Loading claim free freight in 2007? It's time for teaching, not consequences.
We were all taught how to tie our shoes. Result? Information we have "owned" since preschool, and will always own. We were first told that tied shoes made our feet feel better and lessened the chance of tripping over those laces ... then we were carefully shown how to tie those laces ... and finally we were supervised as we tied our own laces.
If Con-Way were teaching a class on shoe tying, they would pull out the stop watch and calculator and focus only on the goal of completion of your shoe tying. And, they would have an exit poll for the class. This poll should collect information as to how well everyone learned how to load. Instead here at our place they would calculate how many people they put through the class and try to determine how to put more through next class.
Adults remember 10% of what they are told, 60% of what they are shown, but if you do something with that adult, they will remember 90%.
We will never defeat the monster we know as damaged freight until we choose quality over quantity. Not a quantity of space, but a quantity of time. Reship supervision is all about time and today. Mentoring is all about building an understanding of fundamental principals and the foundation of the future. This is a timely process that contradicts everything that is linehaul and reship.
But answer me this, how many FOM's and FOS's really know what the freight they are loading looks like when it arrives? I think it's the lack of experience of our supervision playing a large role in this problem. Every action has a reaction, and every cause has an effect. PRIDE and forced loading have produced great productivity numbers for reship. But in the "circle of life" of Con-Way, what has been the effect of reship loading practices on the rest of our operation? Who is tracking the time spent to recoup the damages from these trailers? Heavy on light and using something as bottom freight that the customer NEVER intended to be subjected to our system are the two largest claim issues I see.
How much of a difference would it make if...
a) the drivers worked together to complete the loads (teamwork and mentoring)
b) the primary focus (notice I said primary) of reship was redirected from an elapsed time issue to a quality issue
Maybe we are looking at this problem backwards. Instead of watching outdated training tapes, maybe we should produce a tape of our operation. Then we can distribute this to all of our customers and require them to package the freight to survive a ride with Con-Way.
