New buses for Ireland & UK being recalled from Wrights

AlekSmart

Yer Da sells Avon wrote: »

Wrightbus appears to be in serious financial trouble at the moment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-49082447

There is a certain hysteria being whipped up around the Wrightbus move that is perhaps a bit OTT.

It should be remembered that Wrightbus's main competitor ADL,was taken over only a couple of weeks ago.

https://www.sustainable-bus.com/news/new-flyer-takes-over-alexander-dennis/

So,from a purely business perspective,when Wrightbus management suddenly sees it's major competitor accquiring a new,substantial,and easily accessible source of funding,it then has to respond.

There is little doubt that Wrightbus now requires to re-entrench itself,but William Wright is no eejit,and even in his 90's has a grasp of,and enthusiasm for new and emerging technology that frazzles the heads of many younger engineers.

Wrightbus has quite obvious issues with build quality,particularly noticeable with it's lighter weight Euro 6 products.
The requirement to meet ever more stringent European regulations,now being imposed upon the Bus Engineering sector,rather than developed in conjunction with it,now sees battles being fought in order to achieve targets,which is not always a good thing.

Bureaucrats see the impossible as being deliverable today,Engineers require time to deliver it,which is no longer being made available.

Reading some of the doom laden comments regarding the current Gemini 3 Body framing issue,one might assume that the vehicles are about to implode.

Instead,it is a rather mundane misalignment,of millimetres,only apparent when loaded.
Is it desireable ? No !
Is it rectifiable ? Of course.
Will some Wrightbus manager/supervisor get a lash ? What do you think ?
Will the NTA now revise it's Post Delivery Inspection procedures ?...Perhaps.

With perhaps the noble exception of Bombardier Irl,all manufacturers warranty their products,and the cost of the rectification will not be borne by the customer.
All normal run-of-the-mill stuff,and repeated many times down through the history of Bus Engineering.
Even the venerable AEC Routemaster had a shaky entry into service in the late 1950's with many engineering & body related problems surfacing,and old-timers bemoaning the end of the RT and hand built buses.

Perhaps the bigger question is,whether the Bus Manufacturing industry as a whole is moving East,with all the major players now having plants in Eastern Europe,Turkey and even the Chinese mainland.

With the demise of Walter Alexander's Northern Irish operation,leaving Wrightbus as the sole major player,that now leaves Wrightbus with a job-of-work,to sell itself as a worthwhile investment to fund managers and the likes,who's enthusiasm for Buses & Coaches may not equal those who post on here ?

Wrightbus is certainly a unique company,probably unique to Ireland in many ways,with business principles and an ethos,which some might suggest are at wee bit anachronistic for 21st Century Europe.

With Sir William Wright being,an early and strong supporter,of the UK's exiting of the E.U. it will now be interesting to see whether Wrightbus's expansion into Asia & India,and even Africa,will provide something to interest a savvy investor ?

As for us in Ireland....well Spa Road is no longer available,nor is there an oul Piano Factory awaiting a new direction,so it's yet another new issue for the NTA and Government to ponder upon ?

L1011

Ce he sin wrote: »

That's an intriguing comment. What do you have against Wrights that you would put their employees' jobs in jeopardy?

Long standing discriminatory practices by management and relatively poor quality control

AlekSmart

L1011 wrote: »

Long standing discriminatory practices by management and relatively poor quality control

A week can be a long time in Politics...

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/bailout-for-wrightbus-and-hw-could-be-part-of-dup-voting-deal-with-johnson-38344218.html

One wonders if the Hands-across-the Border approach,which greatly benfitted Wrightbus in the past,can still be adopted in the post-Brexit scenario ?

Ce he sin

L1011 wrote: »

Long standing discriminatory practices by management and relatively poor quality control

That's interesting. If discriminatory practices exist they should be reported to the Fair Employment Tribunal in NI. What was the outcome of this?

L1011

Ce he sin wrote: »

That's interesting. If discriminatory practices exist they should be reported to the Fair Employment Tribunal in NI. What was the outcome of this?

You need to have standing to make a report to such a body. Not everybody affected reports, and results are not always reported in the media either. Wrightbus's demographics that are public are wildly variant with the local employable population demographics for one thing; and are amongst the most stilted in NI.

There are, or more realistically these days, were many bodies in NI with significantly discriminatory hiring practices. As the economy crumbles there really aren't enough non-state jobs left to notice.

When a company has an owner that clearly works contrary to the interests of the State and has such a history of discriminatory practices; as well as their vehicles being really rather poor - Borismasters as well as the recent issues here - I think its quite justified to prefer the State not to give them any contracts.

Stephen15

L1011 wrote: »

When a company has an owner that clearly works contrary to the interests of the State and has such a history of discriminatory practices; as well as their vehicles being really rather poor - Borismasters as well as the recent issues here - I think its quite justified to prefer the State not to give them any contracts.

Apart from the purchasing of the Streetlites and trialing if Streetdecks the NTA has had no direct dealing with Wrightbus in terms of purchasing buses they have bought Volvo buses who in turn subcontract the manufacturing of the bodywork to Wrightbus.

