From the original post...
I heard a guy say thurs.night that the mon. meeting is about the tractors(old tractors are staying on the long runs) i heard him say that two terminals are closing maybe more(Greenville,wherever that is and someplace in kentucky,a T.M. let that slip) and also were going to start rebuilding old tractors instead of buying new dont know how much or if any of this is based on fact,just wanted to share!
As we are coming down to the wire...from everything I have able to determine from here and info I have gleaned from other sources this meeting/video is mainly a linehaul thing.
My best guess is the company wide conversion to 70/hr logs.
There are several reasons I believe this may be true. First and foremost Con-Way and every other LTL carrier out there is gearing up for someone to go belly up. This is not being cruel it is just a fact of the current business environment. Too much capacity is the pre-eminent problem all LTL carriers are facing today. Until such a time as some carrier ceases operations this capacity problem will continue.
But it cannot continue forever. There are some carriers in serious trouble and the cash is growing short. Banks may not be very receptive to loaning carriers money for continuing operations given this over capacity. Hence the old tired and worn out saying "we must be our own bank". If this turns out to be the case then I will admit the genious of the foresight our 'leaders' have demonstrated in the perception of the markets future when this was so wonderfully introduced April last.
If this isn't the case then they can continue to kiss my
Secondly, there was some mention of sub-service vans being on the upswing. There will always be sub-service (or whatever you wish to call it) in the LTL business. It is now and will forever continue to be part of our world. It solves certain problems and is much cheaper than us in certain applications.
There is however a small caveat in that line of thinking. And that problem is availability. TL carriers are going to interline with us and others as a last resort. I am sure the LTL freight market price wise is 'bottom feeding' for the TL carriers. CWTL recently introduced a 'regional' service'...550 miles or less cutomer to customer. As their leaders put it..."the regional business does well even in times of econmic downturns"...or something similar.
More and more TL carriers are increasingly performing additional LTL style deliveries...utilizing the capacity of their available equipment. This is undoubtedly more profitable than hauling ours (and others) LTL interlined freight.
As things continue to get better the availablility of sub-service equipment is going to get more and more scarce. It does nothing for the company, for the most part at least, for CWTL to sub-service our freight. They are a profit center in their own right. If they are hauling freight for their own customers they are contributing to the bottom line...otherwise they are little more than a liability in the grand scope of things.
So what to do?...
The simple answer is to haul (and ultimately control) our own freight.
Under the current methodology this isn't going to work. Our LHers working just five days per week ain't going to get the job done...especially if one considers the imminent demise of some carrier in the LTL business.
(For you conspiracy theorists...I am not referring to YRC!)
The one thing that has been a problem in the last three to six months is all the vias and MT miles we are losing money on. This practice must cease. It is detrimental, certainly not cost effective and a waste of money and resources.
So the question remains...how to fix the problem?...I have ranted about this for months...there are going to be changes in the LH operation!...just common sense and observation of the industry.
Where is the one place in our operation to play 'catch up' if not the weekends? We can move freight anywhere we so desire and assist in the service requiements our customer's demand over the course of the two days where no one is doing business as usual.
Here are some thoughts on tommorows meeting/video...
70 hours logs (which I mentioned earlier)
Lay down runs...(Bigfoot do you still love me?)...
Drum roll please!!!!!
System runs...running wild...or whatever one may wish to call it. Being on the road for days at a time....many other carriers are doing it...some are not..but the problem at hand it moving the freight with the available resources at hand. Some of those resources as I have mentioned may become scarce...and I cannot see Con-Way waiting for the other shoe to drop before addressing the problem....
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