European news
Celebrating a success story - 25 years of Terberg DTS UK
UNITED KINGDOM
As a family business, Terberg has always wanted to be close to its customers. Our international subsidiaries such as Terberg DTS UK, help us do that. We interviewed Alisdair Couper, Managing director of DTS and member of the board of the Special Vehicles division “In 1998 a Yorkshire vehicle manufacturer where my colleague Duncan Stewart and I were working, closed down with 125 redundancies. Duncan had met George Terberg at an exhibition, so after encouragement Distribution Tractor Services was formed and we became agents for Terberg Tractors in the Logistics market. In 2000 Duncan left and the Terberg Group took a majority stake in the business which was renamed Terberg DTS UK Ltd. Due to the continued growth and success of the Terberg product we moved to our purpose-built site in Elland, West Yorkshire. In 2008, DTS relocated to a new purpose-built facility in Elland before again expanding in 2022 with additional workshop and office space. DTS has additional sites in Gloucester and Nottingham, and a fleet of mobile service engineers throughout the country.
We are the leading supplier of shunters and port tractors in the UK, but have never lost sight of our competitors. DTS has diversified into fire and rescue vehicles and ground support equipment for airports and is a major partner to the UK Ministry of Defence. We operate 24/7 in support of our customer base, as well as maintaining our own fleet of rental vehicles across multiple sectors. UK logistics operations operate at a higher frequency than elsewhere. In response, we developed the low-entry Distribution Tractor (DT) which makes drivers’ work easier and safer. It provides better visibility during coupling and uncoupling and the controls are at the driver’s fingertips to reduce fatigue. Constant focus The vision of the business has always been to be customer-focussed and innovative in solving problems. That means training our people and supporting their development - precisely the Terberg ethos. We have also championed electric vehicles in our sector. Customers increasingly want to rent rather than purchase vehicles, and outsource maintenance - we can do that. In short, we want to keep listening to our customers and support them with their challenges.”
Alisdair Couper “Terberg is like a family: it’s about the values we share with our customers and employees. It’s not a large corporate entity. We all count.” George Terberg “When we started working with Alisdair in 1999 nobody could have imagined that this would develop into such hugely successful cooperative venture. In the past 25 years, under Alisdair and his team, Terberg DTS has developed into a leading provider of service, maintenance and rental of special vehicles. This successful cooperation is based on ‘mutual trust and respect and always keeping the customer in mind’. ”
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TERBERG SPECIAL VEHICLES MAGAZINE 2023/2024
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