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Early December 2000 saw 100 sample Hour Guards arrive and all had a fault, the crystal running the timing was the wrong value which made each timer lose 1 minute per hour, 100 replacement Printed Circuit Boards were dispatched from China and each and every sample had to have the PCB Changed, once that was completed I had to give them away to drivers to try them, I was litterally giving away my hard earned cash
with nothing to show for it, Luckily some of the drivers did give me their honest opinions of how the timer could be improved, these comments were duly noted and reported back to China where another 25 samples were supplied after the necessary changes were carried out.
July 2001
After running extensive tests throughout the early part of 2001 I placed an order for 3,000 of the New Driver Hour Guard Timers CE01 (Capitol Enterprises version 1)
along with help from friends we bombarded the likes of Truckstop News with requests for more information about this brand new timer we had heard about, having
successfully securing a write up in the Daily Mirror in Sir Alan Sugars section. Finally we gave Truckstop News the break they desperately needed by supplying the date of the issue of the Daily Mirror Article and within hours they were on the phone for an interview. I Pointed out that the timers would not be available until July but they still ran the article in the May edition where the response was amazing, cheques for £19.99 poured through the letter box, my wife was in tears because she was afraid we would be called con men as we could not supply the timers. Dont worry, I told her, as long as the cheques are not cashed we cant get into trouble, I litterally begged the Chinese Company to speed up the production date.
On July 11th 2001 we finally received the first shipment of 3,000 of the CE01 Timers, each and everyone had been sold out in advance making it necessary to immediately place an order for a second batch of 3,000 again when they arrived all but a handfull were unsold.
Within 3 months over 12,000 of the hour guards had been sold and sales remained steady. Good old Lloyds TSB who had refused us help when we asked for it, called myself and my wife into the managers office to answer allegations of money laundering, a business account that had only handled around £500 per month had suddenly handled over £100,000 in 3 months, we showed the sales and purchase invoices and they realised they had missed a golden opportunity 12 months earlier when asked to give us a loan.
January 2005 was a start to a very bad year, an order that had been placed and paid for never arrived, by late February our fears were confirmed, the supplier had disappeared along with our £25,000 we had paid for further stocks of the hour guards. We managed to locate another manufacturer but delays in getting the timers produced lost us over 8 months of income which finally put the nail into the coffin of Capitol Enterprises Ltd.
In June 2005 I was left with no option but to call in administrators to wind the company up, it was proving impossible trying to get creditors to give us a little leeway despite offering personal guarantees.
In Late June I was asked by a friend of 13 years to help re-introduce the Hour Guards, I had invested heavily in having the CE02 developed over the past 7 months and thought it would be a good idea, I'm not going to go into the full details other than to say, I have learned a lot over the past 8 years when it comes to business, never, mix work and family or work and friendship, the CE02 was launched in January 2006, however, by late February I realised I had made a very big and stupid mistake by becoming involved with Driver Time Solutions and duly left the company in March 2006, less than 2 months after the CE02 was launched.
A Good friend in China repeatedly contacted me all throughout the first 6 months of 2007 asking me to become involved with the Driver Hour Guards once again, and in July 2007 when it was confirmed Driver Time Solutions had closed their doors leaving drivers with no backup after they had made their quick bucks, I relented and agreed to develop the timers where the CE02 had left off.
With the Help of Carol Chan and her own company we jointly worked on the software requirements with the intentions of only bringing back the CE02 Timer with download facility, however, Carol managed to purchase a mold that had been made for DTS Ltd and they had not paid for, we ammended a few things to make it different to stop it being confused with a CE02 and decided to introduce it without the USB Download facility, therefore offering the option of a cheaper version.After 3 months of testing throughout the early part of 2008 we decided that it was time for production to start, the first shipment of 600 TS01 and 600 TS02 Timers arrived on 30th April 2008 and as expected they immediately started to sell out.
In July 2008 I was asked to visit Tachodisc in Warrington, at the meeting it was agreed to appoint Tachodisc as preferred Distributors of the Driver Hour Guard Timers in the UK and Sole Distributors in Mainland Europe.
What does the future hold in store for Techno Solutions?
Well thanks to Tachodisc handling Distribution it now leaves me with more time on my hands to further improve the driver hour guard timers, It is planned for new features to be introduced from late 2009, however, existing users of the TS01 & TS02 will be able to upgrade cheaply to the new generation of timers as we will ensure any new features will not need any alterations carried out to the casing.
Future plans are for the timers to be Bluetooth capable, to allow connecting to a GPS system which will auto switch the modes when movement is detected, an option to select between 17 weeks and 26 weeks for the WTD along with multi language support, these are just a few of the planned inclusions into the timers software.
Davey Driver
August 3rd 2008
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