Agreement Sets New Course for Highway Program - Truckinginfo.com
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Opinion: How to Survive in Any Economy
By Michael BuckPresident
MCB Fleet Management Consulting
MCB Fleet Management Consulting
This Opinion piece appears in the June 11 print edition of Transport Topics.
A few weeks ago, this newspaper reported that two of trucking’s leading economists said the industry’s recovery is well under way and should continue for at least several years. Trucking, they said, has been outperforming the economy, and conditions in the marketplace are far better than financial commentators and politicians have said.
But those same economists also cautioned prudence in the matter of keeping costs under control and warned that a serious driver shortage is developing. They also said that while fuel prices are dropping a bit, it’s still relatively expensive and equipment prices are on the rise.
Transportation is a leading, not lagging, indicator, and economic cycles and fluctuations — positive or negative — tend to have an immediate effect. In the end, your trucking operation’s success will be predicated, not on what analysts say, pro or con, or what Wall Street does tomorrow or next week but on your own strategies for controlling variable costs, executing the plan and staying firmly on course.
Keeping variable costs in check is an extremely difficult task unless you have the proper controls in place. There are six basic ways a trucking company can cut costs — and you won’t like the first five:
• Cut staff.
• Cut wages.
• Cut benefits.
• Cut customer services.
• Cut equipment maintenance.
OK, you can’t totally cut maintenance without pulling the plug on your business, but you can put it off for as long as possible. Take heart, though, because the sixth method is both the least traumatic and the most effective:
• Improve productivity with defined processes and/or the use of technology.
Technology’s role in cost control doesn’t need lengthy explanation in the age of handheld computers. And “defined processes” simply means establishing and using systematic steps, including capturing the transportation industry’s best practices, to achieve a specific end — and then making sure everyone in the company does his or her part consistently.
A defined process can be as simple as figuring out the best way to sharpen a pencil or as complex as creating and implementing the industry’s most comprehensive preventive maintenance program.
In addition to reduced costs and improved services, the results of such a program include a work environment in which every job, companywide, is performed with ease and minimal stress. That process captures the employee buy-in needed to ensure the success of the initiative and creates a loyal and fulfilled workforce eager to ensure a long-term solution through all business cycles, regardless of economic conditions.
Done properly, these processes increase the bottom line without robbing Peter to pay Paul. For example, despite popular belief to the contrary, low maintenance cost and high asset utilization can coexist.
The unfortunate reality is that the first reaction to thin profit margins is the aforementioned method No. 5 — deferring maintenance. But that inevitably equates to more-frequent breakdowns, higher costs and disastrously poor scores on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.
Instead of overreacting and setting the company up for failure, start building a foundation that enables effective processes. Begin developing superior cost controls by using your senior leadership’s knowledge. With some quick analysis and consensus by the leadership team, the low-hanging fruit should be readily evident with a few simple questions:
• What are the high cost drivers?
• What controls or emphasis could be put in place to reduce each cost driver?
• Is the right team in place for managing this cost driver?
• What controls and metrics are in place to proactively monitor and control this cost driver?
• What are the expiration dates on the contracts or service agreements affecting this cost driver?
• Can — and should — they be negotiated prematurely?
• Do you have an experienced individual qualified to negotiate the contracts or service agreements affecting this cost driver fairly?
With the information this analysis provides, you easily can assemble a team to develop a process for gaining control of the respective cost drivers impeding your bottom line.
Here are some tips for implementing this type of initiative — and some mistakes to avoid:
• At first, go slowly to go fast. People don’t handle too much change at one time very well, good or bad. Start off by casually mentioning in passing the upcoming initiative and watching closely to determine who will rise above the throng and qualify for the leadership team.
• Decide whether those who aren’t good team players should even remain part of the organization. Are they consciously or — to give them the benefit of the doubt — subconsciously running covert actions that impede the success of the leader or the organization? Do they sense the need to remain profitable? Do they embrace the organization’s culture?
• Even if solutions are evident to senior leadership, help the team reach them by asking probing questions, no matter how long it takes.
