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Can ; You Afford Your Transport Fleet ?
Page 70
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Transport as Important as Production
" UTOVEMENT is as big a factor as
iv I processing," said Mr. E. W. Hancock, director of special projects, Humber, Ltd., and chairman of the Coventry Productivity Association, at a one-day conference organized by the Harrow and Wembley Productivity Association and held in London on Tuesday. The theme che conference was, "Can you affotyour transport fleet?"
There had been insufficient study of the movement of people, Mr. Hancock suggested, and concentration on this problem could substantially relieve congestion.
A division should be made between the number of hours spent in changing or processing .materials and in their subsequent movement. Approximately 1,-1m. people were employed in producing handling equipment and a further 4-im. in transport, giving a total of some 61m. people moving or distributing goods.
Elimination of vehicle standing time was imperative to the improvement of efficiency.
In dealing with Britain's present production problems, it was first necessary to recognize inefficiency and to use production engineering techniques to eliminate idle time. The high cost of road congestion must be substantially reduced, if not eliminated. There must be planned factories.
Production engineers and transport executives should learn to present their cases better to show that as good financial returns could be obtained from investment in this field as in manufacture.
Three-quarters of the factories in this country employed 100 people or fewer. Therefore, it was important that any new plan of production should be as useful to the small concerns as to the larger units. Co-operation between employers and unions was essential throughout the consideration of any new scheme. The right place to study mechanical handling was at the drawing-board stage.
Britain Must Lead in Efficiency
A LTHOUGH increased productivity .1--1 had been persistently advocated in post-war years, there was still a need to relate it intimately to day-to-day activities, said Mr. J. H. Francis, of the British Productivity Council works study unit.
When standards of living and profits were high, it might well be asked whether there was any further need to increase productivity and whether further changes in the way of life were justified. But the desire of this country was not the only decisive factor. -.Having become an industrial nation, Britain must keep in the forefront of productive efficiency.
• Ways to increase productivity included E6 an improvement in basic processes and simplification of production and variety. Improved planning of work and effective use of manpower were also needed.
Another member of the work study unit. Mr. F. L. Cooper, emphasized that work study should bean aid to management, and not a substitute. Method study was the more important of the two, because if methods were wrong, it was futile to analyse the time factor. • As applied to transport, the study could be segregated into warehousing, operation, maintenance and clerical work. The objective should be to improve the layout, so as to help, rather than obstruct, the flow of work. There• should be an improved design of equipment. plant, vehicles and office equipment, together with a better use of materials.
Building a New Parcels Depot
I N dealing with problems affecting the larger fleet operators, .Mr. O. Bowick, district operating superintendent of British Railways (Lincola), detailed some of the factors which received consideration when a new parcels depot in a large urban area was under consideration. As an indication of the size of the proposed depot, there was an intake of 15,000 parcels per day and an outward delivery of 20,000.
The possibility of sorting parcels as they arrived in the railway vans, before transfer to road vehicles, was considered. There also had to be the right team balance between those working on unloading and loading. Variations in the arrival times of parcels had to be taken into consideration., It was subsequently decided that at the first stage parcels should come in on wheeled stillages, whilst at a later stage they would already be sorted when they arrived.
In the design of the depot it was decided to do away with all decks or benches. The whole of the discharge of parcels from railway vans would be on
to internal trailers. .
Store Must. Control Its Own Transport
"IF we had not run our own delivery service and had put it out to hire, we are confident it would not have been done to our complete satisfaction. We might have reduced our costs slightly, but this would have been offset in other directions," said Mr. I. E. Elkirigton, director of Sopers of Harrow', Ltd., in elaborating some of the problems affecting small fleet operators: • .
Sopers were a department store and their fleet operated over a radius of 1.5-20 miles. Loads were very. mixed. The background to their delivery problems was the increasing volumeof sales over recent years, staff difficulties and traffic
congestion. .
. There was also the problem of increasingly restricted delivery times, aggravated by the fact that many married couples today both worked, and required delivery on Saturday only. With an increasing volume of sales, there was naturally a corresponding demand for floor space for that purpose, which necessitated the minimum of marshalling and loading accommodation.
To facilitate an even spread of work, deliveries to certain areas were made on specific days. Loads and journeys must be arranged by an experienced member of the staff, with full knowledge of both the consignments and the local geography.
With a small fleet it was impracticable to have separate loading and driving staffs. One of Sopers' most difficult problems was the recruitment of efficient staff wining to work on Saturday, which was often a heavy day. Maintenance was also more difficult, as only one vehicle off the road for servicing could seriously affect deliveries.
Mr. Francis commented on , a pilot study which has been made on the operation of Sopers' fleet. There was first the economic consideration of an annual coSt of £5,500, which represented approximately 2 per cent, of the cost of all items for delivery.
Technical considerations were complex. Delivery of goods was undoubtedly a service to the customer, actual or potentiaL.who might well judge a shop by such
standards. Conclusions were that the distance travelled for certain deliveries was not justified unless a future increase in sales was envisaged. The utilization of both driver and mate during delivery was poor, because comparatively few items required the attention of both.'
More Negotiating Councils Needed
THE wrong way of operating joint
negotiating committees was to be told of a decision and then to be expected to discuss it, declared Mr. F. Eastwood, a national secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union. The committee should first be presented with the problem and subsequently reach a decision. The unions had a responsibility to assist in increased productivity and they were not restrictive in their approach to labour problems. •
It was probably more difficultto get co-operation from transport workers, because of their greater independence, as compared with factory employees. There was a need for negotiating councils able to discUss wider problems' than could be done at a Wages Council. This was possible in some fields of C-licence operation, such as flour milling, petroleum and brick distribution, where Machinerywas available to deal with transport labour-problems.