Inside Track Issue 07 - June 2022

JUNE 2022

Front cover image: Fantastic photograph captured outside the Gentilli facility of Medequip’s latest batch of fleet vans.

Keep in touch

www.mediafleet.co.uk

info@mediafleet.co.uk

T: +44 (0)1993 772525

Contents 04 06 12 18

Introduction from Barnaby Barney welcomes you to this edition of Inside Track Magazine.

New livery supplier for ArrowXL At Mediafleet, we are very pleased to be servicing the vehicle graphics needs of the UK’s largest ‘two-man’ delivery service – ArrowXL. Why the ‘WHY?’ Question is So Important In this article Rob tells us why he thinks we’re not using this question enough.

Should the fleet world be demanding more investigative work regarding vehicle safety markings?

A thought provoking look at ‘Conspicuity Markings’…does more need to be done to keep drivers and pedestrians safe?

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Is This the Greatest Motor Racing Sponsor of All Time?

Martini is the ‘flavour’ of the month in the last of these articles from Rob

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Supply Chain Process Creation & Management The second in the series of articles looking at Mediafleet’s approach to Supply Chain Management

Introduction from Barnaby This month, I’ve been considering the processes and motivations that make Mediafleet work. I know that sounds strange, but as some of you may know, my working background is based, for the most part, on my Mediafleet experiences and particularly the early years working closely with my family. But, after some long hard thought, there are a few other ‘mechanisms’ (for want of a better phrase) that I have created and introduced that I believe have helped Mediafleet grow as rapidly as we have over the last few years...and one in particular.

Many business owners will admit to working long hours and sometimes struggling to share their workload with colleagues; but I firmly believe that business owners at any level should know ‘something about everything’ before outsourcing or delegating.

This is also essential in recognising where the business needs support or investment, which is critical in knowing how to propel the business forward; the ‘critical path’ if you will.

A vital part of this process is ‘feedback’, which includes considering all comments/ advice/criticism that come my way. In fact, I welcome all feedback because it is a valuable information source that can help a business grow.

Suggestions and criticism can be generated internally or externally. I recruited the team here at Mediafleet because I believe they offer valuable input, therefore it would be foolhardy to ignore their suggestions or criticisms. And the same is true for our external connections such as supply chain partners and the customer base. We deal everyday with professional, successful, experienced individuals and organisations, operating in vastly competitive markets, and they are in a very good position to offer advice, suggestions and sometimes even criticism.

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For those of you that know me well, I hope you agree that I am always receptive to ideas. It is this continual flow of productive suggestions that when implemented, helps us keep pushing Mediafleet forwards. Crikey it’s hard work sometimes, but very rewarding when we get it right.

I am extremely grateful to the team around me for making all this possible. I hope you enjoy reading our latest news in this month’s edition of Inside Track.

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Mediafleet brands fleet for ArrowXL 6

s HGV Mediafleet Appointed for New HGV Box Fleet 7

Mediafleet has been appointed as the new vehicle graphics provider by the UK’s largest and longest established ‘two – person’ home delivery specialist – ArrowXL.

Barnaby Smith, managing director of Mediafleet said, “This project opportunity emerged when Sean Smith (National Fleet Manager for ArrowXL) contacted me after seeing some of the work we are doing with other large companies on social media; a conversation ensued resulting in Mediafleet being asked to consider the designs for the new fleet of rigid HGV box vehicles.”

Amber Hodson, ‘Communications and Brand Lead’ at ArrowXL commented, “With an existing fleet already branded and operational, we required consistency in design for the new vehicles whilst at the same time introducing some subtle but essential design tweaks.”

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The original artwork from the old livery supplier was not availa

James Parry, head of design at Mediafleet relishes. “I’d like to th

if you like for maximising vehicle branding opportunities - think

Once the design was agreed, Mediafleet conducted vehicle surv

present an accurate representation of what the actual finished

The vehicle graphics were then produced at Mediafleet’s pro

program in Preston at Lancashire DAF – one of the largest comm

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able which meant that the artwork for the graphics had to be re-created from scratch; a task that

hink that our creative design department is becoming increasingly well known – the ‘go to experts’

k ‘fleet media’ rather than just livery”.

veys on the custom-built bodies before providing the visuals for approval. This allows Mediafleet to

d vehicles will look like. Nothing is left to chance.

oduction facility at Witney. Mediafleet’s in-house fitting team are now busy rolling out the fitting

mercial vehicle dealerships in Lancashire.

