A Sustainable Fleet for Sheard’s One Million Boxes A Day

Newer, more reliable vehicles from Dawsongroup material handling, including electric trucks, are maximising uptime for Sheard Packaging, making their processes more efficient so they can produce a million boxes a day and supporting their admirable sustainability pledges.

Family-owned Sheard Packaging is the UK’s largest independent corrugated cardboard box manufacturer. For five generations, it has been providing sustainable packaging solutions. Renowned for its innovation and commitment to its customers, Sheard designs, manufactures, manages and delivers every one of its products directly from its Halifax site.

First Class Service

Customer service and quality are key, and Sheard prides itself on excellent lead times and quick turnaround times. To maintain these high standards whilst producing one million boxes every day, its fleet of forklift trucks run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They are used for all different areas of the business, including loading and unloading wagons, feeding machines, and moving pallets and bins, making it essential to have first-class service and maintenance.

With Sheard’s previous fork truck supplier, trucks were run into the ground over three to five years, which meant they then had no residual sale value. In addition to this, downtime was high and repairs were slow, so they were not working as efficiently as they could be.

John Burns, Transport Warehousing Dispatch Manager for Sheard Packaging, turned to Dawsongroup for a solution. Dawsongroup material handling worked with John to remedy the situation by building a hire contract around their needs that ensured not only that they have enough trucks on site, but also that the fleet is rotated regularly to prolong the life of each machine. Dawsongroup’s Smarter Asset Strategy ensures flexibility with no capital outlay, and service and maintenance are included with our contract hire options.

“We changed to Dawsongroup primarily for the service,” said John. “On the occasions when repairs are needed, they’re usually fixed the same day, depending on what time we call. This keeps our trucks running and is much better for us.”

“As the account manager for Sheard, I monitor utilisation and manage the fleet through the digital fleet management system which is installed on every truck,” said Paul Hull, Area Sales Executive for Dawsongroup material handling. “It also includes safety features such as state-of-the-art camera systems and daily checks for the drivers to complete, supporting Sheard in maintaining maximum uptime as well as excellent health and safety standards.”

Sustainable Solutions

Sheard takes its environmental responsibilities seriously, and Dawsongroup is supporting the company every step of the way. Dawsongroup material handling provides Sheard with electric pallet trucks and pedestrian operated stackers as well as a fleet of 21 1.8T and 2.5T counterbalance forklift trucks which all run on GreenD+ HVO instead of diesel. In addition to this, Sheard has two electric ride-on industrial sweeper-scrubbers from Dawsongroup emc, keeping its facilities clean.

Combined with its 2,500 solar panels, electric vehicle charge points and 100% FSC certified material which make its products 100% recyclable, Dawsongroup’s solutions contribute towards Sheard’s aim to achieve certified B Corporation status.

“With Dawsongroup, we get newer trucks every two years two months instead of every three years as we had before,” said John. “It makes a big difference as we have much less downtime than before. The more trucks we have running, the more efficient we are, which in turn reduces our carbon emissions.”

Visit Sheard Packaging for all your sustainable packaging needs. Contact Dawsongroup material handling for all your forklift truck and materials handling solutions, and contact Dawsongroup emc for industrial sweepers and much more. Find out how Dawsongroup’s Smarter Asset Strategy can make your business more agile.