CALL FOR CATS
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"Whatever a customer wants, we can handle it", says Peter Baulch, managing director of CAT Nationwide Carriers, whose company carries anything from fencing to aircraft.
• Chard, in deepest Somerset, might seem an unlikely base for a national parcels delivery network, but that is where you will find CAT Nationwide Carriers, one of the latest contenders to take on the big national parcels operators.
CAYs distinctive blue/green and redcabbed vehicles, with their white bodywork and black CAT symbol, are becoming a common sight on the motorways, and if managing director Peter Baulch has his way, that trend will continue.
As parcels operators go, CAT is unusual. Unlike other fledgling contenders in the parcels world, it is no newcomer to the business. It is a well-established transport company with a 50-year history.
Yet CAT Nationwide (it stands for Chard and Axminster Transport) is not merely an old company in a new guise. There is a brisk, businesslike air about the Chard headquarters — a sense that after a long evolutionary process, a team has now emerged with all the right resources for an effective parcels operation. "I don't mind admitting we've made some mistakes in the past," says Baulch, "but now we've cut away the dead wood and focused on what we're good at."
Although the company's roots are firmly based in the West Country, it is steadily expanding. Four years ago the company opened a branch in the West Midlands which has assembled a local customer base of its own. This spring CAT opened a branch in west London, which is also building up a range of local customers. The logical development of this process will be a further branch in the North.
Inter-depot trunking is considered the ideal system for primary movements ("It cuts out multiple handling at hub depots"), so a strategic network of bases is integral to the company's expansion plans.
The parcels business is already carefully structured, with rates and delivery times geared to different parts of the country. From the South West, for instance, next-day delivery is guaranteed throughout southern and central England and over much of the North. Two-day delivery is offered to many other places but, says Baulch, "We're always honest about what we can do. There's nothing to gain from making promises you can't keep." A courier service, using Volkswagen LT vans, is the latest idea for bringing speed and economy to the smaller consignments.
ABNORMAL LOADS
CAT does not restrict itself to parcels traffic. On the contrary, it is willing and able to carry any kind of consignment, from straightforward palletised 12-metre cargoes to abnormal loads. One of its regular customers is the Westland helicop ter business; CAT frequently carries corn plete aircraft for the company to trials anc exhibitions. "Whatever a customer wants, we can handle it," Baulch says, "and we can do it ourselves."
This may sound like the formula of the traditional general haulier; but there is a difference. Where many general hauliers have over the years come to disparage and avoid part-loads, CAT has thrived on them. "I don't know what it is about this
area of the country," says Baulch, "but a Lot of the manufacturers seem to come up with smallish consignments. So we've laturally developed an expertise in handing them.
"In fact we gradually realised that we'd oecome a parcels carrier almost without knowing it. We'd developed systems and lisciplines to suit that kind of traffic. So now we've put the emphasis on this side 3f things — although we've kept on the full-load haulage as well."
To give this emphasis to parcels, CAT as progressively dropped some of its )ther, less-profitable enterprises. For in3tance, back in the seventies it was active n refrigerated meat transport, and had a lumber of insulated semi-trailers in its leet. "I sold the very last reefer just this month," says Baulch, with satisfaction.
FRENCH VENTURE
knother ill-fated venture in the seventies was a French-based operation. "Atkins of Derby got all the publicity as the first 3ritish company to set up there. Well, we were the second." The Cherbourg-based )peration had a few good years, rememiers Baulch, "but then the meat trade leclined and the recession set in. It .urned out to be a very expensive exer:ise to close the company down."
The experience gained in those years, iowever, has stood CAT in good stead or Continental traffic, and it still runs weekly groupage services to Paris and Zouen. "Like everything else, we do the whole job ourselves, right to the final ielivery." Baulch is currently reviewing his operation. "I think we either have to iuild it up or cut it out. It's no good just etting things tick over," he says.
Doing things itself is an approach the :ompany has honed to a fine art over the ,ears. "For a while we subcontracted icottish traffic, and we're still living with he complaints we picked up through deivety problems. Now our vehicle goes here weekly, even if the profit is minimii." At the headquarters, the rigorous lisciplines of document handling are also an in-house system — as is the traffic computer program.
Leyland Daf vehicles predominate the fleet, and at Chard all maintenance is done in-house. The 10 articulated vehicles are mostly Cummins 320-engined Roadtrains — both twoand three-axled models — while Roadrunner 7.5-tonners have proved popular for local work.
At Manchester and London, however, MANs have been chosen, on contracthire. "The branches are too far away to control our workshops," Baulch explains, "and our supplier is an MAN dealer." Currently the fleet stands at around 50 vehicles.
In a surprisingly busy industrial area, CAT's local traffics in the South West include products as diverse as roadmaking equipment, roofing, fencing and netting, machine tools, wood-burning stoves and Axminster carpets. To supplement these, the company is quite happy to run the 116km (72 miles) to Plymouth — "usually loaded both ways." It is also developing expertise in chemicals (it has run two bitumen tankers for many years), and its drivers, traffic, and warehouse staff have attended Hazchem courses. This is proving useful in winning chemicals traffic from other regions.
IN THE BLOOD
Transport is in Baulch's blood; his father Jack started Chard Transport before the war. Peter broke away and in due course built up his own company, Axminster Transport, and for some years the two businesses worked well together. After his father's death in 1976, Baulch was able to buy up the old company, and he later merged the two to form Chard and Axtninster Transport.
His formula for success with smalls traffic is simple: "You've got to have a system and stick to it," he says. He also emphasises that rates have got to be right. "We could always undercut our rivals, but there's no future in being busy fools. We increased our turnover 21% in the last year, and we expect to do the same this year."
El by Peter Rowlands.