10 Minutes With… Ashley Smith

Ashley is our Transport Manager.  With two decades in transport, he’s highly experienced in Compliance and dealing with large fleets of vehicles, to ensure they’re kept to the highest standard to carry out their work.

In an industry where the vehicles are not just carriers but highly-capable tools, how does he keep Mayglothling working?  Find out here…

“I started at Mayglothling over eight years ago, when there was a much smaller team in the office and maybe fifteen to twenty vehicles in total.  I’d worked for a public transport company in Hereford beforehand, for eleven years, so I knew all about vehicle maintenance and safety standards.  A position for a Transport Manager became available at Mayglothling and I was excited to pursue the opportunity working with HGVs and to try something new and out of my comfort zone at that time.

“Over the years, we’ve more than doubled the truck fleet and added a wide variety of vehicles as we’ve grown.  We’ve constantly developed how we maintain our fleet.  The industry standard to safety check vehicles is every six weeks but at Mayglothling, we have reduced that to every four weeks and we do very well on our external Transport audits.

“Our Head Office is relatively remote in Herefordshire, some distance from a bypass or a nice smooth motorway, so we have for many years had our own Vehicle Workshop, to ensure the operation isn’t held up by relying solely on other vehicle repairers.  As we have this capacity – and the fact that many of the miles we cover are rural, with lots of pot-holes and challenging access at times – a higher frequency of safety checks allows us to ensure we can maintain high standards, especially with so much specialist equipment on the vehicles.

“Of course not every truck operator would take this view.  The vast majority do enough to keep within the law.  We’ve always been keen to show that our standards are significantly above those of most others.  In the time I’ve been here, I’ve ensured that the Operator’s Licence ratings of our fleet has improved and that we have the right processes in place to maintain the highest and safest rating of Green.

“I’m awake at 4am and start at 5am, the first person in the offices each morning and available to help our drivers and customers. It’s great to be present when needed.  I do love to have a laugh and play the odd practical joke around the office during the day to keep morale high but I always try to start the drivers’ days off well whilst ensuring things are done properly as the job is very serious and can be challenging.  The most important part of changing my role to an earlier start time is to help our Safety First culture. If the drivers need PPE or have any concerns, I am on hand to help.

“We’re always looking to innovate. We have a new booking and operating system which will bring more efficiency and take us to another level of capability.  With more advanced changes in technology in the future, we want to be at the forefront of electric-powered development in this sector and we’re always reviewing our options and checking progress with manufacturers.

“I’m very much looking forward to the future and would love to know what Mayglothling will look like in the next five, ten or even twenty years.”