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Small firms live in dark ages
Page 6
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• Many small hauliers are still living in the dark ages in terms of IT and operational systems— and some haven't even discovered the fax machine", according to new research by the Road Haulage and Freight Transport Associations.
The £90,000 project was designed to evaluate the viability of a government-funded advisory scheme designed to improve operators' performance.
About 100 small hauliers in the Midlands and Western region were visited to assess the issues that have the greatest effect on hauliers' performance, such as equipment, routeing, IT and fuel consumption. But the study showed that the government's dream of a 'modern, progressive and sustainable haulage Industry" could take a long time to achieve.
In a CM survey last year (2430 May) 40% of small haulage firms said they had no IT systems.
RHA chief executive Roger King (below) says that some people visiting the firms were shocked by what they found.
"Some of the businesses and the way they are operated was nothing short of horrific," say!, King. in too many cases there was no methodical approach to routeing, no idea of fuel efficiency of the vehicles, and little use of IT in most cases." Some hao not even got a fax machine.
ETA chief executive Richard Turner says giving a helping hand to companies, particularly smaller firms, will "lift the game" of the entire industry The Federation of Small Businesses is not surprised by the report's conclusions. A spokesman says: "Small firms generally have enough to do struggling through each day so improvements to IT or other systems tend to come at the end of the list" The HA and RHA have pre sented their report to the ernment with a list of recomn dations for a national soh( that would cost £2m to roll They plan to meet with Department of Transport oi April to discuss the report; Road Haulage Forum will t examine the recommendatii Last year the governrr set up a £100m Modernisa Fund for road haulage wl includes a retrofitting and economy programme.
• See Comment. page 8.