Quality, value for money and fit for purpose products are terms Ashley Dionysius, General Manager of Dionysius Transport, freely uses to describe his experience with CIMC Trailers.
Having experience with several brands of skel trailers, Ashley says the CIMC units he now runs are doing the job equally well, while being very cost-effective to buy. “We have had a good working relationship with Ashley Hayes (CIMC’s Queensland Sales Manager) for quite some time, actually we used to buy trailers from him when he worked for a competitor brand. When he moved over to CIMC he knocked on our door and we were happy to try the CIMC products – they have proven to be very good value for money.”
The company initially bought three CIMC units – two retractable and one Light Weight 3-way skel – to carry containers around southeast Queensland and recently bought another two Light Weight skels that Ashley plans to hitch together as a high productivity multi-combination for longer trips.
“We’re preparing to go forward with an A-double with these two recent skels,” he says. “All we need to do now is get a tandem axle dolly and a new prime mover to suit the A-double operation.”
CIMC also has stock trailers on hand which means less waiting time when Ashley needs to purchase trailers to meet the immediate demands of his business.
“CIMC gives us a three-year warranty and they have the same features as the other brands,” he says. “The chassis are solid and well-engineered with fully automatic painting processes including electrophoretic cathode metal (KTL) and powder coating providing a great finish to the products. There are also useful extras such as LEDs and reversing lights which is important for us because we work around the clock.”
Ashley says he also appreciates other neat touches like the yellow painted twist lock handles which are clearly visible, enabling the truck driver and reach stacker driver to easily see whether they are locked or unlocked. Also, the running gear is installed in Australia and includes well-known and trusted brands.
“They fit quality components including Fuwa K-Hitch axles and suspension and JOST kingpins and landing legs – they are very flexible with what they can install to suit our individual requirements,” he says. “CIMC also fits side-loader transfer pads to the skel trailers as a standard feature which is really useful for us as we do a fair bit of side-loader to trailer transfers.”
The pads are a structural part of the skel and enable the stabiliser legs of the side-loader to be placed onto the skel when transferring a container from one to the other.
The company currently has 10 sideloaders, which Ashley says is somewhat fewer than they used to operate.
“The margins with side-loaders are very tight these days and the cost of operating them is high,” he says. “Not only that, but they are also more susceptible to damage because of the extra work that’s involved with accessing difficult sites.”
He says the company’s skel trailer job total has increased by 15 per cent over the past two years, before which it only accounted for about 10 per cent of the work.
“A lot of that is trailer dock loading and unloading which is where the retractable skels are often used,” Ashley says. “That includes dry goods as well as reefers and perishables – it’s definitely been a big increase on what we were doing previously. These are the good jobs where you just back up to the dock and then move away – either leaving the trailer there or waiting for it.”
Dionysius Transport is based in the Brisbane suburb of Morningside on a 20,000-square-metre site which includes a 5,000-square-metre warehouse that’s used for export container packing and import unpacking including a quarantine section.
“We have the capacity to accommodate between 250 and 300 containers stacked four or five high on our site and we have a new Hyster reach stacker to load and unload the containers from the skels and stack them up,” Ashley says.
He adds that the company has just come out of its busiest year in its 40-year history as an essential services provider during the Covid-19 pandemic. “We did 1,180 jobs in 2020 and this year we’re up 173 on average, so Covid has actually made us a lot busier than normal. February and March this year were big months for us, so it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.”
Ashley says in terms of business growth the company intends to keep chipping away and purchasing more CIMC skels to stay abreast of the steadily increasing demand for its services.
Fast Fact
Brisbane based container carrier Dionysius Transport is operating a total of five CIMC skels including two retractable and three standard units. The consensus is that they represent exceptional value for money and are doing everything required of them.
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