Squaring up to the future

One of Britain’s oldest tool manufacturers has been quietly reorganising itself to meet the electronic challenges ahead. Richard Longworth has been finding out.

Garage News September 1994

There is no disguis­ing the fact that the garage equip­ment business is having a tough time at the moment. Whether it be the debacle which followed the introduction of the diesel emission test, or just that the market is flooded with equipment from liquidated garages, it is a tough market.

One company which has been quietly reorganising itself to meet the changing market conditions is Sykes-Pickavant. One of the oldest companies in the business, its foundations are in high quality hand tools. However faced with the burgeoning electronic revolution, over the past four years, the company has been building up a range of hand-held testers.

To exploit the market fully, at the beginning of this year, the company re-struc­tured itself into two divisions. The problem faced by the company was that although the final customers might be the same, the ways in which hand tools are sold, and diag­nostics are sold, are totally different.

The company now has two divisions, SP Tools, and SP Technology', under managing director Greg Norris. The division has been prompted by the differ­ent selling methods required by diagnostic equipment, rather than conventional hand tools.

Where the traditional tools arc usually stocked by the factor or distributor, diagnostic kit is higher value, and therefore rarely stocked. SP Technology sales manager Steve Davies says: "The distribution chain is not geared up to demonstrating and selling a high technology product range. Our sales team is used less to sell to the wholesaler, but with him. The best way is to sell, is as a backup to the distrib­utor".

SP Tools division remains focused on selling tools direct to the distrib­utor, who then sells on to the end user.

The SP Technol­ogy division has brought together three sepa­rate operations from within the larger Sykes-Pickavant Group, ASD (Auto Service Diagnostics) S-P Diagnos­tics and AM Test Systems.

Auto Service Diagnostics was set up last year, and is based in Wiltshire. It employs many of the people who previously worked for diagnostic company Omitec.

ASD is developing equip­ment for both franchised dealer networks, and the independent aftermarket.

S-P Diagnostics is the operation which has devel­oped the hand held testers which have given the company a way into the diag­nostic market. It also produces the MoT emission testers, and markets the Lucas Hartridge diesel smoke tester.

AM Test Systems markets the diag­nostic equipment which is imported. Davies explains: "AM Test was an acquisi­tion, a sales, marketing and distri­bution operation for key brands. What we can do is sell the brand very well. SP Technology provides marketing, sales and distrib­ution backup for these brands in the UK".

The brands brought in are Tecnotest from Italy, Ferret from the USA, ITT, Autodiagnos from Sweden and Master Engineering.

Since AM Test was bought two and a half years ago, and the amount of over­lap between the AM Test
range and the rest of the SP Technology range is steadily being reduced. Davies predicts the propor­tion of the equipment made by Auto Service Diagnostics will increase in the future.

The most recent purchase by Sykes-Pickavant is Gas Measuring Instruments, which supplies measuring equip­ment primarily to the industrial market. The signif­icance [lies] in the designs and expertise in gas measure­ment, which will allow ASD to compete in the emission testing equipment market. "It will be the backbone of the emissions measurement equipment" says Davies.

The significance of the formation of Sykes-Pickavant Technology, and ASD in particular became appar­ent at the Automotive Trade Show in the Spring. Dressed in an unassuming case, which clearly labelled it as a prototype, was the AVAC, which stands for Advanced Vehicle Analysis Computer. The significance of this machine is that it not only shows the way the company is going to take in terms of technology, but its design philosophy.

Davies says all the machines produced by the company are intended to have 'zero redundancy'. He describes this policy as building a machine which will always be able to be updated into the foreseeable future.

"It means when you buy piece of equipment, you need have no fear that it is going to become useless. There is no built in obsolescence. Once the product h been sold, it will not become useless".

The AVAC 310 as displayed at the ATS was a basic engine analyser, but is the potential which make it interesting.

When it hits the market place, it will cost less than £3,000 with a black and white screen. Davies claims represents "digital level technology in a start-up machine at a price that is not going turn the garage owner white".

He says there will be a saleable version unveiled the Paris aftermarket show Equip' Auto in the

Autumn and soft­ware packages will be launched three month intervals.

"AVAC is an empty machine without software. We have made the hardware open ended" he says.

Davies says the machine will have seven functions once the software packages are all available. Initially it will be a single scope analyser, and the upgrades include both petrol and diesel emission analysis.

More critically, the machine will be capable of analysing the serial data which are the signals coming out of the sensors on the vehicle, as well as being able to generate signals, these two functions are critical to finding out why a function on car is not working, rather than which one is not work­ing, which is revealed by a simple fault code reader.

The final upgrade planned at the moment is a vehicle specification database, which will hold vehicle diagnostic information. Davies acknowledges this is likely to involve a tie up with a diag­nostic information company such as Autodata.

Back at the Lancashire base, Sykes has been invest­ing heavily in training facilities, a new computer system and premises over the past year. Only now will customers start to see results. All this has taken a high level of investment, and it is encouraging for everyone in the garage trade to see this level of commitment.

Time will tell whether the commitment will finally pay dividends.