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Why the ‘W Question is So Importa 12

WHY?’ s ant

‘Why?’ is such a powerful one-word question – it really gets to the heart of the matter especially when asked repeatedly…so why are some business leaders so scared of using this basic but important business tool?

When I was learning my trade (a long time ago now!) I was working as a development manager for a large Swiss corporate with offices and production facilities here in the UK. It was my job to create new and exciting ways to sell our products and services, which meant some ‘out of the box’ thinking was required. That meant I had to explain my ideas to my boss at the time - and this was my first real introduction to the ‘Why?’ Question used properly. At the point in the discussion where I present an action, he would ask, WHY? These were exhausting meetings, but it taught me to have all my reasoning, facts and figures to hand. When constructing my business development programs, I started predicting when the ‘WHY?’ Question would be asked. This led me to explaining the ‘WHY?’ before being asked making the document or presentation so much stronger.

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Darkness Ensues Like a Cloak!

In simple terms, not asking the question ‘Why?’ leaves businesses and business leaders in the dark. “Why did we lose that business?” “Why are we recruiting this person?” Why are we at this price point?” “Why did we migrate from the plan?” Even tactical issues can be addressed such as, “Why did you miss that appointment?” “Why did we miss the deadline?” “Why did that equipment fail?”

So why is the question ‘why?’ not asked more often?

This is because some business leaders think it too aggressive and confrontational.

Human nature is such that we don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, put them on the spot, or embarrass them in front of others. But the price of not asking ‘Why?’ is at too great a cost in my opinion.

Bring back the ‘Why?’ Asking ‘why?’ is a very useful business tool. Not asking ‘why?’ is dangerous. It’s not a case of using some other technique that replaces the ‘why?’ because, to be clear, there isn’t one. And when we don’t ask ‘Why?’ we start making dangerous assumptions based on incomplete information that can lead us to make the wrong decision.

Not asking ‘Why?’ leads us start creating facts that perhaps don’t exist. “Why did we lose that contract?” Answer, “I don’t know maybe it’s because we are too expensive, lets lower our pricing” Poor decision made via a poor process!

Business processes that are not described accurately and insufficiently questioned will lead to an exaggeration of the facts leading to distorted and unhelpful processes. This can lead to whole departments or even companies following the wrong procedures

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How to ask ‘Why?’ As with most things in life, there is a right and a wrong way to ask ‘Why?’ We don’t need to appear aggressive because we can incorporate the ‘why’ into a nicer phrase.

Try something like, “we need to understand the reasons behind losing that contract”. “I’d really like to understand the benefits of appointing David to the role”. “Help me understand the key takeaways from the business plan” “What happened to that piece of equipment that caused its failure”.

The Why? Lesson The moral of the story is that the next time you are in a meeting, writing a proposal, devising a plan, continually ask yourself the question, ‘Why?’.

It follows the ‘So what’ question in proposal writing.

You’ll remember that if you right a statement in a proposal and the question “so what?” makes sense, then you haven’t included the advantage and benefit statement. The same is true with the ‘Why?’ question. If you make a statement, the ‘why?’ question will expose the truth behind the statement.

And everyone needs the truth!

Author, Rob Rudd.

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Should the fl investigate t of vehicle sa markings?

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fleet world the use afety

Are we absolutely certain that our emergency and delivery vehicles are as safe as they could be?

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Are we absolutely certain that our emergency and delivery vehicles are as safe as they could be?

Mediafleet has recently been shortlisted for the Innovation Award at the 2022 What Van Awards. The award application was based on the work Mediafleet provided for Southern Water, and other companies, where reflective graphics were required for the vehicle branding – alongside the normal Chapter 8 markings. The benefit of reflective graphics is that the branding can be easily seen at night as the logos and lettering ‘glow’ in the dark. It means that the branding works at all times of the day in promoting your brand. The other benefit is that the increased visibility improves safety both for the driver and the general public.

And that got me thinking about the effectiveness of UK safety markings.

After a little bit of digging around, it appears there is some debate about the best format for safety markings.

The subject of vehicle safety markings is complex with efficacy being based on physical size of the target, colour and reflectivity, patterns and lighting conditions. All of these physical properties are then subject to interpretation by approaching road users, significantly complicating the issue.

The American psychologist, P R Killeen, stated that conspicuity comprises the following elements: Physical Conspicuity: the ability of an observer to detect a target in a brief presentation, this relates to body colour, shape and markings Cognitive Conspicuity: the ability to recognise and process what is seen Visibility: the ease of identifying the object Recognition: the ability to interpret the particular shapes and colours of the object.

Some visibility markings actually make recognition less effective, with haphazard or complex marking designs inducing camouflage effects in complex environments or low lighting conditions.

