Now in its diamond jubilee, the third-generation family business Ryan’s Bricks and Transport though certain of its customers, has very much moved in accordance with the times.
The company uses a modern fleet for speciality transport of building and landscape materials, namely bricks and pavers, but also carts stockfeed.
Back in 1950, the business was carting fish from Port Welshpool to market. But a bottoming out industry prompted a pivot with a mobile crane put to use on carrying SEC poles for railways in regional areas of Victoria.
“While we were doing that, we got a job to cart some bricks down to Wilson’s Promontory,” recalls Dennis Ryan.
“They were building a power station in those days. We got the job of carting the bricks down there.”
At the time bricks were all hand stacked on the tray and unloaded the same way.
Dennis got to know the yard foreman who encouraged him to sell some bricks in Leongatha, where the company is headquartered, and, for added value, threw in some sample packs.
Not soon after they secured a distributorship. The year was 1970. Dennis was 22 at the time.
“That’s been a big change in the consolidation of the manufacturing plants. They had a lot of coal-fired kilns back in those days probably up until just 15 years ago. Then they were all changed to gas,” says Dennis.
Other trends in brick production have been largely contingent on the tastes of architects. These days, according to Dennis, they more or less decide what the customer will be using.
“We’ve gone from the old days when brown bricks were everywhere. Nowadays it’s all light colours, pastel colours,” he says.
“The manufacturing has altered a lot particularly in concrete products, concrete bricks and blocks. They now come polished, honed and shot blasted for a modern look. The same with paving which was a big thing many years ago. You would have seen brick paving around most streets and shopping centres. That’s all gone now and been replaced by large format stuff. Metre-by-metre pavers and that type of thing. That’s been a big change. Brick paving is not even made in Melbourne anymore.”
Ryan’s transports bricks across South Gippsland, from Yarram to Phillip Island and intrastate from Bendigo to Ballarat.
The fleet also subcontracts for Austral. Despite the housing shortage, the market has not eased up.
“They are putting them up pretty much as fast as they can open up the parcels of land,” says Dennis.
“It’s just exploded in recent years. Virtually it demands of us two B-doubles everyday loaded with bricks. Each B-double has up to 12,000 bricks on it. So, it covers about two house lots.”
The arrival in town of the Murray Goulburn Co-operative as the new owner of the local dairy factory was perhaps the next opportune time for the business.
Ryan’s was furnished with plenty of work, at first carrying containers of milk powder, as it provided the fleet a freight avenue into Melbourne.
A long-life milk factory was subsequently built in Leongatha that the fleet services still to this day. Ryan’s originally did that job in conjunction with another transport company for 20 years.
However, when a new transport manager was appointed by Murray Goulburn he opted, under a new strategic direction, to have his own fleet do it.
“That put an end to that for a little while,” recalls Dennis. “They eventually found out it wasn’t cheaper to do it themselves and then they gave the contract to Dyers in Sale. So, we still do the milk but now we subcontract for Dyers.”
He adds, “That’s how the wheel turns.”
Other building and landscaping products were added over the years as were trucks.
The first new prime mover wasn’t purchased until 1982. That was a Kenworth K125. They remained with Kenworth for the next three decades before Dennis’ son, Tom Ryan, the third generation of the immediate family, chose to go in a different direction and aligned with Scania.
“Scania came in with a demo truck for us to evaluate and I tried it one day and ordered one the next day,” recalls Tom, who is a company Director along with his sister Melanie.
“Probably, the biggest thing that stood out from that decision was we were dealing with one company from bumper to bumper. We only needed to make one call to get things looked at. It doesn’t really matter what equipment you have. Stuff always breaks down. When you’re doing the miles that we’re doing everything eventually wears out.”
For Tom, that’s the big benefit of having the one brand and why he pushed so hard for it at the time.
“Because you’re only dealing with one person rather than Kenworth, Cummins, Eaton and that was where we started to run into some problems,” he says.
“Times are a lot different. When I first started in the business virtually 80 per cent of the mechanical work was done in-house. All the servicing, a large amount of the minor and major mechanical work as well. Now, basically everything apart from very minor, general maintenance servicing is done by us while the rest is all outsourced.”
Ryan’s continues to run a workshop, limited to very basic maintenance.
