18 and 14). We also thank Leon McGuiness and Peter Mathison for their long service at our Dunfermline depot (page 20). Our commitment to our customers still remains as strong as ever and, in this edition, we have been grateful to speak to customers, both long term and new on the products and service that they receive from us. London based Sunswap are a new customer who put innovation at the heart of their business, read more about our collaboration on page 16. For our Spring edition of The BIG Interview, we speak with long term customer and Northern neighbour, David Steven, Managing Director of D. Steven & Son (page 12). We also look back on the strong relationship with valued customer, Rizzas Ice Cream and our 40+ years of collaboration (page 15).
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Getting back to our roots: The pa st, present and future of the Gray & Adams Bo dy Shop Pages 10 – 11
As well as collaboration with our customers on new and innovative technologies, Gray & Adams also value our partnerships with suppliers, as with their continued support we can continue to provide innovative solutions to the market. In this edition, we speak with Chris Payne of David Payne & Son (Coachbuilders) who we work in partnership with to service repairs for our customers in the South of England (page 6). We have also recently engaged with Mintra to create training videos for Gray & Adams product operators through our customer network to ensure the safe handling of all our products (page 19). Finally, we congratulate our Doncaster depot in their fundraising endeavours over the Christmas period and showing that our staff in all our depots value community and support worthwhile causes (page 4). As ever, throughout our 65 years in business, Gray & Adams remain a family business first and foremost and we value the support of our people, customers and suppliers who have helped us build Gray & Adams to the business it is today. With our 65th anniversary in mind, we don’t believe we have ever seen such unprecedented times as we have in the last two years, however, our commitment to value, customer service, integrity and innovation remains the same, despite Covid-19 providing a challenging climate. We now would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your unwavering commitment to Gray & Adams and would like to wish you all the best for 2022. JAMES AND PETER GRAY JOINT MANAGING DIRECTORS
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Record Christmas fundraising for Gray & Adams (Doncaster) Andrew Brown, Sales Director at Gray & Adams (Doncaster) said:
In December, Gray & Adams (Doncaster) took part in Hallam FM’s Mission Christmas appeal which saw our staff and contractors donating either toys or cash to buy toys for disadvantaged children to enjoy over the festive period.
“We are delighted to have once again taken part in the Hallam FM Mission Christmas appeal, a fantastic cause helping underprivileged children have a more normal Christmas. I’d like to extend thanks to Kim Bell and Scott Sherwin who coordinated the collection and purchasing of toys and wish a very well done to the whole team in Doncaster – the challenge for this Christmas is to beat last year’s record!”
Hallam FM is a local radio station owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network, broadcasting to South Yorkshire. As a business with a strong community focus, Gray & Adams’ Doncaster team were delighted to be able to support the charity campaign and give back to the community in which they live and work. Our Doncaster team should be very proud of their efforts after raising almost £1,200 and doubling donations from the previous year. Some of the money was raised through the office team taking part in ‘Dress Down Fridays’ but most of the donations were made on one day which saw almost all staff donate either money or a toy. The money was then used to buy toys for children ranging from newborn to late teens which we were fortunate enough to do thanks to everyone’s generous donations.
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65 Years of Innovation – The Evolution of Our Trailers As we celebrate our 65th year of business in 2022, Gray & Adams recognise the key to our long-term success is our people and commitment to innovation. As one of our values, Gray & Adams put innovation at the heart of everything we do, we have continuously strived to develop new solutions to meet our customer’s requirements, as well as taking the ever-growing environmental concerns into our consideration.
He then shares, “For the drawing office team, innovation can mean innovation with our software as well as within Gray & Adams products. We primarily use CAD 3D and 2D for our manufacturing drawings which bring great capabilities in bringing ideas to life that we can pass on to the team, however I remember that my boss when I first started at G&A was a draughtsman to trade so he would have drawn everything by hand! When the lifting floor trailers came in with the millennium, that changed the way we worked as we now had extra considerations within the drawing such as, at the time, the hydraulics, ropes, and electronics that all had to be designed in whilst not impacting the quality of the finished product. I enjoyed this challenge as it developed the capabilities in my team and it’s now became something that is a common requirement today.”
Throughout the years, the Gray & Adams drawing office has been the first port of call when an innovation or development in technology is on the horizon. Our team of CAD engineers ensure that customer requirements can be worked seamlessly into a trailer design, as well as upholding the quality standards that Gray & Adams have become synonymous with.
