Orientation 02/29/12

Ok Its been a minute since I posted and I JUST KNOW y'all missed me so I'm back lol!

Well, I have the news that will settle a couple of issues. This is good sourced, and not some junk I overheard from the next crapper stall at a truck stop.

1. Lost Accounts - We are NOT losing accounts due to service failures. We are being underbid on freight by two different companies....Werner and Swift. Werner recently acquired Arnold Trucking and is in the process of trying to acquire US Express. This is from an Arnold driver who says things have gone to poop at his company since Werner bought them. He said the pay scale is changing over to Werner's pay scale and much of the operations staff from Arnold were canned to integrate them with Werner which is causing a lot of drivers to quit. Werner (through USX and Arnold) has cost us some of the Intl Paper mill contracts due to underbidding.

Swift is underbidding us on Walmart/Sams loads and apparently trying to dominate that customer. I this came from a Schneider driver who told me that Schneider was losing some of the DC's that they had dedicated contracts with to Swift who according to his dispatch, is underbidding freight at such a rate where it was below market average. Basically enough to fuel the truck and pay the driver but not enough to turn profit. I guess they are playing the same game that Weiner is in trying to swallow all the smaller competition and starve out those that are too big to eat.

2. Operational Changes at USA Truck - Mr. Hartline and the staff he brought with him are GONE. Fired at the order of the board of directors. This occurred two weeks ago. I was told this by my FM, inside the palace, at her desk, in front of all the other FMs and load planners in our group and the group manager. Apparently the board felt that 1 year after he was brought on board, USA Truck was in worse position than when he arrived so they canned him. Also, USA Truck has contracted with an outside consulting firm to come in starting in July and observe and analyze every department to find a way to return us to profitability. They will report directly to the board and not to Cliff. They will not be making changes themselves but will make their recommendations to the board. She said they will be inserting people into every terminal and every section including possibly sending out observers with drivers and trainers to get a feel for the ground and our relations/functions with customers.

They have also shrunk and consolidated many aspects of operations. Now all the fleets in the company are assigned to specific groups corresponding with geographical areas of the country. Each one of those regions corresponds with a terminal. For example Northeast Operations group is based out of Carlisle, Atlantic/Eastern Operations is Roanoke, Gulf Coast is Atlanta, Midwest is Dallas/Denton, Great Lakes is Vandalia, Chicago has its own simply because of rail volume, and of course Phoenix is Southwest. The whole operations room has been rearranged so that all the fleet managers are desked in circles around their group managers and load planners and they have large banners over their section of the operations room to denote what group they belong to. Its really pretty neat looking. As I gather it, the idea is that eventually, those regions will be divided up among the fleet managers for driver assignments. Therefore an individual FM will only have drivers from the area they are responsible for. Its supposed to streamline predictability for the drivers and the FM and make it easier for the FM to get to know their drivers personally and be more cognizant of their homes and home times. I was told that this doesn't mean that a driver assigned to Dallas group will never go to the northeast. It just means that the group that driver is in is responsible for all freight coming into and out of the Dallas area so that the driver ideally should begin and end their tour of duty within their own group's region.

As for the changes, I'm pretty excited and I hope they pan out well.

As for the lost accounts, this doesn't bode well for any of the small to medium companies. I wish the fed would pay more attention to all the acquisitions that are going on. We could very well end up with just 2-4 megacarriers within the next decade.

 

Beginning in late july early august e-1 except trainers will be going regional. thats was told to me today in van buren during recert.

 

A driver that used to drive for Arnold told me that US Xpress bought Arnold. He told me that the day before yesterday. Is weener big enough to buy US Xpress?

 

Absolutely. They are the second biggest carrier out there after Swift. Celadon (according to one of their owner ops) just bought Hyner or Hiner Transport too. This is my concern. I don't care if people like USA or not but the fact is, we are heading down the road of just 2-4 megacarriers dominating the market and squeezing out all the small companies and independents. The long term ramifications of this are not pretty as it will mean flooding the market with low paid entry level drivers which will drive down wages for everybody in the general freight segment.

 

Oh and other changes I was made aware of are that the trailer refurbishment program is done. They are selling all of the trailers of the 55 series and below as they come in. They are being replaced with brand new Great Danes with the skirt kits as of now. I ferried one from the Great Dane plant to South Holland last week and we had at least a 100 there waiting to be picked up. Joe Lyons in Fuel Economy said they are accelerating modernization of the fleet as well. He said the intent is for most of the fleet to be running the new Freightliners by next year. They are trying to hurry up the phase out of all the Prostars and other trucks. Some are being dumped prior to 500k simply because repair costs and down time are costing more than the trucks are generating.

 

That werner story is a bunch of bull..........

 

I hate to be a stick in the mud, but I don't buy some of this stuff. People are blaming David Hartline for the miserable performance of the company over the last year. That company has been losing money now for several years, also he is not the father of that spiderweb, regional or that new Q-com system Cliff Beckham is! Till the board removes that idiot Cliff Beckham USA Truck won't prosper in this environment. I am not trying to discourage those of you that continue to drive for them, but on the other hand you have to acknowledge there are major systemic problems with the board and upper management. Till these problems gets resolved USA Truck is going nowhere! I also am not fully convinced USA Truck will survive this upcoming feeding frenzy as a viable company. Their balance sheet is weak and they have lost millions over the last several years. I would not be the least bit surprised if they don't get bought out very soom.

 

I agree with that.