Tips for the safest movement of cargo

Freight transport is becoming increasingly important in the market, as it represents customer compliance and carrier effectiveness.

In our country, motor transport has had to overcome some challenges in recent years, one of the main ones is to strengthen its security systems to meet its main objective: deliver its customers' merchandise in a timely manner.

Listed below are some of the best practices that have been implemented by world-class fleets and with which a considerable reduction in their incidents due to theft has been obtained. It is important to emphasize the premise: the motor carrier must be formally established in order to ensure compliance with its tax, labor and regulatory obligations applicable to the industry. Get to know 10 tips for the safest transfer of cargo:

1. Communication with the client. This should be a chain action that will involve the main agents: trucking-customer-recipient. The communication between the three interested parties that the merchandise arrives in a timely manner must be close so that it generates a strategy that contains conditions such as loading schedules, transfer, handling of confidential information, as well as route planning, monitoring and incidents. unloading and, most importantly, knowing the customer's expectations.

2. Route planning. Authorities and even insurance companies continually issue routes that have had high rates of theft and are also under repair. Those in charge of the motor transport must be informed on this matter daily to issue, to their client within their daily communication, the recommendations for a safe route. Most cases of theft happen by going off the road.

3. Monitoring. Investment in satellite location systems, panic button equipment, as well as merchandise marking, are key to the safe performance of a trucking company. The monitoring of the times and movements of the unit ensures that the operator complies with the instructions of the route planning, thus avoiding unauthorized stops. In this way, the company supports the operator to feel supervised and supported in case of an emergency.

4. Maintenance of the units. Reducing incidents on the road due to a breakdown is a challenge. The implementation of a preventive maintenance system is the key to reduce this incidence. The motor carrier must take control over the reviews prior to the trip and guarantee that the unit is in adequate physical-mechanical conditions for the transfer. However, it must have a robust strategy to ensure that in the event of a breakdown —not all failures can be prevented—, there is an infrastructure so that the reaction is timely and effective.

5. Control of confidential information. This is the essence of motor carrier-customer-recipient communication. The three agents know the transfer information and must implement a strategy that protects confidential information such as route planning, the type of merchandise and its cost from being carefully disseminated.

6. Recruitment and selection. The selection and recruitment of operators is of the utmost importance in terms of safety, the fact of knowing the operator in socioeconomic terms is only one of the actions that is required to avoid bad hiring, in this sense it is important to evaluate their skills, their work history, in addition to carrying out an analysis of personality and health conditions that allows knowing their behavior and trends, considering that there are factors that can be improved or achieved through constant training.

7. Training. The training of operational personnel is a priority, its constant updating helps to reduce incidents, training in emergency mechanics, technical-economic driving, defensive driving, incident reporting and risk identification, to name a few. These are habits that must be created in the operator to master his important work within the organization, so it is essential that awareness sessions be integrated into the training, in which the importance of his work is highlighted, prevention drug and alcohol consumption, as well as the social effects generated by their actions.

8. Technology and solutions applied to transport. Trucking companies must invest in or join the technologies and solutions available to the industry, such as: the electronic toll system, electronic fuel supply purses, aerodynamic technology, the telecommunications system, the resource planning system (ERP), self-consumption fuel, just to mention a few, these tools will help you have better control over your operations, reduce errors, promote the development of the industry and increase the safety of your transfer.

9. Security. Generating a security plan that considers all the points mentioned above, as well as the inclusion of strategies such as the accommodation of the load, its packing and packaging, its custody, etc., is of the utmost importance for the trucking company to guarantee the customer that it has the infrastructure, personnel, equipment and compliance with internal security standards and the competent authorities recommend and require.

10. Processes and procedures. Implementing a management system in the operations of the company is a differentiator in the industry. The trucking companies maintain their security levels and carry out the pertinent actions in an organized and constant manner, in such a way that the actions are standardized and thus the omission of certain procedures that ensure the transfer is reduced.

Ensuring the transport of merchandise is not only an action that must be carried out exclusively when driving on the roads, but rather it is a set of processes that trucking companies must develop internally and externally, where all those interested in the company interact. merchandise arrives in a timely manner, and where the communication and commitment of all is of the utmost importance.

* Expert in logistics and distribution and Andromeda Business Solutions Advisor.

Source: http://www.logisticamx.enfasis.com/articulos/69427-consejos-el-traslado-mas-seguro-la-carga