Road Transport Adds that Personal Touch
Page 26
Page 27
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
"PERSONAL contact with the customer through an efficient and attractive fleet of delivery vans is almost as important to our business as the variety and quality of the goods we supply."
That, briefly, was the impression 1 pined during a recent visit to S. Maw, Son and Sons, Ltd., New Barnet, Herts, one of the largest suppliers in this country of chemists' sundries and surgical instruments. The number of lines carried is, in fact, so numerous that no one on the staff seemed willing to give an -estimate of the total, and from what I saw in the vast warehouse at Barnet, I. am not surprised. .
For, this reason, however, the House of Maw,. as it is known in pharmaceutical circles, has developed a packing and dispatch department of which it is justly proud.
Safee by Road The 13 vans now in operation provide a delivery service over an area which, with London as the base, covers Stafford and Peterborough in the north, Bristol in the west, and Bournemouth and Eastbourne.M. the south. There is a daily delivery service in Central London, three times a week in the suburbs and weekly in the Home Counties. During the course of a month these vans cover some 20,000 miles, making some 9,000 deliveries.
Apart from one small section of the country, road transport is invariably used, and if Maws cannot carry the goods in its own vans, they are handled by Holdsworth and Hanson (London), Ltd. In this way, the minimum packing is necessary and the company is assured that the goods will arrive quickly and. more important, safely.
The House of Maw attaches great importance to the fact that efficient delivery methods are not wasted on
The chemist does not have to start opening big packing cases and strewing the floor of his shop with straw or wood wool, as he would do if the goods had been packed for and delivered by rail. For delivery by road each item has merely to be wrapped and placed carefully in a cardboard carton, and if any item is fragile, the driver knows about it and sees that it is correctly. handled.
Another important factor is that the passing of the National Health Act has greatly increased the chemist's prescription trade, and in many cases pharmacists have had to enlarge their dispensaries. There is, consequently, less room for storage and display, and for that reason a quickly emptied carton is much less of a problem than a cumbersome wood case or tea chest, with its nails and packing materials to be disposed of.
Drivers receive a small bonus for every cardboard carton that is collected and returned to the factory. This serves the threefold purpose of pleasing the chemist by disposing of the empty cartons, the driver by augmenting his wages, and Maws by maintaining its stocks of cartons.
Mr. George Maw and Mr. Vernon Porter, two of the younger executives, can both remember the days of the first motor vehicle to be operated by their organization. It was the old Dennis chain-driven model with wood-spoked wheels, and is believed to be the first vehicle to be supplied by a, transport contractor on an annual contract.
An amusing story is told at Barnet of the horse driver who became the .first vanguard on the old Dennis. After 23 years he was taught to drive—not the Dennis, of course—and although he was driving continuously, until his recent retirement, it is said that in all that time he never learned to reverse.
When approaching a -turning about which he was in doubt, he would send his vanguard ahead to make sure it was not a cul-de-sac, and, when reversine was unavoidable, he persuaded .someone else to do it for him.
Another story concerns the hazards of "long-distance" operation in those early days. The Dennis had to make regular runs to a chemist in Beaconsfield. As it was impossible to buy fuel and lubricants on the road, a stock of petrol and oil had to be stored. at the back of the chemist's shop to ensure that the round trip from Aldersgate
could he completed. .
From the chain-driven Dennis. Maw's transport aspired to the model T Ford and then an early Thornycroft, until, in 1934, the company began to Standardi-e on . the Morris-Commercial C-type 2-tonner. Two vehicles of this vintage are still in operation, and four others have been in service since 1936, and they are still doing an equal share of the delivery work, alongside the more modern vehicles.
The latest acquisition, a Commer 5-tanner with underfloor engine, was described in "The Commercial Motor" on November 19. Like the older machines in the Maw fleet, it is arranged for three-way loading, . having sliding doors on each side and hinging rear doors and tailboard. It has attractive green and cream panelling; a colour scheme which has long been standardized on Maw's vehicles.
• Long Service
The driver of this COmmer, like most of hit; colleagues, has been with the -company for many years. The van driver is one of the many links between Maws and its -customers, and good wages and working conditions are two of the means for forging this important link.
"In our type of business, particularly," said Mr. John Maw, "many concerns have their products expensively and lavishly wrapped, only to send them out to their customers by methods of transport that have no delivery value..
"If the item be one of those lines that call for a place on the display counters, we certainly supply it in an attractive container, but that is not enough. That is where the transport comes in. In short, it is our firm belief that well-kept vans of smart appearance, and a vigorous and efficient transport system, play a big Part in maintaining our slogan First with the hest goods.'"
As one of the company executives put the matter: " If anyone sees in the Transport Act a threat to the C-licence operator, send him along to the House of Maw; we can give him the ideal case
for the opposition." C.M.H.