• Have the team develop the method and metrics to monitor progress.
• Use an unbiased, unintimidating facilitator.
• If necessary, use a third party.
The most obvious result of turning to cross-functional teams is their immediate and positive effect on profitability.
The underlying benefit, however, is their effect on camaraderie and morale throughout your organization as they reduce stress, improve productively and produce nonquantifiable, but beneficial, improvements to the bottom line — and to customer satisfaction.
Economies inevitably wax and wane, and when times are good, the next dip may be around the corner. But with reliable processes in place and a fully engaged workforce, you are prepared to weather any financial storm.
Monday, June 11, 2012
FMCSA Clarifications on Oil, Gas HOS Exemption Qualification
The FMCSA's "guidance" last week did not change their exemption or their interpretations of the Hours of Service regulations as they apply to oilfield work. It is intended to clarify the regulatory exemptions for oil and gas work.
Let's clarify the 2 components of this Oil and Gas HOS exemption:
Exemption 1 - "Waiting" Time at Well Site. Also known as "Line 5" or off duty at well site time, this allows drivers to go off duty at a well site. That "Off Duty" time in the middle of a tour of duty NOT count toward the total On Duty time for a driver's day. Off Duty time is treat much like the sleeper berth provision. Logging "Off Duty at Well Site" (as we call it at LoadTrek) extends a driver's work day.
Application: You can only use this Exemption if you are driving a "specially constructed" vehicle specifically made for oil or gas well servicing work. Examples are frac pumps, wireline trucks, coiled tubing units, workover rigs, etc. Pneumatics, liquid tankers (crude, water, etc) do not qualify.
Friday, June 8, 2012
CVSA Roadcheck targets hours violations, brake systems, frac haulers
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and its members across the United States, Canada and Mexico on Tuesday-Thursday, June 5-7, enforced compliance with commercial vehicle safety regulations and removed high-risk carriers from the roads. This year, Roadcheck placed specific attention on two areas: enforcing compliance with hours-of-service regulations and educating drivers and fleets about preventing driver fatigue; and, checking brake system operations and brake adjustment.
“Consistently, every year we are seeing hours-of-service logbook violations leading by an overwhelming percentage of all driver violations cited – a total of 52.5 percent of all driver out-of-service violations,” said David Palmer, CVSA president. “Hours-of-service rules are designed to reduce driver fatigue, which can be a contributing factor in many large truck and bus crashes. Enforcement of hours-of-service limits is essential to ensuring compliance and combating driver fatigue.”
To do this, law enforcement during Roadcheck emphasized checking driver logbooks and underscoring to drivers the importance of maintaining their logbooks, taking breaks, preventing fatigue and driving without distractions. CVSA members also conducted Level I inspections and recorded results for later comparison with past years’ results.
“For 25 years, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has joined forces with CVSA to support the world’s largest targeted inspection and enforcement effort aimed at commercial vehicles and their drivers,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro. “Trucking is a difficult job, and a big rig can be deadly when a driver is tired and overworked. We want to prevent fatigue-related crashes and save lives by enforcing the hours-of-service requirements.”
Several jurisdictions also used Roadcheck as an opportunity to address a trend of poor vehicle maintenance and noncompliance with driver hours of service in oilfield and natural gas hydraulic fracturing operations, which have increased in number because of higher oil and gas prices and customer demand. These operations require significant commercial vehicle support, often in areas unaccustomed to heavy truck traffic. CVSA said many of these vehicles have been found to be poorly maintained, and drivers are oftentimes in violation of the legal hours-of-service limits.
Results from Roadcheck 2012 will be announced Aug. 7 at CVSA’s North American Inspectors Championship in Minneapolis.
“Consistently, every year we are seeing hours-of-service logbook violations leading by an overwhelming percentage of all driver violations cited – a total of 52.5 percent of all driver out-of-service violations,” said David Palmer, CVSA president. “Hours-of-service rules are designed to reduce driver fatigue, which can be a contributing factor in many large truck and bus crashes. Enforcement of hours-of-service limits is essential to ensuring compliance and combating driver fatigue.”
