One Full Week

One Full Week

Because of the type of freight we normally haul, we usually only do about two loads per week. This week, however, we are doing four loads. Mother Nature is making travel very interesting as well. With careful planning and solid communication the week should work out just fine. But what if all the planning and communication in the world cannot prepare us for a mechanical failure or weather that closes roads? What would we do then? Let's talk about alternatives.

While we do not have much room for surprises, we still do have some wiggle room. Each of the loads that we are doing this week are not even 1,000 miles. For a team like us we normally plan on driving a total of 1,200 miles in a 24 hour period or 600 miles per driver. The way we calculate how long it will take us to get 1,000 miles is to multiply the miles by 50 miles per hour. In this case, it would take us 20 hours to go from our pick up to our delivery. This does not mean that we drive 50 mph the entire trip. This does account for times we need to stop in order to take a break, get fuel or switch drivers. This also can account for slower traffic due to construction, and accident or inclement weather.

What about when the truck breaks down. We have been in this unfortunate circumstance a time or two. Fortunately, the customer was very understanding in most cases and the shop was very accommodating as well. While we do try to carry some parts with us, we cannot carry every part with us. In one situation, we had a sensor go out on the truck. We were lucky to have the part with us as the shop did not have one in stock. Without carrying the part we would have missed our delivery by at least a day. Because we had the part with us the shop was able to get us up and running in a few hours and we were able to make our delivery on time. In a different case, we were down for several days. We ended up making the delivery a week late. Again, we were lucky to have a very understanding customer. In each of these situations there is only so much planning we can do. By keeping in close communication with our customers we are able to help all parties involved make the best decisions possible under any circumstance.

Here's to millions of safe, profitable and PLANNED miles.

Kelly Plumb