Kristiansand municipality – Southern Norway’s largest tire changing operation

Warehouse manager Martin Yankov surrounded by 650 sets of tires.

– We have seven or eight men on duty changing tyres, including those who drive out to change the cars out on duty, says Martin Yankov, warehouse manager at the Dalane central facility, or “The Workshop at Dalane”, as the central facility is also called.

650 sets of tires are stored in the shelves around the warehouse manager. 650 sets, that’s 2600 tires, that. The tires are for Kristiansand municipality’s 628 cars and vans. When winter is over, everyone must have summer tires on. It’s happening now, in April. In November, it’s time for the winter tires again.

– When it is planned well, it takes four weeks, says Yankov.
He does not hesitate to call it Southern Norway’s biggest tire sifting operation.

– That’s actually it, confirms the warehouse manager.

Take zone by zone

In the workshop, next door to the tire warehouse, there is a small truck fully loaded with summer tires.

– We have two teams with two to three people in each car. They travel out and take zone by zone or location by location, and change the tires on the cars parked there, explains Trond Richardsen, unit manager at the central plant since 2018.

If one of the municipality’s cars has a flat tire or a scratch in the paint, the driver calls the workshop staff at Dalane. Who move out quickly, collect the car and leave a loaner car, if there is a need for it. If it is only one wheel that needs to be changed, the mechanics bring wheels and parts with them and replace them on the spot. In this way, there will be no time break in the service for those who dispose of the car.

Knut Johannessen prepares to change tires “in the field”.

The driver notices nothing

– That is the big plus with this. A nurse or auxiliary nurse is only at work. When we change the tires on their cars, we do it during the shift, so they don’t really notice anything, except perhaps that they see that there are new tires on the car when they go out again, explains the unit manager.

In addition to the 628 cars and vans, the municipal fleet contains everything from smaller equipment such as aggregates and lawnmowers to excavators, lorries, wheel loaders, septic trucks, washing machines, garbage trucks and tractors.

The equipment and machines are used for operation and maintenance of the municipality’s park facilities, infrastructure, purpose-built buildings and other municipal property. The equipment and machines are also necessary to meet the municipality’s requirements for preparedness.

– We handle everything from the smallest lawnmowers to large trucks, for the entire municipality, clarifies Trond Richardsen.

Kjerringa against the current

Many municipalities lease cars and vans, they do not stick with their own trucks or excavators, and in any case do not have their own workshop to maintain them. So why does Kristiansand municipality do the opposite? There is an explanation for that.

– A few years ago a choice was made; Should you lease or buy? They then chose to buy. You tend to take better care of your own car than one you lease. You have a leased car for five years, then you have to change it. If there is a scratch on the side of it then you have to pay extra for it. We use a car we own for a minimum of ten years, i.e. twice as long, and when it has served its purpose, we can sell it, because we own it. We might get 25,000 for it, and it might not be that much, but for 628 cars over ten years, that’s 15 million, so it’s a significant sum, explains Glen Allan Eikeland, head of production in the Norwegian Civil Service.

It is part of history that Kristiansand municipality had leased cars over a longer period when the decision to buy was made.

Kristoffer Vekterli changes the tires on one of the municipality’s vans.

More profitable to own

Car ownership is, however, more than buying and selling cars. If you factor in workshop premises, tools, parts stock, mechanics, tire changes, service, EU inspection, fuel, insurance and everything else that can be linked to car maintenance, it is still profitable to own, maintains the production manager. He has calculated that the municipality will save taxpayers a minimum of NOK 160 million over the course of five years by owning rather than leasing. And then he has not counted on the 15 million he expects to get from the sale of the 628 cars when they are retired from municipal service.
In addition, it will be an extensive job just to bring in all the services that are performed at the central plant, Eikeland points out.
– We have made a few phone calls to find out how much the workshops should have to do these services for us – driving around and changing tyres, picking up and delivering and all this. No one wanted to do it, says the production manager.

Base for 50-60 employees

In addition to the workshop and warehouse, the central facility, which is located a few minutes’ drive from Gartnerløkka on national road 9 towards Setesdalen, contains, among other things, a forge, a lubrication hall and a hall for spray painting. The facility is the base for close to 60 employees; workshop personnel, plumbers and field workers in both the Park Service and the Engineering Service.

The central facility is also a contingency warehouse for the entire municipality. In addition to tires for all the municipality’s vehicles, the large warehouse contains a separate section with parts for the municipality’s water and sewage network. Neighboring municipalities also come here to borrow parts when there is a crisis.

Production manager Glen Allan Eikeland and unit manager Trond Richardsen in front of the central plant. Behind, Kathinka Langeid enters with a high-pressure washer.

Important for emergency preparedness

– In Kristiansand municipality, we have a core of machines and crew that we have to have in order to maintain emergency preparedness, and then we buy up what we need to have full preparedness, for example in winter, says Glen Allan Eikeland.

– All in all, Kristiansand municipality has approximately twenty percent of its operations under its own auspices. On construction, laying of pipes and things like that, we have an in-house control of approximately seventeen percent, so we buy most of it from private contractors and players through framework agreements and contracts, he adds.

In order to make full use of the own machines, they are used both in summer and winter, in order to get more hours to spread the costs over.

– We use what we have on site and outside for various operational tasks, and then we buy the rest, explains the production manager.

Apprentice company

Many mechanics in Sørlandet have had their apprenticeship at the workshop at Dalane. At the moment, the workshop has 18 employees and four apprentices. If we include all municipal activity related to workshops, cars and mechanical engineering, we are talking about approximately 12 apprenticeships. In addition, there are many internships and summer temporary workers.

The unit also offers several low-threshold offers in the form of internships and placements with a focus on inclusion and more people in work.

– We have had some apprentices with various challenges, who have taken professional certificates with us. We have also helped someone with a job afterwards, says Glen Allan Eikeland.
Both he and Trond Richardsen would like to see even more apprentices in the workshop halls at Dalane.

– We have apprenticeship places, but we don’t get enough apprentices, says Eikeland.

– We have to be out earlier, claims Richardsen.

– There is a shortage of mechanics throughout southern Norway. We will soon have to pick them up already in the tenth grade, in order to get hold of them, concludes the unit leader.

The central facility at Dalane is also a contingency warehouse for Kristiansand municipality. Here, parts for water and sewage systems lie in a row.