When looking to the future of his team and the business, Neil shared with us, “I’m really fortunate to work with such a great company and with a fantastic team, my intentions for the future would be to further develop the team and see what innovations come next for us. As most of our customer base will now be aware, we have worked extensively on trailers that are environmentally friendly, such as the Vector eCool, the first ever fully electric trailer in the UK, which we developed in 2021 in partnership with Carrier Transicold. It’s incredibly important that we help our customers reduce their environmental impact so that has very much been a focus.
From our humble beginnings as a body shop repairs business in 1957 to the business Gray & Adams is today, it is with no doubt that long serving employees will remember key milestones in our history including the development of mechanically forced air refrigeration in the 1960s and the development of double deck trailers in the 1990s. Neil Gilland, Fraserburgh Drawing Office Manager tells us, “I started as a CAD Engineer in 1998 after completing a degree in Civil Engineering, which was a really exciting time to join the business as the first double decks had just been developed and were in production. They weren’t as common then as they are now as it was such a new development in the 90s but the trailers were certainly exciting to work on.”
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From another perspective, progressions in noise reduction technology may also become a focus which would be interesting to work on from a CAD perspective.”
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Championing our relationships – Gray & Adams and David Payne & Son (Coachbuilders) Ltd Long term partner, and approved Gray & Adams repairer, David Payne & Son (Coachbuilders) Ltd have been carefully looking after our Southern customers’ repairs since the early 1980s. With both businesses having milestone anniversaries in 2022, a 50th anniversary for David Payne & Son and our own 65th Anniversary, we thought it would be a great time to sit down with Managing Director, Chris Payne, to discuss the long-standing relationship. Tell us about the relationship you have with Gray & Adams and how it has been beneficial to the businesses
Tell us a bit about the business and your role? The business was set up by my parents and myself in 1972. I was working for a very small bodybuilding company. It became apparent that company was failing so, after a family discussion, we decided to purchase the business. We soon discovered that there was a big and growing demand for repairs to bodywork and especially refrigerated bodywork. It made perfect sense to adapt, and we have been carrying out repairs for our customers ever since!
We were repairing more and more refrigerated vehicles and would source parts directly from Gray & Adams at Fraserburgh, but the relationship really developed in the 1980s when a larger repair to replace a whole side panel was required. My father and Lewis Gray Snr discussed the best way to facilitate this repair and he invited my father and I, with a few members of staff, up to Fraserburgh to take part in Gray & Adams’ specific training and a tour of their facilities. It was then agreed that David Payne & Son would be recognised as a Gray & Adams approved repairer which has been very beneficial to our business to be associated with such a prestigious industry name.
We’ve grown significantly over the last 50 years. At first, it was just my parents and I with three or four men in our workshop, but with the market demand, we have grown into a business of around 30 full time staff. It was with this projected growth in mind that we purchased our current premises in 1980 and adjacent premises in 1990 which enabled us to expand.
Gray & Adams reputation for quality is well known, so we were very proud that they demonstrated their faith in us. In turn, we have provided them with an enhanced presence in the South of England.
My role in the business has changed over the years. I started as a trainee coach builder, then transferred to the paint shop which gave me varied experience of the shop floor. I then became General Manager and for the last 30 years, since my parents’ retirement, Managing Director.
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Tell us about the process of collaboration for repairs on a Gray & Adams built trailer
business was built on and is our passion. Refurbishment of Gray & Adams trailers is still a large part of the business as, due to the quality of the build, the trailer life can often be extended to 14 to 15 years.
Communication is key in any collaboration process but fortunately, as we have been working with Gray & Adams for so long, we understand their build processes and procedures. Over the years, Lewis Gray Jnr and I, have developed an excellent working relationship based on mutual respect and understanding of our customers` expectations.
For me, personally, I will look to slowly step back from the position of Managing Director, and I am delighted to say that Matt Jex will be joining us as Operations Director on 1st March. I will still be involved and guide the business that was built by my family but also have more time to enjoy other pursuits.
How do you see the future for David Payne & Son? We still regard ourselves as a specialist refrigerated vehicle repairer but have diversified into the repair & refurbishment of all types of CVs including buses, coaches, utility vehicles and vans. However, refrigerated trailer repairs are what our
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For further information on David Payne & Son, please visit dpayneandson.co.uk
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Measuring our success – Gray & Adams featured in the top 500 businesses in Scotland As with any business, it is important to continually reflect on success, what it means, and what factors have helped achieve it over the years. With Gray & Adams now entering its 65th year in business, it is not surprising that many factors have contributed to the growth and success through those six and a half decades.
