TRANSPORT MANAGEMENT
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pUTTING theory into practice is generally recognized as a difficult exercise. But the difficulty of doing what is virtually the reverse, namely putting practice into a textbook, is seldom realized. Where it concerns transport operation it is doubly difficult because the service this industry can provide is extremely flexible, and the standards by which its efficiency can be measured are not as readily quantifiable as those in other industries.
These, together with other reasons, are basic causes for a dearth of good textbooks on transport management. Those not making the grade tend to be either too facile or too academically obtuse and patently remote from the loading bank or workshop floor.
Because of this shortage of practical yet knowledgeable textbooks on transport management I have considered it opportune to review at length a book just published by the education department of the Co-operative Union Ltd. The editor is Mr. R. J. Eaton, who, after experience in road, rail, passenger and goods transPort, is now concerned in con'sultancy work including feasibility studies. In his preface he recognizes the considerable assistance given by members of the National Co-operative. Traffic Managers Association who have provided individual contributions.
Copies of this book are obtainable from the Publications Department, Co-operative Union Ltd., Holyoake House, Hanover Street, Manchester 4, price 30s., or 31s. 2d., postage paid. As its title indicates it is primarily intended for managers and potential managers of co-operative transport departments. It provides a general background to transport theory, practice and techniques which will be of direct service to co-operative societies. But because this aspect of transport is directly related to retail distribution, this book could be of assistance to many transport departments outside the co-operative movement.
At the outset Mr. Eaton contests the popular conception that a transport department, because it is a service department, is concerned only with spending. This, he maintains, is a shallow view. Trading departments invest in capital, labour and material to produce a profit. A transport department invests similarly to provide standards of vehicle service higher than could be obtained either by hiring or if, for example, various trading departments were individually responsible for their own transport services. Economy or profit, though different terms, have the same effect in the accounts when the overall balance sheets of a society is compiled.
The main section of the book is in two parts "Transport Management In Theory and Practice" and "Tools of Management". The appendix includes a build-up of transport costing, together with a bibliography, glossary and index.
The first chapter is devoted to the Co-operative movement and its distinguishing features including the relationship between retail, wholesale and federal societies and the Co-operative Union. Indicative of the scale of transport services required, within the co-operative movement there.are 13m. members of retail societies whose trade exceeds £1,000m. annually.
The importance of regularity
In stressing the importance of a transport department Mr. Eaton emphasizes that it is indispensable to commerce and industry and shows that, in the distribution of goods, place utility and time utility are of the utmost importance in the provision of transport.
A feature of major importance in distribution is the regularity of everyday services and this, Mr. Eaton claims, can best be obtained where the operation of transport involved can be channelled through a single uniform control. The driver-salesman has become an integral part of the retail distributive system and it is the transport department that so importantly links the trading departments. Likewise it is the transport manager who knits together the necessary organization.
Contrasting productivity as applied to manufacture, Mr. Eaton points out that in transport operation close supervision is impossible. A driver has to be trusted to operate his vehicle to the maximum and give personal service in relation to it. Productivity of the vehicle is therefore tied to productivity of its driver.
Concerning efficiency of delivery rounds, Mr. Eaton considers it advisable for a manager or someone delegated by him to run over the ground at frequent intervals, especially in these days of constant road and other developments.
But before any step is taken to supply new methods or practices it is advisable for the manager to take the staff concerned into his confidence. He should explain' what has started the whole exercise, what is regarded as a possible solution and a probable date of commencing any change. Moreover the experimental nature of the change should be stressed so as to facilitate any subsequent alterations in procedure should the initial result show these to be necessary.
In a chapter on the transport manager's job, Mr. Eaton claims that the quality of management is as important as wages. What a worker feels about something is just as important as the facts. The intangible factor of attitude is more important than the actual conditions of work. Dissatisfaction stored up over a long period will be dissipated when good quality management is in evidence. On delegation of duties Mr. Eaton records that, there must be a compromise between acceptance by a transport manager of full responsibility for all that goes on in his department and recognition that he cannot continuously and personally be managing every single item within it. In effecting such a compromise the manager must restrict his personal effort to a point well within his physical limits and, by design, reserve some of his time for dealing with the unpredictable. It was thoroughly bad, Mr. Eaton, claims, for anyone in management to have no margin available for the extra job. There were good reasons for delegating certain duties and such an arrangement invites reciprocal trust between the manager and those to whom responsibility was delegated.
In any textbook there is always a difficulty of trying to avoid writing above the comprehension of the majority of readers for whom it is intended or alternatively repeatedly stating either the self-evident or irrelevant. In the chapter on the siting and layout of a transport department I feel the author falls into the latter error when he informs us that there is never the same satisfaction in adapting existing buildings as there is in the laying-out of a new place, yet to be built, on a highly suitable and extensive site.
Regarding the size of a site it is recommended that there should be a large manipulating area. In retail work, Mr. Eaton reminds his readers, there are usually two definite streams of traffic—first outwards and then returning in the afternoon or evening. As a result maximum movement occurs twice a day when it is both concentrated and intensive. No business can afford to lose time, he continues, through vehicles having to wait while others are moved out of the way.
The ideal flow
A relative subject is the theory of flow and its effect on efficient operation. It is recommended that a circular route within a transport department should apply, in preference to an up and down movement, so that other traffic can infiltrate into the rotation and no one stream need impede another. It follows that the ideal flow will describe an elliptical shape with traffic leaving it by peeling off outwards and so not fouling any other flow lane.
Subsequent chapters deal with control of equipment and spares, vehicle selection and maintenance together with personnel selection and supervision. The importance of the induction of a new employee into a department is rightly stressed, the type of information that should be given to him and the factors that contribute to his satisfaction in his work are listed.
Understandably the chapter on transport law basically indicates the source and scope of the many regulations which affect road transport operation, rather than giving a detailed exposition of them.
Goods vehicle operation with particular reference to retail distribution is examined in a further chapter. The possibility of applying the principle of "one to several" is explained, for example by using a tractive unit to put on location mobile shops based on semi-trailers rather than have allegedly mobile shops immobile for the best part of the day. A similar principle can apply when delivery rounds are operated far from the central base. Then a single replenishment vehicle can restock the round delivery vehicles as required.
Because of the wide scope of transport requirements within the Co-operative movement there is a subsequent chapter on passenger service operation.
Operational controls, records, costing and charging are examined in two subsequent chapters while an explanatory diagram together with a specimen set of suitable forms are included in the appendix.
In dealing with the allocation of establishing costs, Mr. Eaton rightly doubts the validity of a method of apportionment solely on the basis of carrying capacity. The allocation of departmental charges as between direct and indirect methods is also analysed.
In an endeavour to keep up with the progress in the transport industry, the value of professional institutes, trade associations and technical journals is acknowledged. In part two of this book, under the heading of "Tools of management" organization and methods together with work study are analysed.
Overall, therefore, this new 135-page book on transport management can be recommended for those concerned with retail distribution and C-licence operation although much of its contents have a wider application.