Held at the “Blue Hall” in Stockholm City Hall. Also venue for “Nobel Peace Prize”, over 400 people from around the world attended.

Superior Trailer Works
“Innovative Designs and Low Weight = Productivity”

“No one in our line of business can compete with us on weight,” explained Jay N. Pocock accompanied with his father Jay “Jack” Pocock, co-owners and managers of Superior Trailer Works in Fontana, California. The company produces bodies for truck and trailers used mainly for aggregate construction materials.
Superior Trailer Works was one of the two winners of the Swedish Steel Prize 2003 for its innovative way of using thin hot-rolled and cold-reduced ultra-high strength steel sheet in their products.
Jay Pocock is by no means shy about explaining the advantages of the products manufactured by Superior Trailer Works and the benefits their products provide to their customers. He can easily prove to any doubter the benefits of Superior’s products. “It’s all in the math - the more you can haul to more money a trucker can earn,” explained Jay.
The company has grown steadily since he and his father took over the operations in Fontana. Today, products from Superior Trailer Works dominate among the many dump trucks in the construction arena in Southern California. As a rough estimate, Jay believes that Superior has around 90 percent of the regional marker share for new transfers, 10-wheelers and Superdump rigs sold every year.

Focus on Customer Benefit
Jay Pocock is convinced that the successes of the company are due to the firms determined focus on innovative products are a benefit to the customer. This is not always easy in a country in which the myth of the independent trucker is as strong and independent as that of the western cowboy’s image.
“We obviously have many haulers to whom form is more important than function,” says Jay Pocock and points at the passing truck with a shiny stainless steel tailgates mounted on the outside, bright exhaust pipe and motifs painted on the doors. But there is also growing awareness of the fact that profitability is vital in this line of business too. The change is driven by the increasingly strict enforcement of equipment safety from organizations like the CHP.
“If the gross vehicle weight is too high, the truck must be unloaded just where it is,” explains Jay Pocock. “And if only one axle is overloaded, the load will have to be redistributed. The driver is instructed to transfer the load so that the weight is distributed as specified in the regulations onto each axle.”
So the competition in this line of business is fierce and the winner most often is the hauler who can carry the most load in the shortest time - productivity.

Less is More
In the view of Jay Pocock, the company’s operations are based on a simple basic theory:
Less is worth more.
“This is true all the way,” he explains. “Less material, simpler production, less welding and shorter assembly time is always more profitable. But for the customer to benefit fully, the material used must also weigh less. So the steel must be stronger.”
Today’s successes recorded by Superior Trailer Works actually began with a fundamental discussion back in the late 1980s. This resulted in determined work aimed at reducing weight and improving quality.
“But the great leap forward did not come until we got in touch with SSAB Swedish Steel in the USA,” declares Jay. “The steel grades we then started using were far better than anything we had seen before. We can now use thinner material, since the good formability of the steel enables us to optimize our designs.”
A truck body for construction work basically consists of a box, which must hold the load in place in transit, must be strong and must be easy to maintain.
“But if a totally box-shaped design is to stay together, a great deal of material would be needed,” explains Jay. “The trailer would then be very heavy and some points in the design would be sensitive. The load presses down the parts of the body floor that are outside the sub-frame of the trailer or truck. The walls of the box are subjected to high forces and soon hang outside the frame of the structure.”
The bodies supplied by the Superior Trailer Works have a large volume or area, allowing more legal load capacity, but due to the design features that give it rigidity, thinner sheet steel can be used. The trailer and sub-frame are made of 3 mm thick hot-rolled, extra-high strength Domex 700 MC (100XF) steel.

Economy is the Strongest Argument
Economy is the best sales argument for the Superior Trailer Works. All freight to a construction site is usually paid on a per-ton basis. Jay picks up a calculator and a piece of paper.
A new “Superior Superlight Transfer” is about 2500 lbs. lighter than a conventional design. In total, this amounts to more than one ton of extra load. At the average prices, this gives an additional $7,000 per year in increased revenue for every rig operating one shift. Our bodies are never the cheapest, but the extra cost is quickly recovered. After that, it’s pure profit for the customer.”
Jay quickly sketches a number of examples of how he has managed to use extra-thin high strength material by bending a flange in the sheet before the material is welded. By doing this, the joint was moved to an area that was not sensitive to loading fatigue.
“I picked up a few ideas for this from the SSAB Sheet Steel Handbook,” he says.
The principles are actually simple. Reinforcement folds in places where the sheet is subjected to high loads enable the floor of the trailer body to be made of 1.9 mm thick Docol 1200DP (175DP). Profiles of the same material are welded at the top and bottom edges to produce box sections. The same principle is also used in the center of the sidewalls of the trailer boxes.

Impressed by the Wear Resistance
Superior’s design has increased the strength by up to 100 percent. The weight reduction has been about 20 percent, according to Jay’s calculations. The body hardly shows that the trucks have been loading and dumping abrasive materials like asphalt and gravel. “There are hardly any scratches in the sheet and the load obviously slides easily on the surface – the wear characteristics on this material are excellent,” according to Jay.
“The combination has other advantage too,” says Jay. “After an average of seven years, most heavy use customers are looking at investing in a new rig and the older truck still has very good residual value.”
Quality and low weight give equipment owners high resale value.
“It pays to show the customer how to earn more revenue by hauling more material per load,” declares Jay Pocock. Superior Trailer Works is always looking for ways to “deliver a better quality working life style.”
Superior Trailer Works has been manufacturing quality, innovative trailers and boxes for the construction trucking industry in this state since 1935. “Today, mainly due to the unfriendly business environment here, we are the only major construction (transfer) trailer manufacturer left in the state.”

Supporting The Industry
CDTOA and its members have been big supports of Superior and Superior has reciprocated that support. “CDTOA and its main monthly publication, the California Transportation News, is a source of many leads for our company,” explained Jay. “There’s not a better source of industry relevant information for the construction trucker in the state and probably the U.S.,” said Jay. “We would like to thank all the truckers who see the importance of supporting CDTOA and Superior Trailer Works.”