There are presently four prime movers in the fleet in addition to two tray trucks, a Scania P360 6×4 and one Kenworth, a T350 — the last Kenworth in the fleet.
There are a pair of Scania R 730s and new Scania 770s, one is spec’d with a big cab, of which there is only a handful available in Australia.
“The larger cabin is built at a different plant which will be a real game-changer. That’s been the biggest issue with Scania — that cabin has been too small for the guys that are spending a large amount of time in it,” says Tom.
“It has got a full bed in it, a microwave, climate control and plenty of horsepower plus great comfort levels and safety levels for the driver.”
The service package better suits their current needs, adds Tom, who is of course thrilled by the fuel economy figures these new prime movers are delivering their bottom line.
“Compared to what we were getting previously, all of our Scanias have been at least 20 per cent better,” says Tom.
“Obviously with fuel cost the way it is it makes a huge difference. But you do have to have guys who buy into the system. It does get dictated by the driver. They’ve got huge horsepower. If you’re using it the right way, you will reap the rewards and Scania is good offering driver training.”
While bricks represent close to 70 per cent of the business, Ryan’s moves stone out of Gosford, a service it has provided for the better part of 30 years.
One of the biggest recent jobs was for the refurbishments made to the front of Parliament House in Melbourne. Finished sandstone is expensive and requires appropriate handling.
Ryan’s moves it in one- and two-tonne blocks, along with finished pavers, landscaping logs and columns. Most of that is ready to go into housing or paving and retaining walls according to Tom.
“That’s moved on B-doubles. All our interstate stuff is all achieved on B-doubles. We’ll deliver to the yards and then they will organise their own metro deliveries,” he says.
“Some of the stuff we will take direct to site because they have customers all over Victoria and into South Australia. Pretty much wherever the stone has got to go we’ll be doing the transport of it. With our own bricks we do everything from the plant direct to the site.”
A specialised forklift transported on a tray truck is utilised for brick haulage. The forklift truck usually handles the last mile after the B-double unloads close to site.
The Scania tray truck has short hydraulic sides that open and shut the heavy gates.
“It’s a really good system that reduces manual labour for the driver,” says Tom.
“It restrains all the bricks quite well. The tray body is built as normal. But instead of having springs there is a mechanical hydraulic Auto Mate Gate. They have come up with a system that is user-friendly and a lot safer.”
He adds, “Big gates catch a lot of wind and they can come down at a fair rate of knots if the weather is not friendly.”
Dennis Ryan won the state operator of the year for the Victorian Transport Association in 2003 and again in 2004.
He now serves as President of the VTA, replacing Mike Lean last November, having been an active member previously on the Executive Council.
The Leongatha mainstay moved in the early 1990s to an industrial estate featuring a large transport yard with an extensive brick and landscaping display.
Local B-double deliveries are capped to 62.5 tonnes. This is more for access, according to Tom, factoring in the need otherwise to split up the combination to unload.
“When we have to run to the yard here in Leongatha, we’ll run right up to our mass management which equates to 67 and 68.5 tonne,” he says.
“All the stockfeed stuff we run right up there at concessional mass in New South Wales and higher mass through Victoria.”
An ongoing partnership with Vawdrey Australia for over 15 years, the supplier of their trailers, is indeed a fertile one.
It transpired when Ryan’s needed different design features to suit stockfeed loads.
“Bricks are heavy and low and can pretty much go on any style of trailer,” says Tom.
“But for our stockfeed we had a few different places we were carting and different sized bags that we wanted to get on and specific racking was needed to get made. Vawdrey really helped us come up with the solutions for that and that’s why we have stayed with their product.”
When the move to Scania happened, it brought with it different configurations and considerations. Suddenly, there was an onus to get 17-tonnes on the drive axle which meant a weight increase at the front of the ‘A’ trailer.
The nature of stockfeed, however, prohibits double stacking of the product.
Bespoke racking was built to accommodate one-tonne bulk bags loaded flush against the walls of the trailer to ensure axle weights are correct.
Ryan’s opted for something similar in a standard height B-double with the ‘B’ trailer using the same type of racking.
“It kept our tare weight down and gave us the options to get higher volume of product on,” says Tom.
Dennis adds, “It had to be light weight and of course strong enough to carry the one-tonne pallets and carry them safely. That’s where their designers came up with the right product.”
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