Gray & Adams Joint Managing Director, James Gray discussed the placement,
“Coming from humble roots in Fraserburgh, Gray & Adams is a family business which has grown significantly to contribute to the UK cold chain industry and the UK economy over the last 65 years. We are proud to have been recognised as a successful business alongside large corporations such as SSE and The Bank of Scotland. The success of Gray & Adams throughout the decades is down to the quality of the people we employ. Throughout our UK depots, we are committed to our team, value, innovation, and quality. We would also like to congratulate a number of our customers who have also featured on this year’s list.”
Gray & Adams are recognised as pioneers of innovation in the refrigerated transport industry, for example, its recent collaboration with Carrier Transicold on the Vector e-Cool autonomous electric fridge is testament to the forwardthinking leadership within the business. It is also widely known within the transport sector that Gray & Adams have a strong reputation for quality, value, and commitment to their people. However, to be recognised as a key player within Scottish business as a whole, is a fantastic achievement to be celebrated.
Peter Gray, Joint Managing Director at Gray & Adams, also comments,
“We are delighted to have been recognised on a national level in Scotland for being a strong and successful business. When our father, Jim Gray Snr, started the business in 1957, he had a vision for what he wanted to achieve and continuously worked hard to achieve this. To be featured at number 63 out of 500 across multiple industries, is a milestone achievement in our 65th anniversary year and could not have been possible without the wider Gray & Adams team, our customers and suppliers.”
This year, Gray & Adams took 63rd place in Insider’s Top 500 Scottish Companies list. The list, which is compiled yearly, by Insider Research, takes factors into account such as employee numbers, mergers, and acquisitions, as well as turnover and growth, which means that a number of recognisable household names were also featured.
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KCL Logistics and Gray & Adams KCL Logistics is a road haulage and freight forwarding business, delivering fresh, frozen and chilled produce across the UK and operating from North Shields in Tyne and Wear. As family businesses, both KCL Logistics and Gray & Adams have a shared focus on providing an excellent service to customers. Managing Director of KCL Logistics, Andrew Dunn, recalls seeing Gray & Adams trailers around the fishing town where he grew up and had a desire to own one from a very young age. When he began working with Gray & Adams ten years ago, he was able to make that a reality within the fleet for KCL Logistics.
The success of these trailers was the driving force behind the purchase of four further trailers delivered in May 2021. The order consisted of two single temperature and two multi-temperature 13.6m semi-trailers to the same specification, adding even more Gray & Adams’ engineering innovation to his growing fleet.
In 2016, KCL purchased four dual-temperature 13.6m refrigerated semi-trailers which had to be built to a greater height, in order to facilitate 26 larger-sized pallets for fruit and veg deliveries. This additional height was engineered into the trailer specification, along with an aerodynamics package, rear compression bumpers to maintain and protect the integrity of the trailer and restraining bars to protect the bespoke loads carried by KCL Logistics.
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Managing Director, Andrew Dunn, said, “For me, Gray & Adams’ trailers are the best on the market. They’re British made, hardy and the quality creates real value for us as they just keep running, year after year. They’re really hardwearing, if we need any parts, we can easily get them and it’s great to know we can plan on running them for ten to fifteen years at least. Our older trailers are still showing no sign of wear and tear and continue to give us a great deal of value for money as a result. Obviously, our brand-new vehicles are looking fantastic too – we’re delighted with them and really proud to be showing off our new livery.”
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Getting back to our roots: The past, present and future of the Gray & Adams Body Shop suggested my motivation would be best applied to the body building side of the business. Now as Joint Managing Director, along with my brother James, I haven’t worked in the Body Shop for many years, but it’s still very much close to my heart.”
When we think about the business we know as Gray & Adams, it could be easily forgotten that the UK marketleader in the manufacture of specialist temperaturecontrolled and bespoke vehicles started from humble beginnings in Fraserburgh in 1957 as ‘Gray’s Motor Body Works’. The legacy of the Body Shop remains as a vital piece of the Gray & Adams story and is still hugely important to the Gray family, as the spark which ignited the manufacturing giant we know today.
Averaging about 30 jobs per week, the Body Shop has a range of customers filling the workshop with everything from a Ferrari F40 or a Jensen Interceptor, to trailers and tractor units. Given the recent storms in the UK, the shop has been hugely busy with its insurance work and has over 150 live claims at present.
