Talkin' Trucks With Mike:A History of the TNT Companies

How often did the rail roads run expedited trains? That couldn't have happened very often. I don't understand how these auto manufacturers are so sloppy about all this that they always need all this "red hot" service all the time. What I think happens is they run such a fine line between the production shift and the inventory on hand that it gets blurred and parts run out and there walking the wire to fine.

I worked at a "job shop" and it was like that just a mess all the time. Customers would send parts in to be welded and the minute the stuff was in our plant they were all ready calling wanting to know if we had there stuff welded. Partials were done all the freaking time it was stupid how these places promise stuff they can't deliver on.

That's why these auto plants need such expedited service all the time. They need steering wheels will say and the steeering wheel people screwed up and ran out of some metal bracket that they need to make the steering wheels and they for the past week new they were low on metal brackets and the brackets were at the welding shop getting welded and the steering wheel company knew it was going to be tight and so they called the welding shop and the welding shop was able to get a "partial" of the steering wheel companies order out.

Now the sequencing dock is starting to get a little low with steering wheels and TNT's on the phone telling the steering wheel company that they just shipped the last truck load of steering wheels out and now, that they haven't had a big truck load of steering wheels scheduled for shipment to the sequencing dock by TNT scheduling service.





The new TNT logo was KNP Group which bought out Thomas Nationwide Transport in the late 1990s. The new TNT logo is what I call the fake TNT. Remember TNT management sold out in the late 1990s in Canada and TNT management sold out in the middle 1990s in the United States and that's where the USF Companies came from.

Once KNP took over you notice that by 2001-2002 the old TNT logo was phased out and so were all the "companies" it all just became TNT.

There was no longer this mess of TNT Rightfoot, TNT Leftfoot, TNT Package Car, TNT Distribution Services, TNT Dugan, TNT Autofast, TNT Bullet Van etc etc etc.

Anyhow back to it, the sequencing dock is out of steering wheels and tomorrow the auto plant is going to expect there shipment of steering wheels and of course there's no steering wheels to be had.

Well the steering wheel plant has pretty much (1) option and that's they look and see what they popped out and determined that by the end of the day they will have enough maybe 7 skids full of steering wheels and in each skid of there's 336 steering wheels so the steering wheel plant figures that's enough of a partial to keep the auto plant going for a production shift at least enough to get through 1 and a half shifts so what do they do they call TNT Olex and tell them right now we need emergency fast pick up red hot red hot red hot! From American Body and MFG in Cleveland, Ohio F.O.B to Chrysler, Brampton, Ontario, Canada Body and Assembly.

So TNT Olex Dispatch see's that they have a "D" unit team sitting at the truck stop in Lodi, Ohio and radio them over the information emergency pick up red hot red hot no need to diddle doddle must leave right now and hustle to American Body and MFG in Cleveland, Ohio right up I-71 and then after loading 7 skids it's a direct 5 hour run to Toronto, Ontario, Canada straight to the auto plant just in time for the production run.

Now this little red hot emergency right now red hot business goes on and on all week until the steering wheel plant has enough together where they call TNT Scheduling Services and then send a truck load of Steering Wheels to the cross dock or sequencing dock where TNT then decides okay we shipped the auto plant 10 skids of steering wheels yesterday that was enough to get them through all 3 shifts today there line is moving a tid bit slower so they said they only need 7 so the cross dock or sequencing dock only sends 7 skids next time to the factory.

 

I don't know the rule on automatics probably they will say it's an automatic and there's nothing you could do.

Now with a standard transmission it's a federal violation to shift going over railroad tracks. I would think that now a days we have such blind faith in technology that if a computer did it, then it's not a problem, but with automatics they all have a manual mode usually and you can get it to hold a gear if you want.

 

I think you're right the laws just haven't caught up to all that yet.

 

Will get to this company there coming. But first we have to finish up with TNT Auto Parts Services.

 

TNT 2001 see the old TNT Logistics and new KNP "TNT" logo this was the new and old logo co-existing. That was probably by the looks of it a newer trailer and probably one of the last trailers to get the old TNT logo put on it. Sometime in the middle 1990s TNT did start to consolidate there companies into just TNT Logistics.

I still can't figure out the difference between TNT Distribution Services & TNT Home Delivery. TNT defiantly went way to crazy with the companies and split way to many hairs and got stupid about it and started naming companies off of every contract they had.

I mean TNT Scheduled Services, TNT Just In Time and TNT Logistics, what is the real difference between Just In Time and Scheduled Services? The two companies haul auto parts to auto plants they do the exact same thing. It's all Just In Time Logistics at the end of the day. I don't know how long Scheduled Services and Just In Time really lasted they came in the middle to late 1980s and I think by the mid 1990s TNT roped them all into TNT Logistics.

Which by the way TNT Logistics was pretty much the dedicated fleet division of TNT. So like if you had a company that had a private fleet and you wanted to get rid of you're private fleet TNT Logistics could be you're new dedicated fleet with you're name and logo on the truck.

 

New Era KNP Group TNT Truck moving a JDC Logistics Trailer full of auto parts for Chryslers, Brampton, Ontario, Canada distribution center.

 

Now JDC Logistics I remember seeing there trailers around they were not owned by TNT amazingly nor were they some kind of joint venture. Anyone who ran auto parts and was involved in all of this around the early 2000s probably remembers JDC Logistics. There gone now.

JDC Logistics was a company that didn't have the best reputation. As far as places to work.


JDC was about 550 trucks and they hauled just in time freight for the auto industry. They were based in Wisconsin and they were roped into another company called Trident Transport. Trident had a lot of debt and was involved in a real big law suit in 1987 when one of there trucks struck a car and made a woman a quadriplegic. It was like a $15 million dollar law suite. Not Good.

Anyhow Trident and JDC Logistics both had kind of crappy safety records and JDC Logistics took Trident in under there umbrella and then saddled with debt and very unsatisfactory DOT safety rating. JDC for a smaller company racked up some of the heaviest log book fines in modern trucking history. For a small company they were top 10 one of the worst log book offenders like ever. They had massive problems and between a huge lawsuit and huge DOT fines and the DOT constantly down grading there safety rating JDC was in trouble.

Also as @Mike_77 said trucking is really despite all the big terminals and huge fleets and yards full of equipment it's really a volume business meaning you have to do a lot to make a little.

Well before 2008 the auto industry was having some ups and downs and they were passing those problems along to there suppliers and because auto manufactures are a huge industry that utilizes a lot of trucking they pretty much said we buy a lot of trucking so you better sharpen you're pencil and basically the auto parts industry beat up all there suppliers and that also means there transportation suppliers. Well JDC Logistics was heavy into getting beat up by the auto parts industry and of course they got all beat up by them on price and between getting beat up on price hauling for peanuts and being fined out the wazzo by the DOT and Law Suits against them and the recession of 2008 which really started in 2007 JDC couldn't make it bad management really and in 2007 JDC Logistics hit the wall and went under.

So anybody learn anything?