Thought for food
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Good compliance is vital for any haulier, but for Fowler Welch the bar is set higher because it operates in the food-distribution sector
Words: Guy Sheppard/Images: Nigel Spreadbury Minor lapses in workplace discipline can have potentially disastrous consequences for fresh and chilled food distribution operators. Without proper cleaning of refrigerated containers, cross-contamination of food could result from the spread of bacteria. And if these containers are not regularly maintained, consignments could be ruined by unplanned changes in temperature.
Therefore, standards need rigorous policing, and Lincolnshire-based Fowler Welch shows how little is left to chance when it comes to ensuring internal procedures work effectively. As well as regular spot checks by its management team, outside organisations are brought in to monitor performance.
Membership condition
Membership of the British Retail Consortium’s global standard for storage and distribution certiication scheme involves formal inspections every 18 months. These cover areas such as driver instruction, servicing intervals for containers and hygiene levels across the business.
Inspections by Freight Transport Association (FTA) engineers are done once a month and involve random checks on vehicles and record keeping.
Paul Allera, national leet manager for Fowler Welch, says the feedback allows the company to take preventive measures against potential penalties that would have been imposed if detected by VOSA. “It also helps with on-going development of drivers and is a good way to benchmark ourselves each time a site is inspected,” he adds.
Allera’s department is responsible for O-licences, MoT pass rates and the company’s Operator Compliance Risk Score, which VOSA uses to rate the likelihood of non-compliance. To keep abreast of legislative changes, he uses membership services provided by the FTA and the Road Haulage Association.
Association benefits
“My colleagues and I attend their brieings and sit on regional meetings of the FTA freight council committee. It pays to be ahead of the game. Any changes to anything, we get to hear about them. That helps with long-range forward planning. People may complain about professional bodies but, if you use them, they beneit you.” Fowler Welch has 12 depots in England and one in Holland. Six driver trainers are responsible for auditing drivers’ hours and checking tachographs as well as training. Allera explains that the trainers play a key part in educating the company’s 600 drivers about new legislation once the information has been publicised with workplace posters and letters sent out in wage packets.
“The driver trainers will take them through how it will and will not affect them. Once the brieings are done, they will make themselves available to any individual who requests help on a one-to-one basis,” he adds.
As there are some eastern Europeans among the drivers, provision is made for anyone who may experience dificulty with training delivered in English. The company has won praise from the Business in the Community group for the driver language training course it developed in conjunction with the University of Lincoln.
Each site is accredited to deliver Driver CPC training and, so far, 95% of the drivers have completed seven of the 35 hours of training they need to complete by 2014. “Quite a few of our drivers are over 65 and some of the older ones are saying they won’t need to do the training because of retirement,” says Allera.
Allera is conident that the irm will ind suficient material to ill all 35 hours, but stresses the need for drivers to feel the beneits. He says: “They have to be engaged in what they’re doing. You need to be giving them more tools to become better and more developed drivers.”
Driver motivation
There is no formal incentive scheme to encourage drivers to keep a clean record, but Allera argues that pride in driving new vehicles should be suficient motivation in itself. Most of the company’s leet of 400 tractor units and 800 trailers is replaced every three years.
Repair and maintenance contracts take care of most servicing requirements, but the company employs around six technicians spread around the country to deal with minor defects and damage such as cracked mirrors. “It means we don’t have to wait for an hour or more to call somebody out,” he explains.
Drivers record any vehicle defects on a nil defect report form that comes with their daily job sheet. The driver trainer is responsible for ensuring that all drivers are fully trained to carry out these checks and that paperwork is completed correctly. This then has to be signed and checked by their operations manager.
If a vehicle is reported as defective, it will be marked with a VOR (vehicle off road) sticker. Yard shunters provide a further safeguard against faulty vehicles and trailers leaving the site, compiling their own daily reports about defects.
Spot checks
Allera conducts his own random vehicle inspections and compliance audits when he visits each site: “I’m basically mirroring what the VOSA inspector and the FTA engineer do.
That means insisting on documentary evidence to show vehicles have been serviced on time. Good compliance is all about being pro-active at every level of the business.” For him, having a clean record provides a way of becoming the haulier of choice for leading retailers.
“They want to work with hauliers that they see as an extension of their own leet. Therefore, we like to make sure we care about what we’re doing, that we’re pro active about things like sustainability, future planning
and compliance,” he explains. ■