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scheduling? Dream on
Page 9
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Brian Lee of Allan Morris Transport relearns an old and hard-won lesson: when the schedule's packed tight, no one's your friend...
Traffic men and women have the ability to create a masterpiece of a sheet, usually having spent most of the day haggling, pleading, threatening and selling their souls to the devil. Management (that's me) then takes a call from a so-called old friend seconds from home time: "Sorry it's late, but could you f in a 'tiny' job for me? I'll make sure you're paid well."
Although management knows him to be a conman, your brain is already in the garden or supping a pre-dinner aperitif. So, next job is to console a distraught trafficker who offers management pearls of wisdom like: "He's a crook —a plonker —and last time it took 10 months to get the money," Management reassures him with a "trust me; it will be all right this time".
Six hours later, you wake up and you know that tinkering with the traffic sheet will end in tears. Sleep evades you, so in goes the radio earplug and out comes the soothing tones of the Shipping Forecast. The announcer hasn't even reached Portland by the time management has returned to its slumber, dreaming of heaving docks and severe gales.
Five hours on, the first of the road traffic reports start filtering through. By six o'clock I know we are on a hiding to nothing as the M this and the A that are running very slow.
Management retreats into his dreams and wonders why, when we are surrounded by the sea highway, do we continue to put our faith and money in roads? Using the sea to transport goods from east to west and south to north can't be that much slower than our congested roads.
Eight years ago we persuaded a customer to switch the majority of his distribution from road to sea. They saved money; we made money. Terry worked out we saved just under a million road miles in 14 months. He informed our former seafaring Deputy PM of this feat, and is still awaiting an acknowledgement, never mind a reply. Sweet dreams... "A distraught trafficker 'He's a crook a plonke and last time it took 1 months to get the mone