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

My interest in TNT date back from the early eighties when I read an article about a Cana-
dian transport company owned by Australians which was operating in a very different way. The article was so interesting I decided to search for more information. TNT which was be-
coming an empire in those days was very different and exceptional in many regards. The
non conventional mindset of its leaders, their innovative ideas, their ``we will do it`` attitu-
de and the highly complicated network of the company fed my interest. I began to take
photos as a complement to my continual search for more information. Moreover, I was
living and travelling in the Québec City, Montréal, Toronto, Windsor/Detroit corridor; the
heart of TNT Canadian operations and TNT was operating a so wide variety of equipment.

Concerning what you call the ``branding mess``, the appearances are often misleading.
I will come back about that in a next post.

 

`` TNT is always kind of overlooked `` because it was a kind of nebula involved in all the trades
of the transportation fields (over 50 distinct services) trading under numerous trademarks. In
1986/87 period TNT was a conglomerate of 11 operating groups, 8 of them originating from
a geographical grouping and 3 others overseeing respectively an international parcel & mail network, the worldwide shipping services and the global air transport related services. Tho-
se groups operated numerous divisions, subsidiaries and associated companies comprising 118 operational units worldwide.

You are right Mike2633, in the mid-eighties and early nineties TNT was the more important and diversify carrier in the world. Even in 1996 after the spinnoff of its American regional
trucking subsidiaries the Australian Group looked like a giant octopus with its tentacles encompassing the globe. It moved around 18 million tons of freight and over 15 millions pas-
sengers.

Concerning JUST IN TIME and Scheduled Services, it will be for a next post.

 

Then, in the early to mid-eighties even if TNT Overland processed over 90 million parts of
auto parts each month the upper management judged that Overland LTL and truckload ope-
rations (trading as Truckload Canada) was not



in the best position to compete in the new environment of jit and externalisation of logistics
operations in automotive industry. So, in 1984 Overland decided to recruit logistics enge-
neers and set up a nimble organisation operating leased equipment with non union or
agency drivers as well as owners/operators. The new entity named Just in Time Inventory
Delivery Systems was located in Dearborn, in the automotive industry hearthland.

TNT Scheduled Services was set up eight years later and operated under Transport Group
Inc. ,the holding which oversaw TNT's American operations. It was a kind of hybrid opera-
tion which saw trucks pick up parts under milk run process or in full truckload this, through-
out Michigan and nearby states and ship trailers by rail for the long leg between Windsor
and GM Oshawa.

 

Milk run is a scheduled pick up of parts from multipe suppliers (generally 4 or 5) in matching
quantities.The type of parts involved are low/medium volume parts with numerous variants which come from suppliers that are ten of miles from the assembly plant or a merge in transit
cross dock; and of each other. A merge in transit cross dock is used to support milk run routes
serving remote suppliers from the assembly plant. The incoming parts are then unloaded and
consolidated with other mixed parts and loaded on outbound trailers in truckload quantities
to be shipped to the assembly plant.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schedule-collection-System-Milk-Run_fig1_305001363

In the automotive industry, in average (70%) of the parts, including sequenced parts, come in
truckload, (25%) through milk run networks and (5%) through common carrier LTL networks.

 

Milk run, BTW, comes from early morning freight trains that stopped at dairy sidings and built up a train with the collected cars to deliver to processing and bottling plants. It was considered a good job and for skilled crews who could work quickly and not screw up. They had to be done because the product was produced daily in various locations and is perishable.

I can't see automotive milk runs as anything but conceptual nonsense. If a single supplier --or one of their many sources-- has an issue, the whole thing falls apart, no special inlaid armrests and the D's sit there off to the side waiting for them, plus another possible very expensive trip which negates all perceived savings.

If the whole idea of storage space that they already own and pay taxes on costing money somehow, wasn't so prevalent in middling business minds... but then these expediting companies would be out of business instead of making a killing.

Meanwhile those D's sitting over there in the lot, are they not "costing money" by taking up storage space in the lot?

Again, wondering if foreign makes indulge themselves with such logistical pretzel-logic.