Load bars straps and blankets

ed1

Active Member
10
Has anybody that does ltl come up with a good system for keeping track of load bars straps and blankets etc
 

Rob

Site Supporter
30
Other than following guys around in my pick up and gathering what they leave? When I drove that is how we accumulated most of our straps and bars at the time. When I was at a dock and they where sitting there I would ask the dock guy if I could have them. Had quite a stockpile at one time.
 

lowmiler88

Site Supporter
30
Funny we where just talking about that this morning, good luck we have gone through a skid full (probably 500 straps) in just under 2 years, we will be buying another skid shortly.
 

snafu

Active Member
10
Dedicated trailers equipped with a specific amount of each that the driver is responsible for works well...

Except for dispatch who have to work a little harder trying to coordinate it.

Our place has the warehouse crew responsible for accounting all extra equipment that goes out and on what trailer and if during business hours the driver signs the sign out sheet.

When a trailer comes back in, they do a quick count on the equipment to see what if anything is missing or if equipment signed out needs to be unloaded.

I've seen equipment bar coded to keep track of the inventory and that's proven no more successful than anything else.
There's no perfect solution.
 

Freight Broker

Well-Known Member
30
Make the the carrier/driver responsible for them. It's not too much to ask that you take care of the straps, dunnage, chains, skids on your truck. We used to have a huge dunnage and pallet problem at one of the carriers I worked at. Skids would go missing by the hundreds, and it was costing us alot of money. Drivers shrugged their shoulders.. some whisptered that "Bill" has stacks of skids behind his house he sells on the side. So we implemented a program whereby we charged (the owner-operators in our case) back for the pallets. If 24 skids went out then we'd expect 24 skids of the same type back.. and if not we took $75.00 X the number of skids missing off their revenue.. Suddenly the pallet problem disappeared. It so it goes for straps, chains, dunnage etc.
 
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whatiship

Well-Known Member
20
Make the the carrier/driver responsible for them. It's not too much to ask that you take care of the straps, dunnage, chains, skids on your truck. We used to have a huge dunnage and pallet problem at one of the carriers I worked at. Skids would go missing by the hundreds, and it was costing us alot of money. Drivers shrugged their shoulders.. some whisptered that "Bill" has stacks of skids behind his house he sells on the side. So we implemented a program whereby we charged (the owner-operators in our case) back for the pallets. If 24 skids went out then we'd expect 24 skids of the same type back.. and if not we took $75.00 X the number of skids missing off their revenue.. Suddenly the pallet problem disappeared. It so it goes for straps, chains, dunnage etc.
Exactly! Straps, chains and even empty pallets are company property that is purchased as equipment or supplies to be used by employees to carry out their jobs. Every fall I spend hundreds of dollars on extension cords for plugging in trucks during the winter that mysteriously seem to disappear over the summer. It all adds up. and it's not just drivers. I have caught office staff "borrowing" photo copy paper, working late so they can run their Christmas cards through the postage machine and one guy filling his back pack with toilet paper.
I would nail it down but they would just steal the nails...........................
 

JN1981

Active Member
10
Every fall I spend hundreds of dollars on extension cords for plugging in trucks during the winter that mysteriously seem to disappear over the summer.

HA! I'm going to do this very thing this afternoon. Its amazing how many disappear over the summer. I'm sure everyone's Christmas lights are powered with last years block heater extension cords.

Unfortunately the labor board does not like you deducting things from employees pay, but we built trailer equipment into our performance bonus, so if equipment does not come back they get dinged on the bonus. Everyone is now pretty good about reporting missing equipment as they don't want to be the ones nailed for it.
 

theman

Well-Known Member
30
I remember many years ago when I was with a carrier doing a lot of work at Global we had the problem with the load bars and plywood. The shippers many times were taking the dunnage out while they were loading and not using it and it would just end up all over the shipping areas, so it was a neverending story of having to buy dunnage. Blankets and straps are pretty much the same deal.

Probably the only ones who effectively manage to hang on to dunnage are the carriers that specialize in furniture movements where they use it repeatedly rather than moving furniture here and there. Even then I'm sure it's not perfect.
 

Freight Broker

Well-Known Member
30
People will do the darndest things when they feel they're not responsible. Some years ago I had a carrier who threw away his hardwood dunnage after completing every load. After the first time this happened I spoke to his wife (he himself wasn't very communicative), and she assured me she'd speak to him about it. But it went on and on.. they were doing a terrific job except for that one detail. So month after month I simply took it off his settlement.. $80.00 on every load for a year and a half. and then suddenly.. the light went on in his head: "WTF you charging me dis.. fo"?? he sputtered. I explained to him that HARDWOOD dunnage takes years to grow and that only a complete idiot would simply throw it away after each trip.
 
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