Salvation for transportation woes: Decrease costs, prevent late deliveries

Are flat-glass transportation issues largely self-inflicted?

Participants in the Flat Glass Logistics Council, including four flat-glass manufacturers and three carriers, have pooled data to help readers understand how their business practices affect cost and availability of flat-glass transportation.

Look at demand

In a good year, slightly less than 100,000 truckloads of flat glass get hauled on specialized common carrier trucks. The hours-of-service rules for drivers of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of Washington, D.C., regulate all trucking, including that of flat glass. These rules are summarized at right.

FMCSA rules determine a driver’s workweek; the flat-glass shippers and carriers determine how this workweek is used. The table on p. 73 illustrates how a driver uses his or her time on an average glass trip.

Once the truck is unloaded, the driver can return empty to pick up a second load or pick up a return load to generate revenue to cover part of the trip.

If the truck returns empty to the origin for a second load, it takes about 13 hours for the return trip: 11 driving and two for fueling, eating and bathroom breaks. Thus, with 20 hours for the front haul and 13 hours for the return, it takes 33 hours for a round trip. A second load can be made before the 70 weekly on-duty hours are over.

If the carrier transports a back haul, this phase will typically take 21 hours.

Thus, for an average trip, it takes 33 hours with no back haul or 41 hours to make a back haul.

Search for more efficiency

These data reflect ideal situations with no waiting or scheduling time. It is difficult to change the driving time or personal time for the driver. Yet loading time, nonproductive waiting time and time required to schedule drivers and equipment can be changed.

Loading time can be reduced in two ways: First, at major sites, the carrier and shipper preload the trailers. When the driver arrives, they simply drop the empty trailer and hook up a loaded trailer. This reduces driver turnaround time from 3.5 hours to 30 minutes. This reduces the dead-head round trip to 30 hours and the back haul to 38. If the same process could be used at the back-haul site, then the time would be decreased to 35 hours, so that two back hauls could be made each week by the same driver. It does, however, require investment in additional trailers for staging at the loading sites.

Second, dock procedures can be refined. David Smith, logistics manager at Guardian Industries Inc.’s plant in Corsicana, Texas, has implemented a dock-scheduling software tool and developed a bar to facilitate the placement of the tarp on the loaded trailer. He has reduced loading time from 3.5 hours to two hours on a routine basis. The spreader bar dramatically reduces the time required to place the 135-pound tarp over the load of glass. Also, recognizing that it becomes easy for “work to fill the time available,” Smith has a dock-scheduler package that allows management of dock activity. This package allows two hours to bring the trailer in, load and secure the glass and get the trailer out. The plant workers consistently meet this schedule.

Third, nonproductive waiting time can be avoided. Customers currently request 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. deliveries in 85 percent of the cases. That means deliveries that arrive during the other 20 hours of the day have to wait to be unloaded by receivers. In addition, 47 percent of customers only want delivery on Monday or Friday. When customers restrict delivery of glass to eight hours per week—from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Monday and Friday—the drivers spend much of their workweek waiting. Some carriers report two- to 16-hour waits. With cell phones, global positioning systems and other communication methods, it is not difficult for drivers to notify receivers of expected arrival time five to 10 hours in advance so they can be unloaded when they arrive. The typical driver now has to wait an average of two hours on each trip until the receiver clears them to unload.

In addition to limiting days and times when deliveries can be made, many customers make drivers wait for hours after arriving before they position the trailers and have them unloaded. The average wait time is two hours, with some running as high as 10 hours. Often, large receivers will load their local trucks before off-loading over-the-road carriers. It is not unusual for drivers to spend as much time waiting to load and unload as they do driving. Claude Robert, president of Robert Transport in Boucherville, Quebec, Canada, who operates a fleet of 1,150 trucks in Canada, says that glass remains one of the few industries in which a receiver can delay a truck for five to 10 hours and managers get belligerent when asked to pay for the waiting time.

A third area of nonproductive waiting times, of three to five hours or more, occurs when crossing Canadian or Mexican borders. It is not unusual to incur the wait for customs clearance unless the shipper, carrier and driver have become certified in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program of the U.S. Customs. If each is certified, they can use the FAST, or Free and Secure Trade, lane and have virtually 100 percent electronic customs clearance. Any truck using FAST lane processing must be a C-TPAT approved carrier, carrying qualifying goods from a C-TPAT approved importer, and the driver must have a valid FAST Commercial Driver Registration card. By becoming certified, border crossing can be accomplished in minutes instead of hours. Certification can also speed up non-Canadian and Mexican export clearances. For more information, visit the U.S. Customs and Border Protection site at www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/commercial_enforcement/ctpat/fast.   

Finally, lack of scheduling creates waste. Carriers report that 50-to-60 percent of shippers want pickup the same day they request the service. If carriers have advance notice of shipments, they can effectively plan loads so the truck will be available when and where shippers request. If carriers only have two or three hours notice, they have no time to optimize truck and driver routes and schedules.