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Killeen also highlights some ‘awareness factors’ between subject vehicles and the background environment, including: Vehicle speed Apparent visual size: maximised through appropriate vehicle markings Shape: communicating vehicle type and orientation Colour: some colours can be seen more quickly than others in an urban environment, with fluorescence enhancing this effect further Brightness: effect is maximised at dawn and dusk, during adverse weather conditions and under low light conditions.

In short, all these are factors are affecting the ability to recognise what is actually in front of you.

Clearly, emergency response vehicles are the most vulnerable; travelling at speed and standing still by the roadside. That combined with the distraction of the incident and the following lack of awareness of some drivers puts them in the high-risk category.

White is the safest colour for vehicles…right?

Not according to Killeen, this is the most conspicuous base colour for a vehicle:

Why? Because a light source radiating 1 W of green light will appear much brighter than another source radiating the same amount of power of red light because the eye is more sensitive in the green region. The human eye is sensible to light wave which wavelength is roughly between 400 nm (violet) and 700 nm (red). Wavelengths shorter than 400 nm (ultraviolet, UV) or longer than 700 nm (infrared, IR) are not visible.

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Plus, the eye behaves differently in high or low light conditions. In daylight, for brightness levels above a certain level, the vision is mainly done by the centre of the retina, we can see colours and the maximum sensitivity is at 555 nm (in the green region). Which is why the green panel above is most visible in daylight. This type of vision is called photopic vision.

In low light conditions, for low brightness levels, the vision is mainly done by the peripheral region of the retina which is colour-blind. The centre region is not sensitive enough to see any colour. This type of vision is called scotopic vision. Maximum sensitivity is at 507 nm (in the blue-green region) and red light is almost invisible.

Solid Colours Can Play Tricks According to Killeen (2010), dark colours adjacent to one another (such as red and blue) cause visibility problems with the eye not able to easily lock focus with such combinations.

You may have seen the Mediafleet article on iconic motorsport branding when we discussed the Gulf branding that demonstrated Equi luminance – great for interesting daylight branding, perhaps not so good for safety markings.

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Good Colours Combinations for Safety Markings Killeen recommended the following body colours and combinations as suitable for emergency vehicle use: Yellow-green Chrome or Euro Yellow White and fluorescent yellow-green White and fluorescent red Fluorescent red The proof?

Solomon and King (1995) in the USA studied visibility-related crashes of fire engines in Dallas, Texas, where the fleet of formerly red or red/white fire units was replaced by yellow-green/white vehicles. They found that crash rates of all severity levels were 3.5 times higher among red vehicles, with injury crashes higher by a statistically significant factor of 6.5.

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Do Chapter 8 Rear Chevrons Work Well?

Chevrons have been widely applied to the rear of commercial vehicles, but appear to have a number of pitfalls. Usually applied as an inverted-’V’ to the vehicle rear only, the intention is to encourage approaching vehicles around each side. However, according to Killeen, they can blur body edge discrimination and disrupt distance perception. Killeen also suggested that the way the eye works, which is by scanning horizontally, leads to slower recognition of vertical or diagonal patterns. Another scientist and his team (L Tijerina et al (2003)) separately agreed that multi-colour rear end chevron markings may actually reduce conspicuity by camouflaging the rear of the vehicle!

What About the Sides of Vehicles?

Tested in New Brunswick, Canada by a wide sample group to represent the profile of licensed drivers in the province, a continuous white stripe of reflective tape around the perimeter of a trailer was found to be the most effective of a selection of nine different marking schemes. The European Commission has a specific standard, UNECE R104, which specifies stripes of 50-60 mm width covering not less than 80% of the vehicle length in retroreflective white, yellow or red.

Reflective Graphics on Vehicle Sides Now, I’m no expert on this but looking at the above data, findings and research, it appears that adorning the side of a vehicle with reflective graphics could provide additional safety margins. In daylight, providing the colours don’t clash, the graphics will enhance visibility and give a perspective of vehicle size. At night, the reflected white light will be easily seen by the human eye and therefore the vehicle will be more visible leading to enhanced safety.

I am not suggesting that the usual contour graphics be replaced by this, quite the opposite in fact, where it could be used to perhaps ‘frame’ the branding graphics.

Conclusion From the brief research I have conducted, I think that it may be prudent to conduct more work regarding the efficacy of safety markings. There seems to be some conflicting opinion and bearing in mind how important this topic is in protecting drivers and the general public, I think maybe, this should be looked at again…by scientists who can guide our fleet managers and graphics companies.

