Mismanagement of trailer pools is the number one reason for too much downtime for truckers, deliveries running late and unhappy customers. When you can make sure the right trailer is empty on the inbound side and the right freight is loaded on the outbound side for all points in the shipment process, you can create a smooth carrier process. This will guarantee products make it from their origin to their destination with the least amount of difficulty. It becomes especially important when you are working with a network of carriers.
Managing Trailer Pools by Increasing Carrier Networks
While many trailer pools operate on the idea that less is more when it comes to carriers, the opposite can be true when you are working with density. When you have more carriers in the network, you are sure there is an increase in efficiency of the number of loads that can be going out at the same time. Oftentimes adding additional networks of carriers will also decrease the overall cost. This will, in turn, be reflected in the cost to the shipper as well. The way to measure what is best is to determine the production cycle of the shipper, including any random variations that might occur, and seeing where there is room to make adjustments. An example of this would be to hold partial shipments for a day or two and consolidate them into larger shipments.
Managing Trailer Pools with Combined Value Auction Principles
When you allow shippers and carriers in your network to bid on packages of lanes, greater density can be achieved, which will allow carriers to operate at full capacity and will decrease cost to shippers. This does require providing visibility into a shipper’s network. However, the savings and density efficiencies are well worth the transparency when all shippers can save money and carriers can make more money. This creates winning propositions all the way around.
When you start managing trailer pools by increasing your network of carriers and working under combined value auction principles, you will see how more products are shipped efficiently and in a way that is cost effective. Carriers in the network will perform better because they know they will be operating at full efficiency. While this has proven to be a successful business model, you do need to make sure you don’t add too many carriers to a single pool because the organization can easily become confused.
