The 1980's American political strategist, Lee Atwater, coined the phrase: "Perception is reality" and nothing could be truer when it comes to size: Ben Nevis' North Face is huge until you see the threatening countenance of the Matterhorn; BMW's Mini is a small car unless, like me and Michael Caine, you're old enough to remember the original!
So, when it comes to consignments of palletised goods, what do you perceive as a small consignment and what is a medium or large consignment? What do you perceive to be a "Pallet Network" consignment and, most importantly, at what point do you and/or your haulier consider a consignment "large" enough to be delivered as a grouped load? Does it really matter??
In answer to that last question, here are three sound reasons why we should answer with a rather large "YES":
- Although our Palletline Network has industry-leading quality control, if your goods are delivered on our fleet, they avoid multiple transshipments from collection to delivery
- Even though Palletline is an extremely cost-effective service, by grouping your consignment with others and delivering direct, we can have more flexibility with charges
- Palletline leads the way with its robust and closely-monitored suite of KPI's but there's typically a 1-2% improvement in OTIF (On Time In Full) when we deliver on our own fleet-a small percentage but a big impression to make on your customers.
Here at Welch's, our experienced planning team keeps an active and open mind, always striving to see the bigger picture. Instead of falling into the easy trap of convenience by fixedly defining any consignment by its number of pallets, we do whatever we can with our mix of rigid vehicles (7.5 tonne, 18 tonne, 26 tonne) and artics and their daily routes to accomodate grouped deliveries as frequently and consistently as possible so that more of our customers enjoy the benefits described above.
But could this just be small-talk!? Not so - here's a small selection of some big numbers from Henlow depot's top four customers' 2017 mix of network and own fleet deliveries - evidence indeed of our compeitive edge and proof that sometimes it's the smaller attention to detail which offers you and your customers the bigger reward:
For more information on Welch's Transport and the services we offer, Contact Us today!