It is also proud to hold a top five position in the Aviva insurance rating system, based on customer ratings of their network of over 500 approved repairers. Customers vote on elements such as quality, timescales, and communication on a five-star rating. The Body Shop at Gray & Adams has held a top ten position in the Aviva ratings since 2019 and has been in the top five since 2020.
Current Body Shop Manager, Darren Hanton, joined Gray & Adams 14 years ago and has helped it to grow into the busy operation we see now. Darren explained, “I was a (car body) painter to trade and have worked on cars since I was a kid as, like Peter, I used to work in a garage during holidays and weekends with my dad. I started as a painter here, then progressed onto Foreman, running the workshop. For the last five years, I’ve been the Body Shop Manager and we have a tight-knit team working here each day.
“There’s no doubt about it,” Peter Gray, Joint Managing Director, says, “without the Body Shop, we wouldn’t be where we are today.” He explains, “My dad (Jim Gray Snr) learned his trade as a panel beater in a garage in a little village called Strichen in Aberdeenshire. When he started Gray’s Motor Body Works on School Street in Fraserburgh, he was mainly focused on repairing accident-damaged cars. Later, when Jim Adams joined the company, they formed Gray & Adams and had no idea that it would become the business you see today. From then to now, there has always been a body shop in the business. Although the commercial manufacture of refrigerated trailers and vehicles is what we’re renowned for, but we are also well renowned locally for the very good work of the body shop. The Body Shop has continued to deliver its services for customers for all that time.”
“We’ve worked on a lot of interesting vehicles over the years – everything from family cars to a commercial rock crusher. In terms of the range of our work, we usually have a few vintage cars, do a lot of motorhome and caravan repairs, and some agricultural commercial stuff too. We do pretty much everything and often take on repairs that others may find tricky. We do it at a good price too – we’re fairly unique in our flexible approach.
Peter left school at 16 to begin work in the Body Shop as a panel beater himself, something he’d been doing every day after school and any chance he could get. He continued, “When I finished school each day, from the age of about 14, I’d change clothes and go down to ask the Body Shop Manager how I could help. I’d do odd jobs here and there, helping them strip down cars and it was undoubtedly where I wanted to be. I first came in as a panel beater and then went on to run the shop for several years before my dad
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He said, “I love cars and I always have! I especially love 1970’s cars - cars I had or aspired to have when I was in my teens and twenties. I still spend my spare time working on them. I must admit, I have a few these days. I’m currently building a 1979 Ford Escort RS2000 and have all the parts laid out and newly painted. It’s a lifelong passion. “We’re proud to now be investing in a custom-built state of the art facility to give the Body Shop even more space to work with, which we hope to see fully realised this June. It will be a third bigger than the current facility and will bring together the car and commercial repairs centres into one space for the first time. With 14m jigs cemented into the floor to allow us to take the biggest trailers you can buy and repair any kind of vehicle that comes through our doors, all under one roof.
“The Aviva ratings success and top five position we’ve held in recent years is all down to the team. To have an accolade like that, purely based on customer ratings, is down to the team and to everyone playing their part. I guess it’s not just the cars that are finely tuned, it’s our teamwork too. With customer service at the core of the Gray & Adams ethos, I’m very proud of the team for their dedication to creating such a good experience for customers that we’ve stayed very near the top of the Aviva list for so long.”
“There’s a lot of historic emotional value for us in the work that the Body Shop does, perhaps even more than monetary value. The way I see it, without the Body Shop, there would be no Gray & Adams.”
Peter further describes his connection to the work of the Body Shop and talks about Gray & Adams’ investment in its future.
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The BIG Interview – David Steven, Managing Director of D. Steven & Son D. Steven & Son has been operating in the North of Scotland since the 1920s and were proud to celebrate its 100th year in business in 2020. Primarily providing haulage services to the seafood, fishing, oil and agricultural industries, D. Steven & Son has won various prestigious industry awards over the years including the Transport News awards in 2021 and Scottish Haulage Company of the Year 2022. Gray & Adams are proud to have a longterm relationship with them as a valued customer. For this issue of the BIG Interview, we sat down with Managing Director, David Steven to discuss his company and the long standing relationship between our businesses.
strategic focus has shifted to national business over the last couple of years. We supply highly recognisable products, such as farmed salmon, to supermarkets and wholesalers across Britain through our network of 56 full-time employees, 16 parttime employees and 55 trailers.
How long has D. Steven & Son been working with Gray & Adams?
