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MULTITASK 1#41G
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Tim Maughan visits Bedfordshire Freight Services and sees that the firm's philosophy is to spread its fleet across a wide variety of jobs.
Modern business can be a fluid affair. Customers come and go, which means road transport operators need to adapt to any shortfalls.To weather change, says Tim Hobbs, managing director of Bedfordshire Freight Services (BFS). hauliers need to adopt a diversification programme.
In the eighties, Hobbs drove for his father's removals firm. In I 985 he left and set up his own transport company.
A battered hulk of a factory building stands near BFS's Bedford operating centre.The forlorn sight of empty factories is common across Britain, but the closure of this particular plant had massive ramifications for Hobbs. Some 60% of BFS's turnover used to be derived from this single customer, a car component manufacturer. Colin Circuit, general manager. explains: We carried the components to Solihull, Birmingham and Dagenham.The biggest volumes. I would say, would have been eight years ago.
"The components were carried in steel containers, either four feet by four, or eight feet by four, then put in our curtainsiders."
Multi-faceted
Four years ago,the factory closed its doors for the last time. "It was something that wound down very slowly," Circuit remembers. General haulage accounted for 40% of the remaining business. Hobbs went out to secure work, to make up for the dramatic shortfall. Today, BFS's customer base is multi-faceted.
The firm serves six chief customers, each distinct from the others. For 15 years, BFS's trucks have been transporting beer for a local brewery. "This week we've done 16 full curtainsider loads.The beer comes in kegs and cans, and it's all palletised," he explains.
Backloading opportunities are an integral part of the system. "A lot of the time we have to bring back the empties," he reports. The company used to handle the beer by itself,but now a large fleet operator has taken on the work and BFS subcontracts for the firm. Krupp-Canford, the car component manufacturer that ran the nearby factory, still operates from Cambridgeshire.Hobbs's vehicles drop their wares to Oxford and various other locations. BFS also transports computer parts for another big fleet operator.
The more Hobbs and Circuit talk about the company, the more they reveal about its policy of diversification.
The firm also hauls pharmaceuticals for a specialist medical fleet operator. -We do full loads for it," Circuit says. "The goods are put in box trailers. We do bulk haulage to the big supermarkets."
Beer, car parts. IT goods and pharmaceuticals are the four principal revenue streams. And there is a fifth: magazines, which are collected from a local printer and dispatched to wholesalers. Hobbs has also taken his firm into the pallet arena (see panel).
This is the sort of company where all the staff muck in." I look after the pallet work, vehicle maintenance and day-to-day running. As a company we all pull in together;everybody helps everybody else.This isn't a company where we say: that's your joh,you do it'."
Family concern Karl 1 lobbs," lint's son, is transport manager. "He joined the company when he left school," saysTim Hobbs."and he has learnt his job bit by bit."
Circuit has worked in road transport for 40 years. sufficient time to see trends come and go. He is a firm believer in pallet groups, in part because their supply lines are conduits for individual loads. "We've had problems getting small quantities in the trucks, so we knew this would be an ideal way to supply the customers, who want more flexibility."
Reliable trunking services are the core part of any pallet network, but volumes fluctuate. "There are times when you transport 40 pallets one day and 80 the next," Circuit continues.
If BFS's trunking route was longer, this could necessitate the mobilisation of two LGVs. But the short distance presents no problems. -It's only one hour and 15 minutes each way, so our driver can do two runs in one night," Circuit explains.
Hobbs's divide-and-rule policy means his fleet is never assigned too heavily to one particular line of work.He has seen at first hand how dedication to a single customer can threaten a business. "It's very important to diversify. I got involved with the car parts company, but this changed; it was frightening when the car parts wen t."
A rule of thumb, Hobbs says, is to avoid deploying more than 15% of your fleet to a single customer. He serves six chief customers: at most, then, this totals 90% of the business, the remainder being made up of ad hoc jobs. This balance is not always easy to maintain, he admits, because often there is a symbiotic relationship between the two parties. An operator can grow to service an expanding client hut that client may come a cropper, leaving the haulier with a redundant set of wheels and drivers.
Service and flexibility BFS specialises in assisting large fleets and Hobbs argues that transport firms like his will always have a place in the industry. "I've managed to give the service of an ownerdriver while having the flexibility of a midsized company."
Whatever you do, he finishes, limit the amount of work you do for an individual customer. 'it's far safer to have I 00 people out there who are each spending £1 ,000 with you. as opposed to two each spending f50,000." •