A reliable and quality supplier for hundreds of Australian fleets, Krueger Transport Equipment recently delivered its 20,000th trailer to CTI Logistics.
Family owned and operated, the Victoria-based manufacturer is committed to maximising profitability and productivity in the transport industry, while providing reliable and innovative maximum capacity trailers.
Throughout the changes to the Krueger portfolio, the core of the business has held true, revolving around founder and managing director, John Krueger, who started the business in 1976 after finding himself unimpressed with the state of the market. Taking matters into his own hands, John designed and built his very first trailer in the front yard of his house – marking the beginning of what would become one of Australia’s most prominent trailer manufacturers.
“This year, we are celebrating 45 years of operation,” said Krueger general manager – manufacturing, David Grant. “Eight years ago, we migrated to where we currently are in Truganina which is purpose built for our operations.”
Grant has been involved with the company for almost 20 years, joining the team in 2005 as a service manager at Krueger’s Laverton site. The role saw him responsible for running the service department which resulted in his second promotion in 2020 to lead the National Service division.
In September 2021, Grant was promoted to the role of general manager of manufacturing. This enabled him to deliver Krueger’s 20,000th trailer – a remarkable achievement for the company.
“I think it’s a huge milestone, when you think of making 20,000 trailers,” he said. “And, we still have upwards of 13,000 registered Krueger trailers in Australia. It just goes to show the longevity of our trailers and their resale value.”
CTI Logistics general manager, Mark Cameron, said it was a pleasure to receive the milestone piece of equipment. “CTI has developed a good working relationship with Krueger over the years. For us to take delivery of the 20,000th trailer was a privilege and something that we are really proud of.”
The trailer was delivered to CTI Regional Freight in Western Australia late last year and is being used to service linehaul runs from Perth to Broome, Port Hedland and Karratha. The 20,000th trailer is one of the many units recently added to CTI’s fleet to cope with growth in the WA regional operation over the last 10 years.
“The quality of the trailers is really important to us,” Cameron said. “With Krueger, we know they are engineered and manufactured in Australia to a very high standard. We have been to the Krueger facility a number of times over the past 10 years, and we like the work that they do.”
Grant Krueger, the company’s national sales director, was entrusted with selling the 20,000th trailer. The delivery was a big deal for the family’s name, and he had the opportunity to see it through to the end.
“I am proud to have grown up in a family business with strong values with a brand that has forged its reputation into history based on innovation, reliability and quality,” he said. “Even though 20,000 is a grand milestone, we take pride in every new Krueger that hits the road.”
While Krueger has remained loyal to its values over the last four decades, Grant explains that the thing that stands out between trailer one and 20,000 is Krueger’s structural integrity.
“Krueger trailers have always been built to last but the biggest difference with the 20,000th trailer is the advancement in technology and making the trailer user friendly,” he said. “This can be seen in our current load restraint curtains, self-lifting gates, mezzanine decks, and Electronic Braking System (EBS).”
What remains similar between each and every trailer though, are the processes originally set up by John.
“John’s manufacturing strategy is to build the trailers in jigs and rotary jigs,” he said. “By controlling tolerances we have been able to make dimensions 100 per cent accurate which has seen our early manufacturing days turbo charge us into the future. Our company philosophy is continuous improvement, so during the production of our 20,000 trailers, we have always had a strong engineering background to ensure our designs and products are refined and updated to advance with the times.”