Volvo and Mack on the milk run

Name: Volvo and Mack on the milk run
Brand: Volvo

With margins getting skinnier, maximising uptime and keeping the wheels turning is important in the milk haulage business as Howard Shanks recently found out

SRH Milk Haulage owner Scott Harvey isn’t one to mince his words. A no-nonsense straight shooter with his eye on the future, Scott has some clear goals in mind for his company, SRH Milk Haulage. Setting the wheels of his plan in motion, the company recently welcomed the addition of FM Volvo Globetrotters and Mack Superliners fitted with custom designed King bullbars.

Based in Rutherford, an outer suburb of Maitland NSW, SRH Milk Haulage have grown from a single-truck operation in the early nineties to the major mover of milk up the north-east coast and the southern region of Western Australia. Scott accepted that growth was inevitable if he wanted to provide a superior level of service to his expanding client base, however the rapid rate at which this growth occurred was something that neither he nor his original business plan were able to forecast.

The company’s main income is derived from the milk haulage including farm pickups through to interstate bulk milk haulage in purpose build super-tankers. SRH Milk Haulage may be in a niche market, but even so, there is no escape from freight rate under-cutters. Strategically planning farm collection runs to ensure the utmost efficiency is crucial to maintaining positive cash flow and something that experience and their customised logistics software enables them to do well.

Overseeing the operations side of the company is Scott’s daughter Blair. “I’m grooming her up to take over the business,” Scott revealed. “Blair has been with us for seven years now and is well versed in all aspects of the business, her management skills and knowledge of new technologies has seen the company advance to the cutting edge in safety, efficiency and compliance. Nowadays I leave most of the daily operations to Blair and focus my attention on equipment acquisition but I’m slowly involving her in that aspect of the business too,” he added.

Despite freight rates almost remaining static for the last quarter century, Scott believes that adopting new technologies and specifying components according to need rather than tradition, will lead to higher profits for his bulk haulage business.

Scott approaches new truck specifying with the sharpened pencil of an accountant. Combining a broad knowledge of the transport industry and his understanding of customer needs with consideration for future regulations, he configures his trucks and trailers to safeguard the highest interests of his company.

"We work closely with all our famers and at the moment they’re doing it tough, really tough," He added with heart felt sincerity. "We have a responsibility to them and the milk factories to transport the milk as cheaply as possible so they can sell the final products competitively to the world market.

"Ensuring that we remain profitable means we can reinvest in the latest technologies and pass on those savings down the line."

Maximising their equipment to the limit is one of their prime focuses. "I think the buzz word they use these days is ‘uptime’," Scott smiled. "In our NSW operation we run a large number of new Volvo FM Globetrotters fitted with the new Kingbars bullbar. With the drought we were getting a lot of animal strikes that was causing a lot of front-end panel damage to the vehicles. This tends to cost between 15-20K to repair plus the downtime while the vehicle was off the road.”

"We’d tried other bullbars in the past and they just weren’t up to the task,” Scott revealed. “In the end spoke to Craig McPherson at Kingbars, in Brisbane about our problem. They came up with a great solution that gives us maximum front end protection with the added bonus of being able to perform the daily checks without dropping the bullbar."

Understandably working in and around farms in the wetter winter months means the ground can get spongy underneath reducing traction for the milk tankers. "All our trucks are specified with full cross locks so they are very capable in the soft and wet going," Scott added. "But sometimes it's easier on the equipment if we hook a tractor up to the truck to aid with traction and it helps reduce damage to the farm roads as well. The backing plate on these Kingbars is strong enough and fixed to the vehicle so we can safely pull a fully loaded tanker with the bullbar’s tow pin and that’s something you can’t do with cheaper bars," Scott said.

"In Western Australia we specify the heavier-duty Road Train Kingbars for our Mack Superliners,” Scott added. “They finish them off nicely too with the Mack logo etched in the side."

Jamie Maher is the workshop manager for SRH and he is adamant there is ‘no time for downtime’ in their organisation.

He runs a very strict maintenance program to ensure there are no breakdowns on the road. In their Rutherford workshop they only service and repair trailers. To monitor trailer running gear condition they use a brake roller machine and shaker, which allows them to print out reports of each vehicle’s condition and brake adjustment. "We run every trailer over this machine on a weekly rotation," Jamie said.

"All our prime movers are on service maintenance contracts with the vehicle manufacturer," Scott explained. "That means we know exactly how much it cost to run each piece of equipment from the day we take delivery to the day we sell it. It also means we don’t have to carry a vast amount of spare parts inventory and it puts the onus of the workmanship back on the dealership to ensure the trucks are running all the time when they should be."

"In simple terms, we have one monthly truck payment that includes a fixed maintenance component," Scott said. "After that, I can budget for the tyres and fuel. We have to pay for any accident/impact damage which is why changed to Kingbars to reduce the risk and improve safety."

Scott has firm beliefs about the role that drivers play in establishing and maintaining the image and professionalism that the transport industry portrays to clients and the community at large. The gleaming presentation of his trucks is only one part of a bigger picture.

"I hate those coffee cups with lids," Scott told us. "I won’t use them and I don’t expect my drivers to use them. Drivers should be able to pull up and have a proper cup of coffee. It only takes five to ten minutes. But if there’s one thing I can’t stand though, it’s blokes who turn up to work in baggy tracksuit pants. What sort of a statement are they trying to make? To me, it simply says that they take no pride in themselves and if that’s the case, how can they take pride in the work they do? What sort of an impression must it leave on customers?"

Quality of service and the resultant ‘word of mouth’ are aspects that Scott attributes to the continued growth and success of his operation. "I use older experienced successful transport operators like Ian Cootes as a role model," Scott explained. "Don’t work for nothing and give people their money’s worth. I’m not into cutting rates, I just want to do the best possible job and be paid fairly for the work that I do."

With so many elements critical to achieving success in the current financial atmosphere, persistently searching for obtainable advantages is the only way to foster significant and sustainable growth. This paradigm for success in mind, Scott opted predominantly for Tieman tankers in preference to any other brand.

"Tieman are like family, they are always willing to help," observed Scott. "But it is the quality of their product and my previous experience of it, that convinced me to keep choosing them over other manufacturers. Improvements in their design has seen an increase in the legal carrying capacity of their latest tanker models too."

"The cost effectiveness and reliability are higher on Tieman trailers due to their choice of component brand. Take the BPW axles, brakes and suspension, for instance. They’re guaranteed for three years or one million kilometers and that’s why we only use genuine BPW parts when replacement is required. With that sort of warranty BPW obviously believe in their product. That reassures me that it’s worth the investment."

In terms of fleet size, SRH Milk Haulage run approximately 60 Volvo and Mack trucks, but their effective fleet management procedures and work smart policies are sure to manifest themselves as long-term sustainable growth continues. The addition of the Kingbars to their Volvo and Mack trucks brings SRH Milk Haulage another step closer to their goal of being the most efficient and reliable milk haulage operation in country by keeping the wheels turning.

Volvo and Mack on the milk run

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