Route Deliveries

Route Deliveries

Route Deliveries

An important aspect of pallet control is managing route deliveries.  This is usually where a site despatches product to trading partners using local route trucks.  Quite often the destination points are small outlets who do not operate pallet accounts.  The local trucks used for these deliveries can be:
  1. A fleet owned and operated by the sender.
  2. Individual contractors.
  3. A fleet provided by a carrier.
  4. A fleet provided by a freight broker.
  5. A combination of the above.
Controlling pallets delivered by these fleets is difficult due to the following:
  1. There could be a large number of trucks and a high number of delivery drops.
  2. There could be time pressures to get the trucks despatched.
  3. Drivers may load their own trucks.
  4. Some destination points could operate pallet accounts whilst others do not.
  5. There may not be enough resources to check pallets on and off trucks.
  6. Agency drivers may be used who have no knowledge of pallet control procedures.

Route Delivery Policy

A key requirement for controlling route deliveries is to have a clear policy for route deliveries.  The policy could state that if the receiver does not operate a pallet account and there are no pallets to exchange then the following could come into play:
  1. The pallets are not dropped off.
  2. Hand unloading may be an option but there could be occupational health issues with this.
  3. Plain, disposable pallets could be used.
  4. Pallets could be dropped off and an IOU raised.  If future collection attempts are unsuccessful then the pallets could be transferred back to the sender.
  5. If an outside carrier is used then pallets could be transferred to the carrier who can then either dehire the returns off their account or return them to the sender site and raise a transfer for the pallets returned.

Route Delivery and PalletWatch

Consideration should be given as to what gets entered into PalletWatch.  Some options are:
  1. Raise a Non Hire Move Off for all pallets despatched and either edit the docket for pallets returned or raise a Non Hire Move On for the returns.
  2. Enter movements only by exception.  Run sheets could be used to record pallets despatched and when the driver returns the runsheet should be checked against physical pallets returned,  The driver should have either empty pallets, transfers raised to receivers or IOUs to equal the number of pallets despatched. The PalletWatch user would enter details in PalletWatch only if the returned pallets do not match the despatched pallets.
  3. If the policy is that pallets can be dropped off if there are no pallets available to exchange then the driver must be equipped with an IOU book or PalletWatch's Partial Dockets can be used.  The driver may also have to have handwritten pallet docket books to enable transfers to be raised.

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