UD Trucks and Tan Chong Industrial Equipment Sdn Bhd (TCIE), an importer and distributor in Malaysia, celebrated a key milestone when they rolled out the world’s first complete knocked-down (CKD) Croner in Malaysia. This achievement made Malaysia the first market in the world to locally assemble Croner and roll out successfully.
Malaysia’s high-speed road network is expanding, and cross-border and long-distance freight traffic is vigorous. This is leading to changing customer needs and a demand for trucks that combine high reliability, safety and productivity. To offer a truck that meets these needs, UD Trucks and TCIE have started CKD production of the Croner PKE and LKE. The Croner PKE is fitted with a high output engine for regional and long haul, while the Croner LKE is a multi-purpose model for efficient in-city and city-to-city distribution.
UD Trucks and TCIE have had a solid and highly successful 40-year partnership, together achieving total sales of 45,000 trucks in Malaysia during that period. Since 2016 it has invested 1.5 million Malaysia Ringit in SKD (semi knock-down) production of the heavy-duty Quester, and has now shifted to CKD production. The production assembly is carried out at its Tan Chong Motor Assemblies Sdn Bhd (TCMA), where it has recently invested a further 4.5 million Malaysia Ringit.
Tan Keng Meng, TCIE’s Executive Director, said: “Our locally-assembled Croner trucks will not only represent the hallmarks of what UD Trucks stands for, but also give logistics operators all that are needed to work efficiently and effectively at a competitive price. This is very important especially in a competitive market like Malaysia. This is what we want to aim for our customers, as their satisfaction and trust in us remain our top priorities.”
UD Trucks contributes to developing engineering skills by sharing production technology and hands-on approach in training, to enable efficient management of the expanded facility and to ensure a smooth roll-out of the locally-assembled Croner truck. Filip Van den Heede, Managing Director Hub Malaysia, UD Trucks said: “Croner is a versatile, reliable, safe and fuel-efficient medium-duty truck range that is developed with the Asian customers in mind. It is a truck range designed to deliver extra productivity and superior uptime as it combined the best of three worlds, which are UD Trucks’ Japanese heritage and craftsmanship, Volvo Group’s proven technologies and TCIE’s local resourcing, expertise and market reach.”
TCIE has an extensive network of 43 services centers and dealerships nationwide. UD Extra Mile Support including UD Driver Training, UD Telematics and UD Trust Service offers complete support for customer needs.
Line-off of the first Croner CKD
