The Freight Doctor

One good question I like to give people to ask about with whom they should choose as a their freightbroker or 3pl company is, “Do you use major freight carriers?” If the company you are working with uses major trucking lines, such as Yellow, Saia, Con-Way, Estes, ABF to name but a few, then you should be comfortable working with the freight broker or 3pl. This is because these trucking companies are huge operations with great tracking systems of your freight when in transit and chances are, even in this down economy, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Also, if the logistics company has accounts with these trucking companies or similar sized trucking outfits, they probably move a lot of freight with them. How does this help you? Well, if they move a lot of freight, then they’ve probably been able to negotiate and justify to these large trucking companies for amazingly cheap shipping rates. They’ve probably also negotiated having an FAK which means better rates for you. You, as Joe Customer, will not be able to come in off the street and demand the best rates with little to no volume and no track record. If the freight broker or 3pl has been around for awhile they’ve done all the hard work in getting freight rates down so all you have to do is swoop in and take advantage of their great rates. It’s just up to you to shop around and find the best freight quote!

Con-way Inc. is a publically traded $4.7 billion freight transportation and logistics services company based out of the Northern California San Francisco Bay Area in the city of San Mateo, California. FORTUNE magazine’s named Con-Way “Most Admired Company in transportation and logistics for 2007″, Con-way has several primary operating companies:

• Con-way Freight
• CFI
• Con-way Truckload
• Menlo Worldwide Logistics

These operating branches of Con-Way provide high-performance, day-definite less-than-truckload (LTL), full truckload and intermodal freight transportation; logistics, warehousing and supply chain management services; and trailer manufacturing. Con-way Inc. and its subsidiaries operate out of more than 500 operating locations across North America as well in 17 countries across five continents.

Con-way Inc. can be traced back to the year 1929 when Leland James, formed a small regional trucking company in Portland, Oregon, known at that time as Consolidated Truck Lines. Through expansion and acquisition over the years the company flourished, and it was decided that it be renamed Consolidated Freightways or CF.

During the deregulation period of the late 1970’s, Con-way met pressures from oil embargos and union labor costs by taking this opportunity to expand its business to include air freight and trailer manufacturing.

Over the decades, James’ company experienced many changes, most notably when, in 1983, Con-way Transportation Services was founded.

2008 marks Con-Way’s 25th Anniversary in business as an LTL freight carrier.

Here are some facts about Con-way Freight:

• Global operations in 17 countries across 5 continents
• A network of 460 operating locations across North America
• More than 27,000 highly trained personnel
• Con-way Freight — Local, regional, transcontinental LTL transportation services
• Menlo Worldwide Logistics — Designs, implements and manages supply chain solutions, including logistics and transportation management, and warehousing and distribution
• Con-way Truckload and CFI — A network of full truckload services across the U.S. and Canada

For more information visit Con-way Freight at:
con-way.com

Occasionally, when working with freight carriers and trucking companies, your shipment may get lost somewhere along the way. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this happens all the time, it isn’t an uncommon occurance. If you happen to be misfortunate enough to experience having your shipment being lost, here’s what you should know:

If your freight never shows up that means that it could have been delivered to the terminal but more likely than not, probably this means that your shipment was left in a trailer by mistake. The best thing to do, is to call down to the terminal that the frieght was delivered to and ask if they’ve checked the yard and looked in all the empty trailers. Of course they’ll initially tell you no, that all the supposedly empty trailers ARE empty, but you must insist that they recheck the empty trailers because more times than not, this is what has happend to the missing shipment and it’s still sitting out there in a trailer in the yard. In my experience, once I got the terminal manager to send someone out into the yard to look in the empty trailers the missing shipment usually turned up.

Today I’d like to spotlight one of the largest freight carriers around Yellow Transportation.

Yellow Transportation Inc. is the largest subsidiary of YRC Worldwide. Yellow provides regional, national and international transportation and related services to 400,000 customers by applying a wealth of resources. Its mission is to be the leading provider of guaranteed, time-definite, defect-free, hassle-free transportation services for business customers worldwide. Yellow has created a superb track record of high quality, reliability, state-of-the-art tracking and safety.

