![\"Millers](\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/millers-vanguard-sprinters-sm.jpg\")
The Freight Transport Association’s Van Excellence scheme is akin to a scaled back version of\u00a0rules and regulations under which\u00a0heavy goods vehicle operators have to monitor and maintain their fleets.<\/p>\nThe Freight Transport Association’s Van Excellence scheme is akin to a scaled back version of\u00a0rules and regulations under which\u00a0heavy goods vehicle operators have to monitor and maintain their fleets.<\/p>\n
Van Excellence was conceived as a way of addressing\u00a0concerns that widespread poor compliance — on weight, for example — and minimal regulation was\u00a0tarnishing the reputation of van operators, who\u00a0had no way of demonstrating their professionalism to customers or compliance\u00a0agencies.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0scheme has gained some heavyweight\u00a0members over the last few years, including BT Fleet<\/a>, Ford<\/a>, and Hertz Van Rental<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the latest firms to join the scheme is Lancashire-based catering equipment supplier and maintenance firm, Millers Vanguard, whose\u00a0240-strong Mercedes-Benz van fleet\u00a0has now been accredited by the FTA Van Excellence scheme.<\/p>\n Interestingly, the move to join Van Excellence was driven by\u00a0the firm’s newish fleet manager, Nick Webb, who joined the company a year ago from a background in truck operations — where compliance and monitoring burdens are much heavier.<\/p>\n Mr Webb was keen to introduce a set of consistent, measurable standards across the company\u2019s light commercial vehicle fleet, and said that Van Excellence appeared to be tailor-made for the\u00a0purpose:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe run 100 vans from our headquarters but the rest are out with engineers across the UK, which makes ensuring compliance and best practice even trickier than usual. Van Excellence proved to be an invaluable tool to ensure a uniform approach across the fleet; it allowed us to draw a line in the sand below which standards must never fall.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe implemented various solutions to achieve our end goals, such as instigating daily walk-round checks and ensuring the cleanliness of vehicles. Since then we\u2019ve been continually refining and improving our processes to make them quick and simple to implement from a driver\u2019s point of view, and easily monitored for the fleet management team.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Having worked through the Van Excellence list of qualifying criteria, and ensured all its standards were being met or exceeded across its fleet, Millers Vanguard submitted its application last October \u2013 then waited for the FTA to complete its comprehensive audit of a sample of 10 drivers and 10 vehicles. <\/span><\/p>\n There are three possible outcomes: operators are either told that they do or do not make the grade, or that they almost pass, in which case they are given a list of issues to address. Millers Vanguard passed with flying colours.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Catering and bakery equipment supplier Millers Vanguard has gained FTA Van Excellence accreditation for its 240-strong van fleet. Here’s why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[1703],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7258,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7255\/revisions\/7258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}