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Hauliers want to keep their clients happy, but if you

9th December 1999
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

don't try hard enough the customer can walk away. Ipswich-based PTS has invested in state-of-the-art accommodation aimed at enhancing its distribution service. Such projects are not cheap—but the men behind the company firmly believe that if you provide the facilities you will reap the financial benefits...

• When PTS was founded in 1980 it took care of customs clearance, distribution and back-loading the trailers and vehicles, mostly using subcontractors.

But in 1986 the Swedish company Persson Transport and Shipping went into liquidation and PTS UK became a UK-owned operation when Robert Gaunt and Gary MeIse, along with fellow directors Mark Merritt (IT boffin) and David Waugh (sales), bought tout.

By now the company had moved into warehousing, had acquired a couple of vans for distribution duties, and was also running its own trailers out of a new depot in Ipswich.

Some former employees of the Swedish operation had formed a new organisation in Gothenburg and PTS UK worked with that for about two years until "they went off and dld a deal with another forwarding agent who they thought was the best thing since sliced bread," says Gaunt.

Then Anders Jansson, former member of the Swedish arm of PTS, formed Speed Cargo, which became and still is PTS UK's Swedish partner. t's hard to imagine, but in the early 1980s TV soap Emmerdale Farm was very big in Sweden. This resulted in a healthy trade in English reproduction country furniture and PTS UK was doing a nice number in arranging back-loads for up to ro trucks a weekend plying their trade to the Scandinavians. Robert Gaunt and Gary Melsa founded the company at Felixstowe docks to service the UK end of Swedish company Persson Transport & Shipping's trailer operation. After many changes, caused mainly by events at the Swedish end (see From the Start, left), PTS now operates 85 trailers, mostly tilts, on the Swedish run. The trailers ply back and forth, non-stop through Harwich, Parkeston Quay and lmmingharn, South Humberside, where the company has an office, warehouse and distribution operation. This mirrors the Ipswich set-up where it currently operates a 3,7oom2 warehouse. The company handles 0 container unstuffing and operates an "enhanced remote transit shed" which in effect is an inland clearance depot. Containers are moved, under bond, out of Felixstowe dock, are unloaded and Customs clearance is handled remotely by computer link at the PTS depot

"The advantage of this is that if a couple of items in a groupage container are delayed through Customs, the entire load isn't held up as it would be if the clearance was taking place at the docks," Gaunt explains.

The Ipswich warehouse also includes dedicated food storage for imported products from the US and Sweden as well as a heated pharmaceutical store.

Gaunt is proud of the fact that the company offers its clients a complete service. "Anyone can move a trailer load from A to B but what we look at is total packages for our clients," he says.

Three-pronged

The pharmaceutical operation is a case in point. The pharmaceuticals are shipped in from South Africa and stored and distributed around the UK by PTS. Once they are refined and packed, PTS ships them out to Scandinavia. "It's a three-pronged attack," says Gaunt. "On the food side the containers come through Felixstowe, we shunt them, unpack them, store them and distribute them. Most of it is taken out of the container, palletised and distributed. That again is a total package.

"We're a one-stop shop," he adds. "We own the trucks, the trailers, the warehouse, have our own drivers and do our own distribution."

PTS also operates a parcels service out of its Ipswich depot. "We wanted to be able to offer our clients a next-day service for small packages," says Gaunt. "But we found that other carriers were letting us down. The opportunity arose to take over the IP postcode and we thought we would give it a whirl."

The company markets it separately and it's proving successful, says Gaunt, who operates five dedicated vans on the parcels distribution and collection work as well as a night trunker.

The fleet is mostly Volvo and Scania but PTS also has a Mercedes-Benz Actros that it acquired in January. About 40% of the tilt trailers are Hucke Packe intermodal design so they can take to the rails in Sweden where there are no height restrictions. But the bridges and tunnels in the UK are no good for this, says Gaunt

The company's Immingham operation is run by Chris Hunt, who manages the purpose-built 1,400m2 warehouse that was opened 18 months ago. PTS started operations there about six years ago as Immingham began to grow into the leading shipping port for Scandinavian RO-RO services, with daily sailings to Sweden.

Next-day

The company has a contract for the storage and distribution of coated paper on reels and pallets for a Swedish mill. It will handle about 12,000 tonnes of paper this year, says Gaunt, who offers the mill a next-day delivery service throughout the UK. The depot also handles groupage, part loads and machinery. The bulk of the paper business is run into the East Midlands and the contract has been running for eight months.

Gaunt believes that respect grows from providing a high-quality service. "Everything we do, we do professionally," he says. "At Immingham it would have been easy for us to rent an old shed but we didn't want that, we wanted a good-quality operation, so the only way we could do that is buy a piece of land and build. We now have a facility that stands out and we're proud of it.

It's a high-profile building in an industrial area and it puts us in good stead because it's something that we are proud to take customers to," he explains. "We probably would not have got the paper contract if we had been in an old tin hut."

PTS spent koo,000 on this showpiece at Immingham but this is just the beginning. "We see Immingham as a big growth area for us. We have 1,4,00m2 on a large plot and that's not going to be empty for ever," says Gaunt. "We're looking at niche markets and we're never afraid to invest. If a customer comes along with an idea or wants something then we're prepared to put our money where our mouth is in terms of providing what the customer wants. There has to be a commitment from both sides.

"We have gone from two to 65 people in 20 years," he concludes. "That's not spectacular, but what we have achieved is steady, consistent, controlled growth— and we still make money."

• by Paul Newman

FACTFILE PTS UK

BASED Ipswich.

FOUNDED 1980, Trelawny House, Felixstowe docks.

CONTACT Robert Gaunt or David Waugh.

FLEET 31 vehicles, ranging from lveco Daily

vans up to 41-tonners: mostly Volvo and Scam. Latest purchases: MercedesBenz Actros, January 1999 with a Volvo FH12 on order for delivery in January 2000. Buys new.


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