The IAA show in Germany - like a lot of things in my life - happens every two years...... and was declared by all participants in flowery and ebulliant language to have been an amazing success. Of 14 moving floor trailers on show - on the various stands - all 14 of them had Cargo Floors in them. So where was Keith Walking Floor????? 14 trailers and none of them able to use the name Walking Floor.
Knapen had an interesting product - basically a very similar product to the Luck Steel Walking Floor - but with the variation of having the Cargo Floor steel overlapping floor product in it' . Launched with great fanfare. Other than all the others were really just the 'Kama Sutra, page 42'. Which is basically the same as pages 41 and 43 except the goat is wearing a hat. So very small differences declared to be major innovations. Brand versus brand. As usual with European trade shows the exhibits were immaculately presented and marketing involving cubic cheese with flags sticking out the top:
Posted by Andrew on 28/09/2018
Quick shout out to Nick who emailed me about this blogs strange direction of travel. He was sat in a meeting/audience earnestly listening to whether more billions should be invested in Knorr Bremse - who are a pretty amazing engineering company in southern Germany - and got so bored he 'googled' our website and started reading this blog. By coincidence - I happened to visit the Knorr Bremse factory a while back and was amazed by the dancing robots putting together the SN7 and SK7 brake calipers. The commitment to getting the failure rates of their equipment per 100,000 kms travelled was an amazing game of 'Gap Analysis' or as Sir Dave Brailsford would term it marginal gains analysis. Each tiny change in their production techniques and designs could lead to a tiny increase in performance of the brake systems. Add up all the tiny improvements and large 'gaps' could be bridged to where they wanted to get to. Anyway thanks to Nick for the memory stir and see you at the cider pressing in the village - or at least the tasting - is it next month?
Posted by Andrew on 28/09/2018
The sugar beet dates look to be settling down to a start date of September 24th 2018. Good luck and happy beeting.
Posted by Andrew on 11/09/2018
One of Newton's trailers was involved in a horendous accident on the M25.
It was hit up the derriere by a 'left hand drive' tractor unit and curtainsided trailer. The pictures are impressive and the M25 was closed overnight - IKEA came to the rescue of about 200 stranded motorists and opened their doors, allowing the weary to sleep on the beds in store. Both drivers only damage was a great look of surprise which will take several months to fade........
Posted by Andrew on 31/08/2018
It is good to see that Autumn is upon us with the nights drawing in and the big indicator is the apple harvest starting. Suddenly we see the Herefordshire rush. The lack of rain through the summer might push the sugar content up but may well reduce total mass. Rains over the next several weeks would need to be substantial to make any real difference now. An average 8 year old apple tree need 8,000 liters of water each day to stay alive when it has its' leaves out - (hey this is one of the few chances I get to use my Botany degree so indulge me here) - so to increase fruit mass there would have to be some big rains to get to the root systems.
Posted by Andrew on 29/08/2018
