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Quicker Turn-round Helps Everybody
Page 73
Page 74
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COMPLAINTS received by the Road Haulage-Association from members whose vehicles were delayed• unnecessarily at the point of collection or delivery were sufficiently numerous to justify the campaign that has low, been launched (in conjunction, we are pleased to say, with British Road Services) to impress upon trade and ndustry the need for quicker turn-round. Some idea of the ;ize of the problem and of the amount of money involved was provided by the survey undertaken on behalf of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce about a year ago. Even before we began to make definite plans., for the :arnpaign, we realized that the effects of delays-to. vehicles Nere not merely harmful to the operators. Every trade and ndustry was suffering, often without clearly realizing what was happening. In addition, the delays to road vehicles nevitably added to the already serious problem of con;estion. so that all road users, and in fact the whole
:ommunity, were the losers. .
We realized also the relevance of our campaign to the National Productivity Year that begins this month.. It would be absurd to suggest that traders and manufacturers ire not fully aware of the importance of increasing produc.ivity, but it is perhaps fair comment to say that the ridividual businessman has been chiefly. concerned with he standard of efficiency within the walls of his own factory. Understandably enough, he has not paid so much Ittention to the improvements that might be made by joint iction over the whole industrial field.
Announcements of plans for the N.P.Y. have made it )lain that the intention is to encourage . productivity hroughout industry, so that transport, which provides an essential link between one industry and another and one irm and another, should have a big part to play. If, at the :nd of the year, the trader has been brought to realize more learly that his production line begins with the raw material aid ends with the sale of the finished product, the work that las been put in will be well worth while.
In the achievement of this effect the main responsibility nust rest on the haulier. He may reasonably expect to )enefit directly from steps he could persuade his customer a make to speed up turn-round. In the highly competitive ield of transport, however, most if not all of the direct )enefit will be passed on. The productivity of a vehicle lepends on the volume of traffic it can carry and the distances covered, and for this...reason it is customary to. use.. the ton-mile for an assessment of. productivity in transport. The increase that has been achieved in the number of tonmiles per road haulage vehicle.proVides a simple explanation of the fact that road haulage rates have not risen to . anything like the same extent as other, prices and costs, in " spite of increases in the rate of road taxation.
What helps the haulier, therefore, must also help his. customer, and this is, of course, the object of the exercise., In the last resort, the customer 'must also play: a big part. The haulier can provide special vehicles and equip. them. with such things as pallets; he can arrange his -collection and delivery times to suit the customer; he can provide drivers who know the customer's requirements and so on. Most hauliers will do these things as a matter of. course,. but they are certainly, not sufficient in themselves if the customer makes no effort to change his own methods.
The Initiative ,
Although the initiative has come from the road haulage industry, the emphasis is inevitably on the action that the customer can take. Often all that is needed is for him to become aware of the problem and to give the necessary instructions to his staff. If he is one of those who have been content to/continue with essentially the same transport procedure that operated half a century ago, he will find there is much to learn and that it is very much to his advantage.
In the days of railway predominance there was far too pronounced a tendency to let the wagons wait until it was convenient for somebody to discharge them. There may be`some traders who feel, without putting it into so many words, that if the railways were prepared to suffer hauliers should do the same, It is worth noting, therefore, that the railways themselves have increased their demurrage charges and in that way made it clear what their opinion is of customers who keep trucks idle beyond a reasonable time.
It may well be that demurrage is the only answer that the railways can find to the problem, for they may have.difficulty in persuading the customer, except through his pocket, that there is any positive advantage to him in helping them by more expeditious loading and unloading. This is certainly not the case, with road transport, and may.. help to explain why road operators are not plaeing the
emphasis on demurrage charges that they are encouraged to do by the Rochdale Committee. Apart from transport costs, there are good reasons why the trader should make a careful study of ways and means of speeding up the transit of vehicles through his premises.
Prompt Service
Because of the prompt and frequent service that road transport gives him, he has become used to the idea that large stocks no longer need to be carried and fill up valuable space, as well as representing a capital outlay on which there is no return. It may still happen in many cases that, because of the delays to vehicles that arrive at his premises, a trader is still not reaping the full benefit, and that with a more up-to-date layout of his transport department he could reduce still further the amount of supplies that he has to hold in readiness.
