Sean Clifton, senior manager for national fleets at Asda, says that another key to Asda’s selection of Carrier Transicold was the firm’s proven service standards for more than 700 existing units already operated by the supermarket.
In the first six months of 2015, Carrier Transicold’s network completed 100% of all scheduled maintenance on time, including managing Asda’s F-Gas regulatory compliance across its Carrier-badged fleet.
Asset availability during the same period averaged 99.54%, he confirms, demonstrating consistently high levels of uptime.
“Environmental performance, cold chain protection and fleet uptime are three of the biggest considerations when specifying new fridge units for our fleet,” comments Clifton.
“The Vector systems deliver in all of these areas; put simply, they don’t give us any issues.”
The latest Vector 1950 MT units are being mounted to 118 Schmitz Cargobull 13.6-metre dual-compartment reefers, which will operate with full-width 2,200mm evaporators at the rear for maximum cold chain performance.
Six Cartwright dual-compartment urban trailers complete the order, which will be used for deliveries to stores in city centres.
Al have been configured to integrate with Asda’s fleet telematics system.
Asda selected the Vector 1950 MT units for their rapid pull-down speed, precise temperature control and their E-Drive all-electric technology, which – together with a microchannel heat exchanger – enables each unit to operate with up to 15% reduced refrigerant charge compared to the units they replace.
The new units have been supplied with everCOLD flexible, full-service R&M packages, which include on-site servicing carried out by manufacturer-trained technicians from the Carrier Transicold network.
Annual temperature control testing and certification, F-Gas regulation compliance and access to Carrier’s new oneCALL 24/7 incident management service is also included.