How do you feel the D. Steven & Son business aligns to the Gray & Adams business?
What have been the impacts of Covid-19 for D. Steven & Son? We feel that we have been more protected from the impacts of Covid-19 compared to other businesses in heavily populated locations, however we put the required regulations in place to protect our colleagues and customers. The location of our HQ is some distance away from the largest cities in Scotland, meaning that we did not have the same risks as areas with larger populations. However, the demand for seafood went down within our usual market, fortunately this has now picked up again.
The two businesses have worked together for many years. The relationship first began when my father bought a rigid body trailer from Jim Gray Snr back in the 1960s, prior to Gray & Adams moving into the refrigeration market. The relationship has since continued, and we have been working regularly with them since the 1980s to purchase trailers.
Gray & Adams’ ethos aligns very well with our own. We are a family business, as is G&A and we find that through the shared experience of running a family business we have found we have a lot in common, including shared values. They are also very nice people to work with which makes the process of working with them incredibly easy!
What services do D. Steven & Son provide and in which sectors? We primarily distribute seafood from local businesses and fisheries in the North of Scotland across the UK and the EU. Due to the impact of Brexit, our international business has changed, and our main
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What factors are important when considering the specifications of your fleet and how does Gray & Adams help you to achieve them?
What challenges do you see the industry facing at the moment? One of the main challenges to D. Steven & Son, specifically, has been the impacts of Brexit. Over the years, we have expanded our business to serve the European market, and the EU member countries. However, this market has slowed for us with the wider discussions and considerations of Brexit, the EU and how it engages with British fishing industries. We are now focusing on maximising our national business to mitigate any risks and this has proven to be a sensible strategic decision.
What is important to me is longevity with our fleet. All our refrigerated trailers have been built by Gray & Adams and the reason for this is because the build quality is so robust that we know that they will work hard for us and they don’t reduce too quickly in value. We have also explored the market extensively to ensure we get a product that is right for the job we need it to do, so quality and technical specifications come first in our consideration and then price is second, however we find that G&A trailers deliver great value for money.
What are the key innovations in the industry in 2021 from your perspective? I find it particularly interesting how electric vehicle technology and electric refrigeration has progressed and been adopted since I started my life in the transport industry. It’s great to see new technologies being so widely adopted and, of course, we have followed the collaboration between Gray & Adams and Carrier Transicold on the Vector E-Cool with interest. As the technology progresses, hopefully the cost of fully adopting the technology will be reduced to encourage smaller operators to look at other options outside of diesel.
Finally, your thoughts about the overall service and aftercare received from the Gray & Adams team? We have dealt with Gray & Adams for a long time and we always come back to them because they are knowledgeable, friendly and easy to deal with. It’s also great to have their Fraserburgh base so close to our HQ which has been beneficial to both the business and our relationship. To find out more, please visit dsteven-son.co.uk
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Reflecting on a lifelong career – Stuart Martin, Sales Director, Ireland At Gray & Adams, we are proud of our people and the lifelong career opportunities we can offer them. Testament to how we value our people, Gray & Adams has various long serving members of staff who have been with us for many years. In this edition, we speak with Stuart Martin, Sales Director, Gray and Adams Ireland as he reflects on his passion for working with vehicles from a young age and his almost 40-year career with Gray & Adams, despite not being fully convinced by his choice to move into the refrigerated trailer industry in the beginning.
Discovering an early passion
allowed me to begin to pick up customers in Northern and Southern Ireland.
One of my earliest memories is discovering a hoard of old Commercial Motor magazines dumped at a friend’s stables and from that moment, I was hooked. From then on, I avidly read that publication along with Truck and Truck International. The transport scene in Britain was changing from traditional manufacturers such as ERF, Foden, and Leyland with the introduction of more modern vehicles from Scania, Volvo and Renault and these new innovative products caught my imagination, I was fascinated by stories of international journeys to Europe and the Middle East.
Gray & Adams Ireland is more remote from Fraserburgh than the other depots in the group and we were given huge latitude to develop and nurture our market. I enjoyed the hands-off approach and the relative freedom to work independently. Being part of a family firm always appealed to me, I don’t think I could ever have got used to a corporate culture. Gray & Adams instilled a sensible, realistic, and pragmatic approach in how we dealt with our customers, and we often went the extra mile. I reported into Jim Gray who was full of common sense and wisdom and quietly appreciated the efforts we went to whilst working in a difficult environment during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. I am fortunate to have worked for a titan within the industry and played my part in making our company a well-respected leading brand. Jim Gray was the Henry Ford of refrigerated trailers, and I am delighted to be part of that experience.
