Transport-sales Liaison Essential
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THE manager of an industrial trans1 port department should have a thorough knowledge of other departments and liaison should permeate the whole organization, declared Mr. A. H. Johnson, transport supervisor of the Cadbury-Fry organization, at a meeting of the Institute of Transport, Midland Section, in Birmingham last week.
Mr. Johnson was reading a paper on the "Work of an Industrial Transport Department." Transport could not, he said, be considered in isolation. All departments should be inter-dependent. Like other essential services, transport was generally taken for granted until it failed, Only then did it become news. He emphasized the importance of close accord between transport and sales departments.
During the discussion Mr. G. Dow, of British Railways, observed that transport considerations were often dominated by the sales department and asked Mr. Johnson to elaborate his comments on liaison, with particular regard to the Cadbury-Fry group.
In reply, Mr. Johnson said that sales were the prime objective of any company and that sales-transport problems were examined by both departments jointly to discover the best means of providing solutions. There were 14 decentralized depots in the group, in addition to the depots in the main manufacturing centres, and sales were decentraliied in the same way. The depot transport manager was senior to the sales manager, and the two worked closely together. This reacted to the benefit of the company.
Since the war, said Mr. Johnson, all depots built by the company had been based on a layout providing up-to-date transport facilities and the control of temperatures. The buildings had flat roofs that could be flooded with a few inches of water to reduce the temperature of the stock. New ideas were tried out when a depot was built and this represented a good example of "combined operations."
Apart from the Bournville centre, Mr. Johnson said, all deliveries were made in contract vehicles, a practice that was preferable economically to using C-licensed vehicles because of the " seasonality" of the traffic.
In his paper Mr. Johnson mentioned the development of the Road-railer and, in reference to this, Mr. Dow said that if experiments showed that the Roadrailer was suitable for high-speed running on rails, road and rail transport could be combined in a truly comprehensive form.
T.R.T.A. ANNUAL DINNER
THE 16th annual dinner of the Traders Road Transport Association will be held at Grosvenor House, Park Lane. London, W.1, on Monday, April, 16.
Members are asked to make early application for tickets.