To do this, law enforcement during Roadcheck emphasized checking driver logbooks and underscoring to drivers the importance of maintaining their logbooks, taking breaks, preventing fatigue and driving without distractions. CVSA members also conducted Level I inspections and recorded results for later comparison with past years’ results.
“For 25 years, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has joined forces with CVSA to support the world’s largest targeted inspection and enforcement effort aimed at commercial vehicles and their drivers,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro. “Trucking is a difficult job, and a big rig can be deadly when a driver is tired and overworked. We want to prevent fatigue-related crashes and save lives by enforcing the hours-of-service requirements.”
Several jurisdictions also used Roadcheck as an opportunity to address a trend of poor vehicle maintenance and noncompliance with driver hours of service in oilfield and natural gas hydraulic fracturing operations, which have increased in number because of higher oil and gas prices and customer demand. These operations require significant commercial vehicle support, often in areas unaccustomed to heavy truck traffic. CVSA said many of these vehicles have been found to be poorly maintained, and drivers are oftentimes in violation of the legal hours-of-service limits.
Results from Roadcheck 2012 will be announced Aug. 7 at CVSA’s North American Inspectors Championship in Minneapolis.
Article printed from Commercial Carrier Journal: http://www.ccjdigital.com
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
FMCSA Urges Motor Carriers to Preview Their Data
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is proposing changes to the Safety Measurement System (SMS) (http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms/) to improve the Agency’s ability to prioritize its workload. In keeping with its commitment to continually improve the SMS, and to do so in an open and transparent manner, FMCSA is now providing additional time for motor carriers to preview their data under the proposed improvements and to provide feedback.
Call to action: Motor carriers should log in and see where they stand based on the refined methodology. The SMS Preview gives motor carriers time to take the following actions:
- Improve safety compliance by diagnosing issues and taking action to correct organizational problems, train drivers, or take other appropriate measures to improve safety;
- Request corrections to any inaccurate data; in particular, motor carriers should focus on ensuring that information related to placardable Hazardous Materials inspections is correct; and
- Provide feedback to FMCSA about refinements they think should be made before the changes are implemented.
- Visit the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) Website (https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMSPreview/) and log in with an FMCSA-issued U.S. DOT number and a personal identification number (PIN), or
- Log in to the FMCSA Portal (https://portal.fmcsa.dot.gov/login) and select the “CSA Outreach” link.
Attend a webinar to learn more: Motor carriers are invited to attend a webinar that will help explain the SMS improvements and answer frequently asked questions. The webinar will take place on the following three dates:
- Tuesday, June 26, 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
- Wednesday, June 27, 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
- Thursday, June 28, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Questions or concerns: The CSA Outreach Website has technical assistants who can answer motor carrier questions about the SMS Preview as well as the CSA program itself. Questionscan be submitted by email or phone (http://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/CSA_Feedback.aspx).
Stay connected: Subscribeto the CSA Website to keep abreast of current program information at http://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/subscription.aspx.
Thank You,
CSA Web Team
USDOT/Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
Transport Topics Opinion: Might as Well Adapt — EOBRs Are Here to Stay
By James M. BozemanPresident
J.M. Bozeman Enterprises
J.M. Bozeman Enterprises
I wasn’t too keen on the idea of installing electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs) in my trucks when the Arkansas Trucking Association announced it would formally support a mandate. In fact, I hated the idea.
But sitting at the lake one day, I was mulling over the reasons why I opposed an EOBR mandate. I have been in trucks since I was 16, and I wanted to continue to operate the only way I knew how. And then it hit me.
The only reason I came up with to oppose EOBRs was so I could cheat.
There’s no other way to dress it up. Instead of GPS tracking showing your truck was down for four or five hours repairing a flat, I wanted to tell the driver to write down one hour in his logbook and get him back on the road. I wanted the ability to bend the rule.
I figured, I can’t go backward to those days. That’s not my nature, to go backward on anything. And EOBRs are coming. So at the beginning of 2011, I announced to our drivers we were going to log to the GPS and began a whole operational change. Many of them left.
