Body Building
As part of our “One stop shop” service, we are able to design and build bespoke bodies to your exact specifications from 3.5t up to 32t vehicles.
By liaising closely with the manufacturer and customer, we make sure that all requirements are adhered to. We are an established body builder within the industry and have design teams working to improve our designs & products.
In 2015, after speaking with, and gaining feedback from a broad range of customers about what they expect from their plant bodies, we finalized designs for our cheese wedge body using the latest software including AUTOCAD, Solidworks 3D modelling & FEA software. Our cheese wedge features bushes on all joints, Stainless Steel rods in rams & fully galvanised ramps and sloping section – all enclosed and protected by the design.
Due to the increase in Health & Safety legislation on sites, we also offer “Fall Prevention Systems” which increases safety when working on the truck bed. Our systems offer a lightweight, easy to use option that can also be retro fitted to an existing body, ensuring you meet current Health & Safety requirements. These can extend from the body on site to allow a walking platform when fully loaded, or can be within the body width for part loads.
Our bodies are constructed using the best materials available to us, and where we haven’t been able to buy certain products to suit our specifications, we have had them designed & manufactured to meet ours & our customers’ high expectations. All of the parts we use are Type Approved where necessary to enable us to build bodies within our approvals and legislative requirements.
On October 29th 2014 the law changed and all new vehicles going on the road need to have an approval before they can be registered, this is explained in more detail below:
EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval is a way of making sure vehicles are safe to use on the road and respect environmental considerations, without having to inspect and test every single one. Whole Vehicle Type Approval authorises a manufacturer to:
- Produce vehicles to a proven specification and,
- Self-certify these as compliant with relevant legislation.
Two fundamental requirements are:
- Meeting the technical and administrative requirements and capturing the design. This is known as the ‘Type Approval’.
- Ensuring that subsequent production vehicles are manufactured in conformance with the approved design. This is known as ‘Conformity of Production’ (COP).
European Community Whole Vehicle Type Approval (ECWVTA) – This scheme is based around EC Directives and Regulations and provides for the approval of whole vehicles, in addition to vehicle systems and separate components. This certification is accepted throughout the EU without the need for further testing until a standard is updated or your design changes. This option will particularly suit volume manufacturers and/or those wishing to sell products across Europe.
National Small Series Type Approval (NSSTA) – This will potentially suit those manufacturing vehicles in low volumes and/or those not wishing to sell products across Europe. However, the scheme has a limit on production numbers, depending on vehicle category. Also approval to this scheme may not be accepted outside of the UK. This route is the most desirable for the FASSI Main Dealers.
Individual Vehicle Approval (IVA) – This is an alternative to type approval. The scheme is operated by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA – formerly VOSA) and in Northern Ireland, the Driver Standards Agency (DSA). IVA involves an inspection of the vehicle by an examiner at an approved site. Inspection cost is £230 with a re-test fee of £46, plus of course the diesel & manhours required to move the vehicle to and from plus the paperwork preparation. Ability to test would also be subject to the availability of an appointment at the test centre with lead times constantly increasing.
The advantage of National Small Series Type Approval (NSSTA) is that it allows business (almost) as usual.
Once a Whole Vehicle Type Approval is in place it enables a manufacturer to self-certify that vehicles they produce are in compliance with legislation. One of the benefits of being able to ‘self-certify’ vehicles is that extra costs and delays caused by having to take vehicles for an individual inspection and approval are not introduced into the process of producing and registering subsequent vehicles. Of course, to realise these benefits, there is a need to invest sufficient resources to develop products and control systems, and so make it possible to achieve type approval.
The type follows the base vehicle manufacturer so for instance there are 6 types for Scania:
2 axles N320 Tractor Incomplete/Complete
2 axles N321 Rigid Incomplete
3 axles N330 Tractor Incomplete/Complete
3 axles N331 Rigid Incomplete
4 axles N340 Tractor Incomplete/Complete
4 axles N341 Rigid Incomplete
At The Crane Centre, we have been working towards gaining NSSTA’s since 2010. We gained our first Approval on a Scania 6×2 rigid in early January 2014 – 9 months before the deadline and were one of the first in our industry to hold an approval. Since then, we have been updating and adding to our approval portfolio and now hold 14 approvals. This has enabled us to maintain “business as usual”. Moving forward, we are continuing to increase the amount of approvals we hold to maintain a seamless transition from chassis cab, to registered asset.