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Is This the Greatest Motor Racing Sponsor of All Time?

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I can be often heard to say that our ‘raison d’etre’ at Mediafleet is to create exciting, innovative, and dynamic ‘mobile’ billboards. Placing graphics on performance vehicles create the fastest billboards on the planet. It’s also weird that if you were to place iconic motorsport branding on normal vehicles, they instantly appear quicker than they really are! A Ford Mondeo with Martini Racing branding would appear mightily quick! …And that’s the power of great vehicle branding. I’m not a psychologist but I guess that’s something to do with powerful association. Associations borne out of more than 50 years of truly iconic motorsport branding.

The famous Martini ‘ball & bar’ logo was registered for the first time in 1929, becoming the most iconic symbol of the Martini brand. It’s distinctive and memorable. It conjures a feeling of excellence and a glamorous lifestyle; great attributes for a motorsport brand.

Martini’s first sponsorship was at the Daytona 3 hours in 1962 with two Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Coda Troncas having ‘Martini & Rossi Racing Team’ written along the front quarter panels. At this stage no logo was used.

“Martinis are the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet” - H. L. Mencken

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The logo we all know appeared at the start of 1968, when advertising, unrelated to racing, was permitted for the first time on the bodywork of racing cars. The Porsche 910 raced by Scuderia Lufthansa Racing Team was the first vehicle, initiated by Robert Huhn, an executive manager of the German airline.

During the 1970s, Martini became famous in connection with Porsche in motorsport, sponsoring the works Porsche 917 that won the 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Martini Porsche cars won Le Mans again in 1976 and 1977 with the Porsche 936.

Martini Racing’s association with Formula One began in 1972 and by 1975 they were sponsoring Bernie Ecclestone’s Brabham team. The Alfa Romeo flat-V12 powered Brabham BT45 and Brabham BT45B were used for the 1976 and 1977 seasons and the Martini colours appeared on a red rosso corsa background. Drivers such as Carlos Reutemann, Carlos Pace, Hans-Joachim Stuck and John Watson all drove for the team during this time.

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For the 1979 Formula 1 season, Martini Racing moved its sponsorship to Team Lotus, which was the 1978 championship-winning team both in drivers’ and teams’ championship. After failing to score a single win in 1979, Martini Racing withdrew from Formula One. Martini Racing returned to Formula One after more than thirty years, in a partnership with Williams Formula One team in 2014. The team changed its name to ‘Williams Martini Racing’.

The FW40 was the penultimate Williams car to feature Martini Racing stripes in the final F1 season before the introduction of the Halo. The partnership between Martini and Williams gave F1 some of the more simplistic livery designs in recent years, but the stripes over the white car certainly turned heads on the track.

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World Rallying But the Martini brand is probably best known for its relationship with World Rallying. In more than fifty years of Martini Racing’s history, the most glorious years were the 1980s and 1990s, when Martini Racing was just another name for the Lancia factory rally team in the World Rally Championship, winning seven Manufacturers’ titles between 1983 and 1992.

It was an era of the first Group B rally cars. Martini Lancia entered a category with a brand new Lancia Rally 037 (see below), debuting in the fifth round of the championship (Tour de Corse) with Markku Alen and Attilio Bettega as drivers. The first 4WD car Audi Quattro brought manufacturers’ title to Audi.

Unless you’ve been on another planet for the last fifty years, you will be familiar with the Lancia Delta. The story of Lancia Delta began in 1987. Following a ban of Group B rally cars, after several deaths, Martini Racing was ready to rule in the Group A with Lancia Delta HF 4WD. Juha Kankkunen, Miki Biasion and Markku Alen are the drivers for most of

Lancia Delta HF Integrale 32

the season, scoring eight wins throughout the season and taking first three places in the drivers’ standings.

The champion was Kankkunen. Of course, the manufacturers’ trophy went to Lancia.

In 1988, with an updated Lancia Delta HF Integrale, Martini Racing took its second consecutive WRC title. The 1988 drivers’ champion was Miki Biasion, who repeated his triumph in 1989. Other Lancia’s rally winners in that period were Bruno Saby, Markku Alen, Jorge Recalde, Didier Auriol and Mikael Ericsson.

One of the greatest stories in a history of rallying came to an end following the 1992 season, when Martini Racing left the World Rally Championship and never returned to it as a team.

The Lancia Stratos is worth a special mention. It was a very successful rally car, winning the World Rally Championship in 1974, 1975 and 1976; and race car winning 1974 Targa Florio, five times the Tour de France Automobile and three editions of Giro d’Italia automobilistico.