Not long after, we had a customer in North Carolina who had a load coming back to Arkansas. He called me and said, “James, it’s not your rate that’s keeping you out of this business; it’s your time from pickup to delivery.”
Now, this is a 900-mile haul, and we had offered to pick up on Monday and deliver on Wednesday. I asked him to explain what the other carrier was offering.
He said, “The other carrier would deliver Tuesday.”
I told him, “Well, I can’t do that and neither can they under the hours-of-service rules.”
We didn’t get the business, and that really sounded like a liability problem for the shipper to me.
Those in our industry can make whatever excuses they want for not using EOBRs. The bottom line is they haven’t wrapped their minds around how to make money legally. I mean, they might as well be bootlegging whiskey. It’s the same damn thing.
But, for it to work, it must be for everyone. And shippers will have to get acclimated to EOBRs and what they mean. If we have a late truck, then we have a late truck. Stuff happens. A driver oversleeps or his wife was in a bad mood and he couldn’t leave . . . whatever.
Those pickups and deliveries will have to be in compliance with the hours-of-service rules. Or, at least, that’s how it should work. EOBRs level the playing field, so everyone will have to comply.
J.M. Bozeman Enterprises is a truckload freight company in Malvern, Ark. This editorial originally appeared in the February 2012 edition of the Arkansas Trucking Report.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
FMCSA clarifies oilfield hours exceptions
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Friday, June 1, announced its revision of regulatory guidance to clarify the applicability of the oilfield operations exceptions to the hours-of-service regulations, and the agency has requested comments on the revision.
FMCSA said a significant increase in oil and gas drilling operations in many states has resulted in a major increase in commercial motor vehicle traffic to move the oilfield equipment, and to transport large quantities of supplies, such as water and sand, to the sites. The agency said operators of many of these vehicles have raised questions about the applicability of the hours-of-service oilfield operations exemptions to them.
FMCSA said in the case of specially trained drivers of CMVs that are constructed specially to service oil wells, on-duty time does not include waiting time at a natural gas or oil well site; this exception often is referred to as the “oilfield waiting time” provision. Examples of equipment that may qualify the operator/driver for the oilfield waiting time exception are heavy-coil vehicles, missile trailers, nitrogen pumps, wire-line trucks, sand storage trailers, cement pumps, “frac” pumps, blenders, hydration pumps and separators.
Operators of CMVs that are used to transport supplies, equipment and materials such as sand and water to and from the well sites do not qualify for the oilfield waiting time exception even if there have been some modifications to the vehicle to transport, load or unload the materials, and the driver required some minimal additional training in the operation of the vehicle, such as running pumps or controlling the unloading and loading processes.
To comment, go to www.regulations.gov; the docket number is FMCSA-2012-0183.
FMCSA said a significant increase in oil and gas drilling operations in many states has resulted in a major increase in commercial motor vehicle traffic to move the oilfield equipment, and to transport large quantities of supplies, such as water and sand, to the sites. The agency said operators of many of these vehicles have raised questions about the applicability of the hours-of-service oilfield operations exemptions to them.
FMCSA said in the case of specially trained drivers of CMVs that are constructed specially to service oil wells, on-duty time does not include waiting time at a natural gas or oil well site; this exception often is referred to as the “oilfield waiting time” provision. Examples of equipment that may qualify the operator/driver for the oilfield waiting time exception are heavy-coil vehicles, missile trailers, nitrogen pumps, wire-line trucks, sand storage trailers, cement pumps, “frac” pumps, blenders, hydration pumps and separators.
Operators of CMVs that are used to transport supplies, equipment and materials such as sand and water to and from the well sites do not qualify for the oilfield waiting time exception even if there have been some modifications to the vehicle to transport, load or unload the materials, and the driver required some minimal additional training in the operation of the vehicle, such as running pumps or controlling the unloading and loading processes.
To comment, go to www.regulations.gov; the docket number is FMCSA-2012-0183.
Article printed from Commercial Carrier Journal: http://www.ccjdigital.com
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