Trucks have to be staged where the carriers forecast they will be needed. If a truck is staged for shipper A but receives a call from shipper B 200 miles away, the truck will be dispatched to make the pickup. When shipper A calls 30 minutes later requesting a truck, the carrier will again have to dispatch the nearest noncommitted truck, which might be several hundred miles away. If carriers have four-day advance notices, they can schedule trucks more effectively.

Why are trucks expected to pick up loads the same day the order is received? The answer is simple. There are many delays built into the traditional ordering system. First, most glass customers check inventories on a periodic basis, such as at 10 a.m. every Friday. By the time the shipper compiles the inventory, determines replacement needs, creates the purchase order and calls in the order, hours and even days pass. Forty percent fax, 52 percent telephone and 2 percent mail their orders. By the time orders are received and entered into computers, inventory is checked and orders are processed, additional time elapses before they reach the carrier. Nine percent of customers typically request same-day shipment, and 45 percent, next-business-day shipment. Shippers get the transportation request to carriers in 24 hours 68 percent of the time.

Current industry ordering processes have serious delays built in. Nevertheless, managers expect quick response from carriers. Until customers revise their ordering processes to give carriers more lead time, they can expect capacity shortages and high costs.

What is the impact of current business practices on the flat-glass industry? The industry is very stable. If the percentage of orders by month is used to predict loads in a 100,000-load year, demand will range from 7,700 loads in February and December to 9,400 loads in June.

Since equipment and drivers are so specialized, capacity is closely synchronized to flat-glass demand. When demand increases slightly, delayed shipments occur. This is especially true since shippers typically keep private fleets busy during low-demand seasons and the common carriers are left to cope with virtually all of the variation in demand. In June, when demand is approximately 1,700 shipments higher than February, it is not unusual to have 4 percent of the loads late, with the cumulative equipment shortfall carrying over into July.

Carriers’ perspective

Carriers invest $75,000 to $85,000 for a tractor and from $35,000 to $85,000 for a trailer. To retain senior drivers who know how to work with glass, carriers need to pay between $45,000 and $55,000 per year. The carrier and driver earn money by hauling, not waiting. If a customer can provide loads where the driver can work 70 on-duty hours in five days and drive 55 of these at the rate of 11 hours per day, the carrier will price transportation to pay the driver and cover the cost of operating the equipment.
Ideally:

Rate ($ per mile)=

driver compensation + equipment operating cost

55 hours x  safe average driving speed

Some driver hours do not generate revenue, such as load checking, loading and unloading. To the degree that nonproductive overhead hours creep upward as a result of the problems cited, transportation rates must be based on revenue hours rather than total hours. In the glass industry, it is not unusual for nonrevenue hours to be less than one-third or one-fourth of total hours. Therefore, carriers must keep careful history and base future rate negotiations on actual revenue miles operated. If shippers and receivers want to decrease rates and prevent late deliveries, they will focus on making glass transportation more efficient by eliminating unnecessary delays.

Drivers are sensitive to another factor. They want predictable, regular time at home in blocks large enough to do something besides sleep. When drivers spend off-duty time at truck stops, turnover rates soar and recruiting and training cost skyrocket. When they spend off-duty time at home, these cost are only 4 percent as much. Advance schedules allow drivers to spend more time at home.

Flat-glass transport, high art

Specialized glass carriage requires special equipment not used to haul any other commodity. True, it can be jerry-rigged for back hauls, but it is designed for large packs of flat glass. The total cost of operating these trucks will be borne by the flat-glass industry unless back hauls can be arranged. Transportation rates are very sensitive to driver delays.

Some customers say that they need to have several days’ notice to schedule unloading at their docks, but expect carriers to provide trucks and drivers with two hours’ notice. Carriers’ operating efficiency goes up dramatically as their advance notification approaches four days. This enables them to assign trips so that a truck will be available when and where needed to make the shipment with a minimum of dead-heading and waiting. If enough members of the industry choose to keep this capacity waiting instead of transporting glass, flat-glass transportation will continue to be an issue. See below for six ways that you and your company can proactively strive to reduce the high cost and length of time to transport flat glass.

The objective of this article has been to open the lines of communication across the glass supply chain and to identify methods to streamline the transportation process. Many who are part of the flat-glass supply chain are quick to criticize the current system when they are negatively affected by inefficiencies. Shippers, carriers and receivers must collaborate to reduce inefficiencies and benefit from lower rates and improved service.

Visit www.FGLC.com and see how you can get involved.

Take action
If you, as a member of the glass industry, want to minimize transportation cost and shortages, you should:

·        Be more flexible on when you receive glass and not limit deliveries to 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday and Friday

·        Develop dock management procedures to reduce loading time to no more than two hours per truck

·        Preload trailers so drivers can spend 30 minutes to drop and hook trailers instead of 3.5 hours loading and tarping

·        Coordinate with carriers so dock workers are ready to unload when the trailer arrives

·        Become certified to minimize border- crossing time

·        Develop modern ordering procedures such as vendor managed inventory so carriers can have more notice on shipments. The goal is to provide carriers 72 to 96 hours notice of trips.