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The motorsport world owes Martini Racing a debt of gratitude for sponsoring some of the greatest motorsport moments across the widest set of racing disciplines. Has any other sponsor invested in so many different motor racing sports?…answers on a postcard please!

So, to end this textual shrine to Martini Racing lets end with a look at the logo through time – a logo synonymous with racing success…oh, and it’s 34

a nice drink!

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Supply Chain Proc Creation & Manag

For supply chain integration to work, the ext 36

cess gement

ternal processes needed are exactly the same as the internal ones.

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Implement

Once the creation of the process has been completed, implementation across and within the supply Non-conformity at this stage will lead to the execution of the next stage (see Assess section below)

Quality - Insist on quality standards at all stages of your supply chain responsibility. Any non will immediately reduce costs and increase efficiencies leading to the competitive advantage investigation to understand ‘root cause’.

Visibility - Ensure the entire operation is as visual as possible. At Mediafleet, this includes inform such as operations and production. Daily reporting on key tasks. Stakeholder information deli

Organisation, Staffing and Training - including reporting regimes are defined. Contingency i

Measurement and Review - Use data to evaluate process performance. Review this regularly 38

At Mediafleet, the team has an almost innate ability to integrate within a supply chain. To be honest we are rarely the lead instigator (although on occasion we have been – see previous article), but we adopt the same approach to the process across each supply chain - Create, Implement, Asses and Modify. These procedures encompass the process management from inception to project/ relationship end.

Create From inception, a set of initial procedures or tasks is required for the execution of the contract. Plus, in addition, the processes need to take account of stakeholder structures, practises, KPI’s, and policies in order to meet the customer objectives. In short, the process involves: Define and really understand the customer objectives Define and really understand key stakeholder objectives Define and really understand key stakeholder shortcomings (if any) Create the processes to meet the objectives considering any stakeholder issues Create and agree the process specifications Perform value analysis to identify means for cost reduction without compromising quality Discuss and agree the created process with key stakeholders within the supply chain

y chain follows. At this stage vigilance and diligence is required in terms of goals and KPI adherence. ).

n-conformity should be dealt with at once. Assign responsibility to errors to reduce repetition. This e the customer is expecting. This Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) should be followed by an

mation screens with workload, quality, productivity and other performance information in key areas ivery against desired schedules etc.

in case of sickness is created to maintain adequate staffing to meet stakeholder targets

y and publicly. Post needed actions and progress reports.

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Assess and Improve the Process Changing process elements to attain levels of performance superior to what has been accomplished in the past is a key strategic business target.

This is a ‘process within a process’ whereby senior management within Mediafleet: Look at the targets set against results attained. Measure the performance within each division or business section against baseline expectations. Discuss ways to improve efficiencies and reliabilities. mprove the Process and implement specific changes. Then cycle the above activities to ensure continual improvement.

Modify This may be controversial but at Mediafleet we find that slight modifications of supply chain management enable us to meet customer and stakeholder expectations for NEW projects more easily, quickly and reliably. It’s not a case of ‘one size fits all’ but why reinvent the wheel when a particular process has been proven to work on countless occasions. In most cases minor tweaks are sufficient to meet customer and stakeholder expectations. I understand that in manufacturing environments where products can be wildly different from one project to the next, that this will not work. At Mediafleet, our service environment and key stakeholder relationships rarely change.

In summary – At Mediafleet, operational processes and systems are a formidable array of tools for process creation, management and improvement. These are ‘data-based’ methods for measurement and improvement and encourage a desire to ‘go the extra mile’.

Next time – Effective Communication in Supply Chain Management

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Company Information Mediafleet is one of the country’s leading

fleet graphics and branding specialists.

With an expanding central printing and

manufacturing facility at Witney, Oxford, and a graphics application team with perhaps an

unrivalled level of experience in the industry, the company has developed an advanced

range of vehicle branding products and services to cater for all large national fleet networks, whatever their requirements.

Building

graphics grown

on

its

Mediafleet’s

expertise,

the

vehicle-related

core

vehicle

company

business

has

by

learning to understand the complexities and requirements of every unique fleet.

By listening to prospective clients’ needs, Mediafleet provides a bespoke approach

to each new customer. The company’s

adherence to that basic principle has

enabled it to develop successful vehicle branding campaigns for nearly 20 years.

For further details, please contact Barnaby

Smith or James Parry at Mediafleet on 01993 772525.

Keep in touch

www.mediafleet.co.uk

info@mediafleet.co.uk

T: +44 (0)1993 772525 43

JUNE 2022