Edwards Coaches has continued to expand its third-party maintenance and support service for PSVs and HGVs, with investment in facilities and equipment expected to drive that further, the South Wales operator believes.
During week commencing 20 July, the Edwards Maintenance arm took delivery of a further set of six Stertil-Koni vehicle lifts at the business’s Llantrisant site. It comes as the company has won what it says is additional third-party work recently but with scope to take on more.
Commercial Manager Simon Ingham notes that central to such a bid is Edwards’ recent platinum accreditation by the Maintenance Provision Rating Scheme. It recognises excellence in workshop maintenance, engineering standards, safety, compliance, and operational performance.
Work is already done for other coach and bus operators, while the business is currently progressing through a 17-bus refurbishment contract awarded by Transport for Wales for vehicles used on TrawsCymru services.
Pre-sale checks, MoT preparation and testing and other work on behalf of dealers has also been carried out, helped by the presence of an Authorised Testing Facility lane at Llantrisant.
Other services include body and upholstery repair and refurbishment, vehicle inspections, brake testing, tachograph calibration, passenger lift maintenance, vehicle painting and miscellaneous other repairs. An in-house 15-metre spray booth can hold double-deck and tri-axle vehicles and is now powered by a biomass boiler, that energy source having displaced gas.
Mr Ingham adds that overall, the 26-acre Llantrisant site has 12 engineering bays and a separate body shop as part of an 8,000 square metre workshop. The facility is digital-led, with job cards and work tracking handled via that means.
Purchase of the Stertil-Koni lifts “shows continued investment and ensures the longevity of our facilities, both for Edwards Coaches as an internal customer and for external parties too,” he continues. The operator carries out around 99% of engineering tasks on its own fleet of over 200 vehicles in-house.
