Management matters
Page 69
Page 70
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Communications in transport
Customer relations and labour relations may seem to be entirely different subjects but at transport conferences they crop up again and again. The link between them reflects the growing importance of communications.
ROAD HAULIERS and their traffic office staffs seldom need to be reminded of the old adage "The customer is always right". However awkward or unreasonable the request the service-minded transport operator will try his hardest to fulfil the requirements of the ."paymaster. Although a friendly relationship between the provider and user of transport services is a necessary foundation for profitable operations it is less easy for individual transport operators—collectively the road haulage industry—to comprehend the requirements of industry as a whole. For that to happen much more enlightenment on both sides is necessary.
In the context of the country's rapidly growing exports with all that involves to road hauliers and own-account operators who deliver goods to the docks it is worth repeating from the Port of London Authority's survey, "Britain's Foreign Trade" that half the total export tonnage of the UK is provided by 50 firms and 60 per cent. is accounted for by 150 firms. Although it is likely that several thousand vehicles may be involved regularly in dock collections and deliveries, the collection and delivery points concerned in a substantial proportion of the whole are surprisingly concentrated.
A reflection on these lines must have inspired Mr. R. L. J. Wills' comment at the recent Southampton conference of the British section of the International Cargo Handling Co-ordination Association in a paper, "Problems of the future from the exporter's viewpoint". Mr. Wills said: "It surely ought not to be impossible, as a result of proper consultation, to plan the deliveries to the docks of such a small number of firms so that bunching towards the end of a vessel's loading period is avoided. If this big 'base load' of exports were co-ordinated it would matter less that the forwardings of smaller exporters arrive unheralded and un-booked."
While fully endorsing Mr. Wills' sentiments I do not think "consultation" would solve the problem. The large exporters con
cerned have been meeting together on numerous occasions for several decades. Certainly the railways and the principal shipping lines must have been well aware of the highly concentrated export traffic flows long before the PLA survey made the facts public property. I suspect that many of the larger road haulage concerns were also aware of the facts. Just as every intelligent industrialist recognizes the validity of the "turn that lorry round" campaign—but all too frequently does nothing practical in his own company to help—so "consultation" between the large exporters is much too nebulous a concept.
This does not mean that action is not called for. If we accept that 60 per cent of our exports stem from 150 firms a relatively small number of "traffic offices"—using the phrase to describe the executive function whether centred in the shipping, dispatch, export, forwarding or other department— are concerned. If sophisticated communications—special telephone circuits, telex, teleprinters, radio, closed circuit TV, facsimile recording apparatus and so on—linked our large exporting firms together. "traffic-wise" the road transport industry and the long suffering port managers could be told the total export load and its "breakdown".
The maximum tonnage of specific types of cargo that particular berths can handle in any shift or day is known and it is utterly ludicrous that relatively small groups of large exporters should call up lorries in such a slap-happy sequence that docks are burdened with far more work than they can handle for the last two or three days of a ship's loading period while port employees are virtually idle in the early -part of the loading cycle.
It may seem a Utopian dream to imagine our large exporting firms getting together in this way. The technical equipment and the organizing know-how to link larger exporting concerns with each other and to the docks they principally use could be installed very quickly. To make the scheme much more viable and understandable to the road haulage industry it would make sense to "key-in" at least the larger firms of road hauliers with vehicles regularly engaged on deliveries to ports. Area or zonal schemes perhaps associating a defined group of hauliers with a small number of large exporters would be a further refinement, and it must be remembered that much port traffic is delivered by the manufacturers' own vehicles. From the port manager's viewpoint he is only concerned to provide a quick turnround for a given number of vehicles—the ownership does not matter.
The illustration given relates to export traffic but similar principles could obviously be applied to import traffic which is no less important to the country's economy. Indeed, as several speakers at Southampton pointed out, the prompt clearance of imported raw materials has a very immediate and beneficial effect on the price of goods manufactured for the home and export markets.
Mr. Wills gave some interesting details of the extent of unit loads in export traffic. I confess I was most disappointed to learn that it totalled only 3+ per cent, roll-on/roll-off amounting to 755,000 tons_ and other unit transport, 583,000 tons. So much is heard of the growth of unitized loads, particularly to Continental destinations, that it is noteworthy that over half of such loads move across the Irish Sea. Road transport managers should lose no opportunity to urge exporting customers to consider unitization. In 1966, 37m tons of export cargo included 2.8m tons of foodstuffs, 4.0m tons of basic materials and 14.1 m tons of manufactured goods—I exclude coal and petroleum as not being ideally suitable for unit loads.
"Dry cargo" exports, it appears, have increased by weight by about 2 per cent per annum in the last decade but in terms of value exports increased by about 5 per cent per annum on average. 1 wonder if road haulage rates for goods movements to the ports reflected the higher value of the goods carried,
in addition to the normal rate increases justified by increased operating costs?.