But who are they?

In 1924, Yellow Cab and Transit Company was founded in Oklahoma City when A.J. Harrell to serve as a bus and taxi company in central Oklahoma. In 1952, the business was purchased by an ownership group headed up by George E. Powell Sr. It was at this time that Yellow became one of the pioneers of consolidating small freight shipments into trailer loads.

Yellow Transit Freight Lines changed its name to Yellow Freight System Inc. in 1968.

During the deregulation of interstate trucking in the 1980s, Yellow Freight System restructured itself on a massive scale by implementing new distribution centers nationwide to better serve its customers.

In 2002, Yellow Freight System changed its name yet again to Yellow Transportation Inc. to reflect the its evolution into a full-service transportation provider.

That’s pretty much the Yellow Transportation history in a nutshell!

For more information visit them at:
myyellow.com

When you receive your shipment and you discover concealed damage, meaning damage that isn’t clearly visible until you unbox or unpack your shipment, time is of the essence to file your damage claim to the trucking company. This is why I always stress to people that whomever is taking receipt of the shipment must be thorough with inspecting the delivery from the truck driver. They may catch damage while the truck driver is still there and note it on the delivery receipt or they can outright refuse delivery if it arrives in unacceptable condition. Basically, don’t let someone that doesn’t care or who’s in a rush take receipt of your shipment this responsibility. However, there will be times that your shipment looks to be in pristine condition from the outside, but upon unpacking the item, you discover that the item is not in the same condition as when it was initially shipped out to you. Somehwhere along the way, your shipment was battered, bent, dropped, shattered and broken.

Hopefully, as I stated before, you had someone thorough take receipt of the shipment because inspection does not end there. I highly stress that the preson that took receipt of the shipment immidiately unpacks the item and doesn’t just leave it in the corner for someone else to take care of at a later date. If concealed damage is discovered after the driver has left and the unit has already been signed for without listing visible damage on the delivery receipt, you have 14 days to file your claim. But here is the important part:

DON’T WAIT 14 DAYS TO FILE YOUR CLAIM. DON’T EVEN WAIT 2 OR 3 DAYS! FILE YOUR CLAIM IMMEDIATELY!

You should find out the phone number of the terminal that dispatched the truck driver that delivered the shipment to you. Speak with the terminal manager there and be clear that you are officially requesting for a freight insection because of concealed damage to your shipment. Certainly, you can call the freight broker or sales agent that helped you with your order initially. Personally, I like to take matters into my own hands and call directly because I know that it’s one less person to pass the information along to and I know it got done. Get all the information from the person you speak with, phone numbers, e-mails and their name. Follow up with an e-mail and phone call to whomever you were told to contact Copy the email to anyone else involved. Make sure to find out when they will send an inspector out to assess the freight damage or when you will be contacted to set up the inspection.

Here’s the good part, the inspector is a third party contractor so they should give an unbiased assessment of the freight damage. And it’s of no cost to you.

If you don’t follow setting up the appointment of having the inspector out to view the damage to your product and it doesn’t happen, you might as well just hand over all your money to the trucking company. They follow strict procedures and are will throw out your claim if you didn’t follow their procedure. They don’t have time to hear your sob story if you didn’t dot your i’s and cross your t’s.

To their defense, the trucking companies aren’t necessarrily trying to screw you over, they have set up these procedures to protect themselves from fraudulent freight claims that happen all the time. So be smart, protect yourself and take charge of the situation from day one! If you don’t, don’t tell me I didn’t tell you so.

So now you have a little insight as to what you need to do in a worst case scenario situation in order to protect yourself. Again, begin the claim process ASAP!

Looking for The Best Freight Quotes Online?
Check Out The FREIGHT QUOTE SHOOTOUT Here!