Upon completing my education, I was determined to follow in my father’s footsteps and embark on a sales career. I joined the local Mercedes Benz franchise and after a period of training, I soon began selling vans and trucks, some of which I couldn’t legally drive on the roads. My 21st birthday couldn’t come soon enough so that I could get my Class 1 licence.
Coming to Gray & Adams
Looking to the future
It was during this time that I met Harry McEwan, the Managing Director of Gray & Adams Ireland. He persuaded me to join the company and for the first couple of months I felt that I had made an awful decision and secretly wondered if I could sneak back to my old employer! However, I persevered in my new role and a couple of years later moved into trailer sales and began to really enjoy my career. I learned my trade and that, combined with an inquisitive mind, enthusiasm, and a desire to succeed,
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As we meet the unprecedented challenges having emerged from Covid, the material and component shortages and the crisis in Ukraine, we have all quietly risen to those demands and continue to chart a steady path in delivering industry leading products and services.
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Gray & Adams: A lifetime of value for Rizza’s Ice Cream Established in 1914 in the Northeast of Scotland, Rizza’s is a family-owned Italian ice cream business which has been working with Gray & Adams for the last 40+ years. Additionally, in 2004, Rizza’s expanded to include the Wiltshire Farm Foods franchise for the Northeast of Scotland. This gave Gray & Adams an opportunity to build a tailor-made 50-foot cold store with an awning which could hold their range of frozen products as the Rizza’s business continued to grow, removing the need for them to hire a store from elsewhere in the UK, reducing costs and overheads for their customer.
With a shared focus on family values and high-quality products, the trusted relationship between the businesses has stood the test of time and the passing down of each company to the next generation of family owners. Managing Director, Philip Morrison, is the third-generation son to own the company, and still buys his fleet from the team at Gray & Adams in Fraserburgh. The initial brief to Gray & Adams in the 1970’s was to build a bespoke 7.5 tonne temperature-controlled van which could fit into the docking station at the factory in Huntly, which had a low-height door. This vehicle had to be able to fit into the door and was to be plugged in overnight. Inside the van, eutectic beams would freeze through the night and hold their temperature to keep their products frozen throughout the delivery service the next day. Having been expertly guided through the design and manufacture of the very first van, with great satisfaction at the durability and quality of the bespoke build, Rizza’s have chosen Gray & Adams for every vehicle ever since.
With a focus on long-term value, the service provided by Gray & Adams has been a real marker of pride for Philip, in aftersales care, repairs and refurbishment, as well as in the bespoke builds themselves. “Gray & Adams have been exceptionally good to us over the years and, as a result, I can’t see past their extraordinary product value and service excellence. We’ve been working with some of the team for the 40+ years and their expertise is second to none. Though the longevity of their products means that we don’t have to purchase often, whether we’ve needed fast-track support, quick turnaround minor repairs or refurbishment support, they have never let us down. Gray & Adams can count on our business for many years to come.”
When Rizza’s then moved to a purpose-built factory in Huntly in 2002, the vehicle specification changed to standard refrigerated height box bodies which they can run for 15 to 20 years at a time. This longevity and lifetime value has been the hallmark of this customer relationship and has ensured that Gray & Adams vehicles are the benchmark of quality for Rizza’s fleet. With a growing product range, including both dry and frozen products to its repertoire, the specification of the vans now includes storage compartments at both sides at the front of the body for dry goods, with frozen and chilled products in the remainder of the body.
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Philip Morrison, Managing Director, Rizza’s Ice Cream
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Innovation Through Collaboration: Gray & Adams and Sunswap Sunswap is an emerging business, based in London, that Gray & Adams have recently welcomed into their customer base. Through their ethos of innovation, the team at Sunswap have a mission they have focused on since their inception in January 2020; to decarbonise the cold chain.
Michael tells us, “Our goal is to decarbonise the cold chain, with a primary market focus on trailer mounted refrigeration. In order to help us achieve a viable commercial product within an ambitious timeframe, we approached a variety of refrigerated trailer manufacturers. Ultimately, we chose to move forward with Gray & Adams due to their flexibility and their ability to achieve the turnaround we required, despite challenging market conditions.” He adds,
We recently caught up with co-founders, Andrew Sucis (COO) and Michael Lowe (CEO) to discuss Sunswap, its objectives and how collaborative working with Gray & Adams is helping it achieve its goals.