Within the transport department itself, mechanical aids and the provision of adequate staff for loading and unloading can lead to a saving of space that may at present be wasted by vehicles awaiting attention. The alternative, which involves waiting in the street outside, is no more sensible, since it merely adds to the general congestion, irritates important clients who may be looking for somewhere to park their own cars, and gives a general impression of clutter and therefore of inefficiency. What manufacturer or shopkeeper would be pleased with a photograph of his premises, taken for publicity purposes, that showed a miscellaneous line of vehicles outside?
Inevitably, any detailed consideration of the problem of turn-round spreads farther and farther out from the original focus until it takes in much wider questions such as traffic control, the siting and construction of factories and town planning. There are so many aspects to the problem that one would like to think the campaign inaugurated by hauliers will continue for much longer than a year, and will be allowed to make a contribution to a wide range of problems, from the staggering of holidays to general business administration.
An Example
Let me give an example from within my own knowledge. A firm of agricultural merchants supplying farmers throughout the West Country has found it worth while to have three accounting periods, one from the 11th of the month to the 10th of the following month, the second beginning on the 21st day, and the third on the 1st.
Under the old system there was one accounting period for each calendar month. It was found that farmers then arranged their deliveries as near as possible after the beginning of the month so that they would then have the full month's credit. This meant that the merchant had to deal with a large concentration of vehicles in the course of a few days, after which the flow of vehicles became a trickle until the next time.
The new system still allows the farmer as much time as before for settling his account but enables the distribution to be made much more evenly. The effect on turn-round is self-evident. Because there are no peaks of traffic, fewer vehicles are needed and they are able to collect the supplies much more quickly. The merchant has also found that he gains from having an even flow of money through his books.
Here then is a good example of the way in which steps that might be taken to improve the turn-round time of vehicles have a beneficial effect in many other directions as well, and in this particular case, of course, involve no outlay on new equipment or on extra staff. Similar steps can be taken in a wide range of industries if the right thinking is brought to bear. I am not suggesting that every trader or manufacturer should stagger his accounts simply to help hauliers. There will often be no advantage in doing so, and there may sometimes be disadvantages that far outweigh any likely gain in transport productivity. My example is intended to shoe/ that a transport department ought not to be regarded as somehow isolated from the other activities of a firm. Old practices need to be examined from time to time, and it will often be found that they can be improved or even abolished because of developments in transport. I suspect, for example, that the documentation system in many a factory is unnecessarily complicated because it was originally drawn up with reference to the railways and has never been overhauled.
The Object Lesson
The outstanding, object lesson on this point, as indeed on many others, is to be found in the docks and ports. This observation has been made more than once in the past and is overwhelmingly supported by independent testimony. The most recent and perhaps the most important is the report of the Rochdale Committee. They are in no doubt about what is wrong with the inland transport services to and from the docks.
Congestion and delay to road vehicles, says the report, were referred to in evidence More frequently than any other subject, 'with the possible exception of labour difficulties. Rail connections with the ports are more than adequate; road connections are insufficient. Within the docks themselves, the pronounced and continuing swing from rail to road transport does not seem to have been properly appreciated. The report emphasizes that a good internal road and vehicle-parking system is of the utmost importance to a port.
One proposal by the Rochdale Committee is that the new and -independent British Transport Docks Board to be set up under the Transport Act, 1962, will, take the Opportunity of examining the arrangements for the carriage of goods to and from its ports, including tariffs and other related matters, to ensure that no port is being unnecessarily handicapped by restrictions, explicit or implicit, upon customers' choice of transport." It is also recommended that the National Ports Authority suggested in the report should include members with experience in the operation of inland transport.
Same Principles
There are signs that the Committee paid careful attention to a memo submitted by the Road Haulage Association, in which emphasis was laid on the same principles as are now being developed on a wide front in the turn-round campaign.
So far, at a comparatively early stage in the campaign, it is these principles with which we are, chiefly concerned, hoping that trade and industry in this way will be encouraged to think a little more deeply than before about the many advantages which are available to them as a result Of the development of road transport, and to which they may not have given so much consideration in the past.
As our programme unfolds we are hoping to fill in many more of the details. For this purpose we are relying to a large extent upon information and ideas from hauliers themselves that we can then make widely known to the general public, and also upon suggestions from trade and industry, whose advice would certainly be much appreciated.
We have encouraged members of the R.H.A. to sit on the local committees set up in order to promote the productivity year. Even if a committee does not wish to run a specific transport project, the presence of •a road haulage expert ensures that, whatever project may be selected, the transport aspect will not be overlooked.