Mike's Book Club: JB Hunt The Long Haul to Success

JB Hunt Chapters 6 & 7

Hi guys, how are you all today. Sorry for the slowdown here, can't say life is real interesting right now, but just busy. My grandmother is dead died in December and were working on getting her house ready for the market.

Plus work has been a real bear. Our load quality was, was pretty good for the past 4-5 months and now all of a sudden it has totally fallen off. Hit rock bottom reverted to where it was last April. Today was an absolute teeth pulling contest for about the first 4 stops. Finally around stop 5 the trailer opened up and I was able to get some momentum going, but it was bad ugly day for the first half of it. Not as bad as Friday nothing I've ever had was as bad as last Friday, all that bottled water just took down the entire dry section of the trailer. I didn't care for that.

Anyhow forget all that, that's all my problem not your problem.

So JB Hunt Chapters 6 & 7 what you need to know.

Chapter 6 focuses on J.B. Hunt's services that they offer, and basically there marketing and who they were marketing them selves too.

Obviously big fortune 500 companies.

But they did talk about J.B. Hunts flat bed division which was formed in 1990 when J.B. Hunt bought out Bulldog Express. The big reason for the flatbed division was two fold. It gave older equipment shorter hauls older equipment which J.B. Hunt had trouble getting rid of because the trade in value on it was too, low. So then they had to arrange for Mexican's and Vietnamese to buy the trucks. But remember this was the rescission of 1990 which eventually would end, and when it did J.B. Hunt figured there would be an uptick in new home construction so there flatbed fleet was there ready to haul building materials to sites where housing developments were going to be built. There main concentration was in the south. Because Bulldog Express was from the south and J.B. Hunts flatbed division it's main terminal/flatbed divisional headquarters was in Alabama.

The other place J.B. Hunt marketed them selves to was private fleets remeber back in 2008 around that time when J.B. Hunt was buying out private fleets left and right? Well all that started in the early 1990s.

J.B. Hunt was telling companies you know most of the time your private fleet is a loss, but because it's good Public Relations and is a sustainable loss everyone just takes it. However you might think it's good, but it's not as good as you think and we can run your private fleet better then you can.

I mean who sold there private fleets out to J.B. Hunt?
Toys R US
Jack In the Box
those are the only two I can think of off the top of my head, but I know it's much much more then that.
They were into the entire notion of approaching companies to get rid of there private fleets.

It's true a lot of companies have gotten rid of there private fleets. Marco's Pizza they never had a private fleet they just used J.B. Hunt from day 1.

Well look Wal-Mart is systamatically getting rid of there private fleet I know they want that thing gone and gotten rid of. I think 2-3 weeks ago was the last time I saw an actual Wal-Mart truck pulling a Wal-Mart trailer. Anytime I see one of there trailers it's always pulled by Schneider I know they all have there hands in the Wal-Mart pie, but usually just around town here it seems Schneider runs the Wal-Mart trailers to Cleveland from the warehouse in Groveport, Ohio I bet.

I don't care about Wal-Mart I never go there so what ever they want to do. It's true I don't go to Wal-Mart can't tell you the last time I set foot in a Wal-Mart.

So that's the major take away from Chapter 6.

Chapter 7 was about there services, but the main thing in Chapter 7 was Quantum.

This was HUGE! This put J.B. Hunt on the map to what they are today. Back in the stone age Intermodal was called "Piggy Back" or T.O.F.C trailer, on flat car.

J.B. Hunt signed a partnership with Santa Fe in 1989:






The railroads and trucks were fierce competitors, but J.B. Hunt thought there must be a better way and maybe the two could use each other.

Railroads always had a business of transporting heavy raw materials. Trucks more finished goods, but when it came to cross country trips rail was more efficient then trucks.

J.B. Hunt company approached Santa Fe and asked them about there service from California to Chicago.

Santa Fe said "We've go the fastest railroad in the land."

J.B. Hunt said "Well good we've got a deal for you, lets start a new inter-modal service. For coast to coast."

According to J.B. Hunt management they figured with a truck your stuck with one driver and hours of service and stop go stop go. This speed that speed whatever it is guy wants to stop and take a break so on and so fourth.

The trains didn't have that. Santa Fe could go day and night day and night 75 miles per hour on continuous welded ribbon rail. Trucks couldn't compete against that. It's not like truck dispatch where repowering a load is a big huge problem with the trains it's much simpler the "Z" train as there called goes from territory to territory they set the track speed at 75 and they run that train from L.A. to Las Vegas. The train pulls into the big train yard there with in 20 minutes the train's refueled a new crew is on board and the train is off again for another 12 hours.

J.B. Hunt really pioneered the Intermodal shipping of truck trailer's on trains.

They said when they first opened the service up they had 75 customers the first day, by the end of the year the revenue for Quantum was in the millions Chicago to California in 2 days I think was what they said. It was revolutionary. They said anymore at that time a lot of the coast to coast truck runs were all smaller loads for smaller companies. The big boys who J.B. Hunt liked to deal with liked Quantum service very much.


They also talked about J.B. Hunt's dealings with the automotive industry and how J.B. Hunt's logistics department did a good job for Ford when it came to Just In Time Logistics Service. J.B. Hunt the majority of the trucks based out of there Louisville, Kentucky terminal were there at that time to supply Just In Time Logistics service to Ford Motor Company's assembly plant.

I know that's a TNT truck, but it shows what a modern day auto assembly plant looks like. This is one of the biggest and baddest auto assembly plants out there. It's Chrysler's Brampton, Ontario , Canada (Toronto area/region) Body and Assembly plant.

The last time I was in Toronto it was 96', but it's actually only about 5 hours away from me just a fun fact!

I don't have the specifics on what J.B. Hunt was picking up for Ford, but I would imagine it was a lot of stuff coming into there yard and then being sent out the next day. Just In Time logistics is essentially you know that Monday your making 100 automobiles so you need 100 transmissions for Monday so Monday morning 4 trucks come to the plant and drop off transmissions and so on and so fourth.

It's funny though because I don't really think of J.B. Hunt as an auto parts hauler when I think of Auto Parts I think of these guys:

Awweee yeah! Central Transport and all there goofy shell companies from yesteryear.

Now that's real auto parts hauling. Unless it's pulled by some beater truck from 25 years ago in some filthy yellow trailer that says GLS Lease Co on it then it's not true auto parts hauling. The truck also needs a magnet sing on the door that says either Link, Mohecian or Pro Logistics.

I remember the old Fords out on the road in 2002 pulling auto parts to Ford's Avon Lake assembly plant where they make the Ford Econoline van. I don't think you guys out west got to see all the auto hauling fun we had here with Central Transport in the early 2000s.

Anyhow that's all I have for J.B. Hunt Chapters 6 & 7. Anybody learn anything?

 

I'm looking at that picture I think at that time JB Hunts number system the first two numbers were the model year of the truck. In other words that truck is a 1992.

Anyhow Hi guys I'll up date this thread real soon. I don't have much left so get soon because Werner will be next by popular demand probably get this thread wrapped up in the next update.

This week flew by busy busy I have to buy a new pair of boots my current pair are shot. All that walking destroys them.

That's about all for today.

 

I go back and fourth either Georgia's or Wolverine. I might go for the Georgia's this next time around. Depends if I want to spend $200.00

 

Could it have been a test unit. Gary has a picture of a cab over Peterbuilt also working for J.B. Hunt. Even though they don't say anything about it, could it have been a one off test unit that the mechanical department bought?

I know companies like to buy test units from other manufacturers from time to time for down the road, because what happens when the model you like to buy suddenly goes out of production then what do you do?

So that's what I think it was a test unit.