“The collaborative working approach from the Gray & Adams team was invaluable to us. As Sunswap is developing zero-emission transport refrigeration products that use solar power and battery technology, we needed open communication with the engineering team at Gray & Adams to ensure the uplift of the TRU went smoothly. The small details were important to get right to guarantee we had a quality product, fit for trial in 2022. The expertise of the team at Gray & Adams is second to none and we are proud to now have a product that we will begin deploying with customers in February.”
The decarbonisation mission Established in early 2020, Sunswap has already achieved tangible goals as a business, growing from three Cofounders and an idea, to ten full time staff within the space of two years. The business positions itself as a developer of the next generation of transport refrigeration, through providing the first viable zero-emission alternative to diesel powered systems.
Solutions focused
Sunswap needed to align itself with partners and suppliers who could provide flexibility as well having innovation built into their values, so they approached the team at Gray & Adams.
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Sunswap has ambitious growth plans within the next year, where it will be getting ready for production on the back of successful customer deployments as well as doubling the team size.
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Co-founder, Andrew shares his thoughts with us on this, “It’s been a very productive two years for us and we are now starting to ramp up for the next phase of our product development, therefore we had to choose a trailer supplier with the ability to meet our needs without long lead times. We’ve found Gray & Adams to be solutions focused and pro-active in their approach to the Sunswap project. “For example, we knew the trailer had to be appropriate for the UK and European markets. Gray & Adams quickly provided a range of solutions that allowed us to ensure we were fit for both markets, without impacting on delivery dates.”
Building a lifetime of value When commenting on the service they have received from Gray & Adams, both Michael and Andrew confirmed that they hope this will be the start of a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship. Andrew confirms, “We are now looking to work with Gray & Adams again with the purchase of our next multi temperature trailer and we look forward to exploring other ideas we have to service smaller vehicles going forward.” For further information on Sunswap Ltd, please visit sunswap.co.uk
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Staff Spotlight: Robert Downie How long have you been working with Gray & Adams and what is your day-to-day role? I’ve been working with Gray & Adams at the Fraserburgh depot since I left school in 1991, originally, I started in brakes department but was quickly given the opportunity to progress through a number of roles over the years, into the role now which is General Works Manager. As the General Works Manager, I’m responsible for ensuring the smooth running of the programmes of work, that all departments are functioning correctly and that the safety and quality standard that Gray & Adams are known for are being adhered to.
What attracted you to the company initially? My father was working for Gray & Adams as a welder at the time and told me about the opportunities available with the company. I was actually working at a local butcher at the time and also still in school, and when the time came to choose between completing an apprenticeship at the butcher shop or with a company like Gray & Adams, I think I made the right choice. They paid well for being a young man at the time and there has been plenty of opportunities for me to progress and learn over the years. I’ve also had various family members work here over the years and worked alongside my father for a time which was a great experience.
As well as product innovation, it’s impressive how we have adapted new technologies internally to make our production and working practises more efficient.
Tell us about your greatest achievement whilst working for Gray & Adams.
If you could do someone else’s job (at Gray & Adams) for the day, whose would it be and why?
The company has achieved so much in the years that I have been with them that it can be hard to choose just one! For me personally, I think it’s an achievement to have been a part of the company growing and progressing from 70-80 employees on the factory floor to looking after nearly 350, as well as seeing the product offering expand.
I’m happy in the job role I’m in because I get to communicate and work across many different departments and get involved in their operations, so I’m quite satisfied as a General Works Manager!
What current innovation impresses you the most and why?
What is the best thing about working for Gray & Adams?
Gray & Adams are well known for their reputation of innovation so again, I’m finding it hard to pick just one! Overall, I think it’s really impressive how our products can be adapted to fit every kind of customer need you can think of, we have even produced trailers that have had milk tanks built into the interior which was an interesting project to be involved with.
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The directors and senior managers at Gray & Adams are very considerate people so we are all really well looked after and supported. I feel that we are treated really well and it’s allowed Gray & Adams to build a really strong team that work well together and I’m proud to be a part of it.
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On the road to training success: Technical 3D animations deliver high impact results for Gray & Adams When Gray & Adams wanted to produce training for drivers in how to safely operate its range of trailers, it began working with Mintra to create engaging content that would increase safety and drive their customers’ operational efficiency. “We wanted to try something different and were interested in developing a filmed training course that could be used by our customers on demand. We were aware of Mintra’s excellent work in developing safety training for the oil and gas industry and we knew from looking at those examples they could create exactly what we were looking for.”
