to them exactly what they were getting into so there were no surprises.” It wasn’t only the extremely bad smell that made these loads challenging. Caution was essential as the trailers used for transport were open at the top and covered only with a tarp, so sloshing was a big concern. “Our drivers had to be extra careful to ensure no spillage on the highway,” Moore explains. In addition, the drivers faced a 500-mile round trip on each run and long wait times loading and unloading. The total volume was about 10 to 12 loads per day. Because they were trying to prevent shutdowns, there was also constant pressure to get empty trailers back to the chicken plant on time. “We had to make sure our drivers were running their hours correctly because there always had to be an empty trailer at the plant to collect the waste,” Moore says. “Also, any delays that occurred during the trip, or while unloading, could end up causing a plant shutdown if we couldn’t get an empty trailer back on time.” If a driver ran out of hours, for instance, Syfan had to arrange for another driver to come and get that
Operating its own fleet of trucks, Syfan Logistics, which specializes in food, auto, and package delivery, maintains a 24/7 commitment to technology and communication.
Overall, this success story rests in the customer’s gained ability to “hit remote points in the Northeast overnight without needing the bricks- and-mortar infrastructure that some of their competitors have,” Luciani notes. “We can enable them to offer that same overnight service, but do it from one central location.” Truck drivers are notoriously tough, but even the most hard-core road dogs have limits on what they are willing to haul. So, it’s not surprising that a leading chicken producer was having a hard time nding drivers to transport loads of chicken waste from its poultry plant in Alabama to a rendering location in Mississippi. After a re burned down the company’s local chicken-rendering facility, it was left with this inconvenient out-of-state scenario. To make the situation more DON’T CHICKEN OUT ON TOUGH SHIPMENTS challenging, the chicken waste had to be hauled away constantly or the plant would have to shut down, so time was of the essence. The company turned to Syfan Logistics for help, given its long-standing reputation in the industry. The carrier got its start in the chicken business and poultry-hauling is still a mainstay of Syfan’s customer base. “Through our strong relationships and network, we were able to nd drivers who were willing to take on this work,” says Syfan’s Sean Moore. “We explained
A. Duie Pyle counts on communication and technology to prioritize oversized shipments and shipments with the longest length of haul in order to meet the customer’s tight deadlines. (Pyle will pick up as late as 9:30 p.m. for overnight delivery.) “The customer measures raw on-time service numbers, so if they give us 100 shipments, they expect 97 of them to be delivered overnight,” Luciani notes. The revamped loading and shipping setup also helps the carrier exceed expectations. “We drop trailers—40 in total—at the customer’s shipping facilities and they load them,” Luciani explains. “We swap these 40 trailers all day, but there’s a progression. As it gets closer to 6 p.m., they start to proactively communicate with us. They send bill- of-lading information so we know what shipment is loaded on what trailer.” This proactive communication helps Pyle with load planning for the longest lengths of haul. At that point, A. Duie Pyle pre-builds the shipments. “We dimension a majority of the outbound freight we handle,” Luciani says. “As a result, we have good density information and a strong understanding, from a cubic capacity perspective, of how much room we need on a particular trailer, based on historical data and the bill-of-lading information.” In addition, A. Duie Pyle operates 27 LTL service centers throughout the Northeast, so the company is able to consolidate shipments, based on the destination terminal, from its Allentown service center.
trailer and return it to the plant. To help ease the burden, Syfan brought in extra trailers from the
customer’s locations in Texas and made sure they always had a “fresh” extra driver (one with available hours) to wait at the rendering location in Mississippi in case another driver ran out of hours. Coordinating all of this was no easy feat. Though Syfan uses top-notch transportation technology, this was a case where a manual approach of “constant phone calls and texts” was more practical, Moore says. “We had the drivers on automated tracking, so we could constantly see their location, but putting all these puzzle pieces together 24/7 was more about person-to-person communication.” The two-way partnership between Syfan and the chicken company was key to success. “It was truly a team effort,” Moore says. n
194 Inbound Logistics • January 2023
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