The NTA do not get to pick and choose what companies they want to do business with they put out a tender and whoever is deemed put in the most competitively advantageous bid wins the contract whether that be Volvo, Wrightbus or ADL. Volvo are generally best placed to win tenders here in Ireland as they provide the most comprehensive aftercare service through Irish Commercials.

GM228

Stephen15 wrote: »

Apart from the purchasing of the Streetlites and trialing if Streetdecks the NTA has had no direct dealing with Wrightbus in terms of purchasing buses they have bought Volvo buses who in turn subcontract the manufacturing of the bodywork to Wrightbus.

The NTA only have a contract with Volvo for double deckers who subcontractor back to Wrights, they have had direct contracts with Wrights for single deck city buses and as you note the midi contract is also direct.

L1011

Stephen15 wrote: »

The NTA do not get to pick and choose what companies they want to do business with they put out a tender and whoever is deemed put in the most competitively advantageous bid wins the contract whether that be Volvo, Wrightbus or ADL. Volvo are generally best placed to win tenders here in Ireland as they provide the most comprehensive aftercare service through Irish Commercials.

You can weight tenders in a manner to make low quality bids not be commercially advantegous.

Stephen15

L1011 wrote: »

You can weight tenders in a manner to make low quality bids not be commercially advantegous.

Yes but the bids which Volvo and Wrights have been putting have not been what would be considered low quality. The buses which DB and GAI have been receiving are what is presently the average of what is on the market. The ADL buses may be slightly better quality but there isn't an awful lot separating the two.

ADL buses have a tendency to be poor quality aswell while the Enviro400 and 200MMCs are of an improved quality. I would regard the EV class as probably the worst buses which DB have gotten in recent times in terms of build quality and BEs AM class (Enviro 200) is meant to be even worse.

You also run the risk of putting off potential bidders by putting the standards unnecessarily high on the tender or potential cost over runs as companies may be only willing to build unessecarily high quality buses at too high a price.

Remember there are really speaking only 3 companies that are capable of producing buses to the NTAs requirements. But you speak as if there are a large number of companies with products with highly varying levels of quality ready to pounce at Wrights failings.

dublinman1990

I read from the tapatalk site that Wrights are in debts amounting to £53 million in debt due to cash flow problems & a well known UK bus operator not paying their money for receiving their orders from Wrights. That could be a sure sign that the NTA will go to ADL in future with ordering the new AH's for BusConnects or they could go to Volvo unless the NI & British governments have a chance here to give Wrights a bail-out soon.

Stephen15

dublinman1990 wrote: »

I read from the tapatalk site that Wrights are in debts amounting to £53 million in debt due to cash flow problems & a well known UK bus operator not paying their money for receiving their orders from Wrights. That could be a sure sign that the NTA will go to ADL in future with ordering the new AH's for BusConnects or they could go to Volvo unless the NI & British governments have a chance here to give Wrights a bail-out soon.

Well the WH Streetdeck is already out of the equation in it's present form due to it's inability to run on fully electric mode. So it is between the AH and VH.

Lord Glentoran

dublinman1990 wrote: »

I read from the tapatalk site that Wrights are in debts amounting to £53 million in debt due to cash flow problems & a well known UK bus operator not paying their money for receiving their orders from Wrights. That could be a sure sign that the NTA will go to ADL in future with ordering the new AH's for BusConnects or they could go to Volvo unless the NI & British governments have a chance here to give Wrights a bail-out soon.

Well they nailed themselves to Brexit so they can live or die by that. For an organisation that sold significant numbers of buses to CIE they can go do one for that.

Trebor176

The issues have only affected SG567 onwards, so any SG before that is fine. I think some new VWDs from Bus Eireann have also had to go back to Wrights.

The three WH class seem to have had issues with their brakes, hence them being taken off service. I'm sure they will be back on the road. I spotted two of the three in the shed when I was passing C/Road on Friday.

testarossa40

So, what actually is the issue with the SGs then?? So far I've only seen vague references to interior ceiling height issues?

Stephen15

testarossa40 wrote: »

So, what actually is the issue with the SGs then?? So far I've only seen vague references to interior ceiling height issues?

I don't think anyone knows for definite unless there's any DB, BE, NTA, Irish Commercials or Wrightbus employees on here

end of the road

Stephen15 wrote: »

I don't think anyone knows for definite unless there's any DB, BE, NTA, Irish Commercials or Wrightbus employees on here

irish commercials, do they provide maintenence services for one of the operators of these busses?

devnull

end of the road wrote: »

irish commercials, do they provide maintenence services for one of the operators of these busses?

They do work for all of them.

Stephen15

end of the road wrote: »

irish commercials, do they provide maintenence services for one of the operators of these busses?

They are the main dealer for Volvo Bus and Truck in Ireland and carry out warranty work Volvo's behalf for DB, GAI and BEs fleet and they would have been responsible for bringing the vehicles into the country.

end of the road

thank you both for your replies

devnull

Please note that all posts relating to Wrightbus going into administration have been moved to and should be posted in to the dedicated thread:
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058018038

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