The expertise involved in driving a heavy goods vehicle doesn’t stop with manoeuvring, maintenance and learning the rules of the road: it is essential that drivers also understand how to safely operate and load the trailers that store the goods they are transporting.
Mintra’s content development team visited our Aberdeenshire headquarters to scope out the project and get a better understanding of the product range. A number of different options were discussed before it was decided to produce an animated 3D training that could be delivered electronically to thousands of drivers.
Gray & Adams places a high level of importance on duty of care to customers, and training in the safe operation of its products is another cornerstone of its offering. When the business decided to move away from solely providing one-to-one training on site with customers, James Gray, Joint Managing Director suggested that more innovative solutions were explored. Gray & Adams then looked to work with experts in eLearning, Mintra, to develop high-quality and engaging learning experiences.
Ian then tells us, “We knew very quickly that we made the right decision with the 3D animation. We sent out the generic version of the course to our customers and almost immediately one came back to say how great the training was and to ask if it was possible to have a version with their bespoke trailer. The advice we got from Mintra meant that we could immediately say ‘yes’.
Ian Smith, Group Engineering Manager, explained “We are best-in-class for what we do and are known in the industry for providing the Rolls Royce of trailers. That means that products such as our double deck trailers, which have lifting floors, can be complex to operate. Drivers need to ensure they get the loading just right.
“We think the finished video is absolutely fantastic – Mintra has transformed something that could have been very run of the mill and created something way off-piste - the feedback we have from our customers’ training staff has been overwhelmingly positive. It is now so much easier for us to fulfil our obligation to provide training, whether that be for a new driver or refresher training, to ensure safe operations.”
“We wanted to reduce the number of breakdowns that our customers were experiencing as a result of operational error, but more than that, we recognise that we have obligations and duty of care to the industry to ensure no one is injured while using our products. We started to look at how we were training people and felt we could make improvements. “Traditionally, we were sending our own team out to visit customers and to carry out one-to-one training, physically showing people how to operate the trailers. That wasn’t ideal, not least because it involved a lot of resource, but also because we knew that people may forget things after that one training session.
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Mintra and Gray & Adams will build this partnership further and continue to collaborate, with future plans to create a suite of induction and instructional videos tailored to each of its four UK sites.
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Celebrating a lifetime of value: Long service thanks
Testament to the way the business is run, Gray & Adams have a number of employees who have served with us for many years. Our company has been built on their commitment and high-quality work, and we would like to take this opportunity to profile their careers and share our sincere thanks for their service.
Peter Mathison ss
Leon McGuine
LEON MCGUINESS
Of his long career, Peter tells us,
Leon, who works in the completion team of Gray & Adams, Dunfermline. He first began his career in April 1997 and is celebrating his silver anniversary with the company this year.
“I really like working with the team here, everyone gets on well and I’m kept busy so it’s a quick day. In my role, the team that I work in, are the first step in the process of building a new trailer, so it’s an interesting job and I’ve been doing it for many years. If I was to do someone else’s job in the business, I’d like to try my hand with the capping team, I had worked in that team briefly a few years ago, so I might be a little rusty, but it would be good to give it a go again!”
Leon shares this thoughts about his 25 Years’ service with the company, “I originally heard about the role through a friend, it was an ideal job for me as the depot is local to where I live, which meant that I didn’t have to get up at 5am any more to make it to my work on time! Apart from that, I’ve really enjoyed my time with Gray & Adams, because the completion team I work in, has the opportunity to do something slightly different every day which gives us all the opportunity to learn a new way of working or a new skill. I enjoy working with my team, they are a good group of guys, and we all work well together.”
“I’m now 57, so I’ve only got a few more years to go until my retirement and I’m pleased to say that I’m planning on seeing out my time here, Gray & Adams has been a great place to work and great opportunities here for local people.” The directors of Gray & Adams would like to thank both Peter and Leon for their long service, which has been invaluable to our operations, and are delighted to hear that they have both thoroughly enjoyed their roles throughout their tenure.
“As we are the final team that works on the trailers before they head out to the customer, it’s great to see them complete and looking perfect when they are heading out the door, which gives a good bit of job satisfaction as well!” PETER MATHISON Peter first joined the team at Gray & Adams in June 1982 on the advice of a careers officer, whilst looking for a new role. He has worked in Dunfermline depot of Gray & Adams for a fantastic 40 years as a coach builder.
ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION SINCE 1957
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