When you’re in the process of obtaining freight quotes from freight brokers and 3PLs one thing to ask for is the
FAK of your commodity. It’s important to find out for two reasons:

The first reason is so for your own information should you ship the same or similar item out in the future.

The second and more important reason is to find out who is willing to give you this information. Any freight broker who is hesitant to give you the FAK is someone trying to hide information from you. The FAK is not priviledged information and you have the right to know what FAK your load is being classified at. This way, if you get multiple freight quotes, you can correct any company that is rating you at a higher FAK so you can bring your freight rate down to an accurate level and save yourself from being over charged.

So to sum up, ask for the FAK when shopping for the best freight quote.

Looking for The Best Freight Quotes Online?
Check Out The FREIGHT QUOTE SHOOTOUT Here!

Today I wanted to go over the “Limited Access” accessorial fee you may see on your freight quote. Limited Access ( or LTD Access for short ) refers to a location that is difficult for the truck driver to get to. Locations that fall under limited access would include: Amusement Parks, Construction Sites, Farms, Mines, Mini Storage, Places of Worship, Schools, Correctional Facilities and Military Bases.

Due to the inconvenience of getting freight in and out of these types of locations, which slows down the driver on their overall route, you will be charged a Limited Access accessorial fee on your freight quote. Depending on the freight broker or carrier you’re dealing with, you can expect to see a fee of anywhere from $50-$80. Again, as I say with any over priced accessorial charge,  if it’s any more than this, I would suggest at least attempting to negotiate this fee down.

In an effort to help you find the best freight quote last week, I decided to pick 4 freight companies online and have them give a freight quote for the same item. Some companies I used their online instant freight quote. Others I phoned in an spoke with an agent.  Here were the parameters I used:

Boxed item rated as FAK Class 125 at 250 lbs.

Origin: San Diego, CA 92101 Commercial Location with Forklift and/or dock

Destination: Atlanta, GA 30303 Residential Location with Liftgate

I discarded any quote that didn’t offer freight insurance or was covered for less than $5/ lb.

Here are the numbers:

FreightShippingDirect.com - $313.88

FreightShippingCenter.com - $433.90

FreightCenter.com - $460.34

Freight101.com - $468.12

From the shipper’s perspective, are freight agents something you should be concerned with or worried about? The answer is no.

The Freight Industry has many different jobs within in it and common practice is for a freight agent to sign on in an independent contractor or employee capacity with a freight broker. The freight agents and the jobs they do are vital to the industry. The freight agent is not usually an employee, but uses a freight company that the agent can get a competitive rate to move shipments for their book of clients in order to pass along better pricing to their customers. Indeed, freight agents are definitely wanted.

As long as the freight company is using top line carriers then there shouldn’t be any any problems out of the ordinary.

In the freight industry, business is done like this all day long.

Why would it be done like this? Let’s give you the basic run down. An agent may have years of familiarity with a specific company. The freight agent has great expertise in handling that particular shippers freight and so the shipper is comfortable letting the freight agent handle the freight. The freight agent doesn’t have any of his/her own rates in place with any major carriers. That said, the agent will look for a reliable broker that has freight rates already negotiated down and in place with major freight carriers. This is very common within the freight industry.

Remember, what should be most important to you is that good top line freight carriers are used. This is one of the ways you, the shipper, can protect yourself.

As a continuing part on my series explaining accessorial charges, today I’ll go into Residential Pickup and Delivery Charges.

The reason for Residential Delivery and / or Pickup Charges for non commercial locations is due to the fact that there are a number of factors that impede a prompt delivery or pickup to the location. The reasons can vary from there being no loading docks or forklifts, the streets may be narrower and harder to negotiate in and out of for the truck driver and as general rule of thumb it’s simply just more difficult to pick up and drop off shipments in non commercial environments. Typically you can also expect a liftgate charge attached because there isn’t a loading dock for the driver to back into as discussed in my previous post.

You can expect fees for residential charges to range anywhere from about $50-$100 tacked onto your total freight quote or bill.