Sizable road transport operators will be well aware of the importance of documenta tion. Mr. Wills admitted—perhaps a little too frankly—that this occurred at every stage of the export process, even in his own officesl There was delay in compiling documents with manufacturers, export houses, shipping and forward agents, shipping companies, banks and the ports. "It must be driven home to all concerned that delay in the production of documents is totally unacceptable. It is the task of management to ensure that the machinery provided, whether animate or inanimate, functions smoothly and expeditiously. Unhappily this is not the case at the moment and we not infrequently have a situation in which the goods are beating the documents to their destination by a comfortable margin. This is not good enough, and I do not think it will do to mutter 'computerization' as if it were some magical incantation. Computerized services will soon be introduced into the docks but the benefits will be lost if other elements in the process, including the human factor, are not kept up to scratch."
Another example of inadequate consultation—really a failure of communications in "getting the message across"—was referred to by Mr. Wills. Of the British Shippers Council's refusal to attend a recent joint OCL/ACT Press conference called to publicize a proposed all-in group insurance scheme offering very advantageous terms to most of the exporters using the containerized services to Australia which begin next February, Mr. Wills thought this "obvious proof that something should be done to , improve consultation between providers and users of transport services". He had earlier referred to "the dog in the manger-ish attitude" of some exporters who thought they would suffer from all-in throughout container insurance schemes. "A lot of overseas exporters do their own insurance and get a commission froni brokers for this—they don't realize that the insurance companies charge more to allow the commission to be deducted."
To be fair to OCLIACT their spokesman at Southampton, Mr. M. G. Graham, economics adviser, Overseas Containers Ltd., said that there had been no less than eight meetings between the British Shippers Council. and OCL/ACT and insurance v'as discussed on at least five occasions. Perhaps the only safe conclusion from this unhappy interchange is that when the parties are not disposed to agree, any amount of consultation may prove unavailing. Mr. Graham's admission that the circularization of several thousand questionnaires to British exporting firms describing the consortia's all-in insurance scheme had brought only "one or two hundred" replies indicates the massive reluctance of a great number of large firms to change traditional methods.
If communications between transport providers and their customers are not all they should be, what of communications between managers and men in transport? The failure in both cases may be due to a bad presentation of the ideas, though if both sides are determined to stick to traditional ways of thought and practice the chances of an outcome helpful to both cannot be rated highly.
Not everyone in the transport industry is an optimist by nature. Discussing the attitudes of exporters in general, Sir Clifford Dove, director general, Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, said they were "the most highly immobile set of people there are". When it had been suggested that some representative exporters should serve on the Mersey Docks Board not a single person was nominated from about 400,000 exporters! "So much goes wrong not because you don't get to the right level but because of the impact of ideas on people."
Mr. S. A. Finnis, chairman, British Transport Docks Board, included a section on labour relations in his paper, "Recent developments at United Kingdom ports". Until 12 months ago, he noted, the organization of employment was not greatly altered from the days of casual labour, but the new arrangements were settling down. Whereas in 1958 there were nearly 77,000 registered dock workers and weekly earnings averaged /13 6s 6d the 1967 figure was 59,000 with average pay of £22 lOs 5d per week. "This indicates increased productivity on a considerable scale" though the total wage bill had risen materially.
Mr. Firkins made no secret of his enthusiasm for education of the work force. The National Dock Labour Board had seven training schools and supervisors in the industry could take courses at Burton Manor. His own Board opened its staff college at Kings Lynn in 1965 and of all the courses given that for supervisors stood out as most successful. The National Ports Council and the National Association of Port Employers had both stimulated training and for the first time training was being looked at from an industry rather than a port basis. He looked forward to the time when there would be a Ports Industry Staff Training College "which would advance still further the joint causes of (1) training and education and (2)' thinking on a national rather than a parochial basis".
In the discussion period at Southampton Mr. Wills' ideas for co-ordinated goods movements by larger exporters was followed up. Dr. H. R. Mills, technical director, W. S. Atkins and Partners, suggested that if a number of the bigger firms programmed their deliveries to the docks the delivery times would be bound to be earlier than they would have chosen otherwise. Was there not a need for some financial incentive?
Mr. Wills thought early arrivals at docks should get the benefit of lower charges by docks. "As a shipper! wouldn't mind if I had two closing dates with a higher charge for the second. Ports have been too frightened of customers. They would be justified in exacting a penalty for late-corners. Shippers would not mind paying a penalty for being at the tail of the queue."
Asked whether he would expect a road haulier to dash down from Glasgow to London with five I cwt. cases to get the lower docks charge for early deliveries, Mr. Wills said: "If my haulier said the normal rate for a full-load movement would apply I would accept it. Everyone will create hell if they are charged extra but ports should do what other operators do. Shippers and overseas customers would accept extra charges for quick delivery."
I cannot forbear from quoting as a tailpiece just one of Mr. Wills' provocative sayings. 'What exporters expect is that the providers should keep their ears close to the ground, listen to what their customers have to say and employ sufficient marketing and market research personnel to get their sums reasonably correct." Road transport management, I suggest, should listen to their customers and to their employees, and they should not hesitate to seek the aid of management and operational research consultants—even social scientists, as Tate and Lyle Ltd. has done to great advantage in developing productivity techniques. Communications with customers and workers are two sides ofthe same coin.