By The Numbers

If’s it’s a challenge for a manager to spec a single service truck for optimum economy and performance, imagine the responsibility of speccing and maintaining more than 50 service trucks scattered across Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma.

Scott-Macon Equipment, based in Houston, supplies and services all types of cranes to the oil and petrochemical industry. Among the duties of Mike Petrey, senior vice-president of product support, is ensuring that the firm’s field service technicians have the right trucks and equipment to fulfill the company motto, “When service matters.”

Scott-Macon’s service vehicles vary according to the duties of the technicians who work from them, from three-quarter-ton trucks with basic service bodies for techs who work mostly on electrical and electronic issues at petrochemical plants, to crane-equipped four-wheel-drive units that roam the oil fields and wind farms of west Texas. The company’s core units are currently based on Ram 5500 chassis equipped with 6.7-liter Cummins diesel engines ahead of automatic transmissions. The trucks carry Rawson Koenig (RKI Inc.) service bodies and 6,000 pound-capacity cranes.

“We let the tech pick between an Auto Crane or a Liftmoore crane,” Petrey says. “Both cranes are good and solid, but some techs have a preference of one over the other. The Rawson Koenig service bodies have worked really well for us. We can usually get one service body to last for three truck chassis before we have to replace it.”

Petrey started his career working from a service truck back in the early 1970s, so he knows from experience the advantages and disadvantages of various service bodies.

“We use a low-profile design,” he says. “Some service bodies are so tall that you have to use a ladder to get into the top of the compartments. Over the long haul, that’s hard on the guy running the truck. We also look for a wider bed, because I remember how nice it is to have room to load an engine in the back. And I like that those boxes have a real good security system to lock the drawers and compartments so the guys’ tools are safe when they’re on the road for a week or more at a time.”

Scott-Macon’s concern for employees extends to ride quality.

“The 5500 is a ton-and-a-half, and it’s a smoother riding truck that doesn’t beat up the guys on long trips,” Petrey says. “We specced bigger wheels and heavier tires, usually Michelin or Bridgestone, to reduce problems with flats, but with road treads to keep the ride as smooth and quiet as possible.”

Scott-Macon is moving away from large, individual gas-powered air compressors and welder/generators and transitioning to a more compact Mi-T-M model MAW-SR14-30M air compressor/welder/generator “all-in-one unit.”

“The industry is moving toward refinery applications where either you can’t use a welder, or the welder has to be certified for the welding required in each specific situation,” Petrey says. “We’ve still got Miller 250 Bobcats generator/welders on some trucks, and they’re solid, dependable units. We stay with gas-powered units because the DEF (diesel engine fuel) systems can have problems if you let them sit and idle for long periods of time to run a PTO-driven air compressor.”

Petrey’s goal is to provide his field technicians durable, economical service vehicles that don’t require a lot of customizing.

“They have the option of adding tool boxes on top of the side compartments to carry big, bulky tools like Porta-Powers,” he says. “A lot of them opt to have the big air tank for the air compressor down in the bed instead of up on top of the side compartments, to keep a lower profile. We provide Reelcraft hose reels for the air hose, and put a big vise on every truck. We build and install our own headache racks, have the bed coated with non-skid coating, and put (laptop) computer stands in the cabs. Beyond that, once we get a design that works we pretty much stick to it unless the industry changes, like restricting welding in petrochemical facilities. Then we roll with the changes.”

A final feature of all Scott-Macon service trucks is not an option, thanks to Petrey’s years spent working in the field.

“All the trucks have a spare tire mounted on the headache rack or in the bed,” he says. “There are some things from my days of working on the road that I never forget.”

Dan Anderson is a part-time freelance writer and full-time heavy equipment mechanic with more than 20 years of experience working out of service trucks. He is based in Bouton, Iowa.

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