Clear focus results in higher utilisation

In order to reduce our CO2-emissions we constantly focus on increasing the vehicle utilisation. An example of this is a recent pilot project aimed at increasing the vehicle utilisation for all vehicles leaving Frode Laursen’s Danish terminals.
“We saw there was room for improvement, so we informed the freight forwarders and drivers that the goal was to increase the vehicle fill rate (VFR) by 3%,” says Dennis Sørensen, head of Distribution, Road DK.
A goal that was achieved:
“We actually managed a 3.9% increase, which is equivalent to having an extra 22,573 pallets on the trucks,” says Dennis Sørensen.
Even though a new stacking system, for example, was used in order to realise the goal, it was mainly the dialogue and the constant focus which yielded the results.
“It makes a big difference if the freight forwarders and the drivers together discuss how to load as much as possible onto the trucks,” says Dennis Sørensen, adding:
“It’s clear that there’s a natural limit to how many stops a driver can make in the course of a working day. If he returns with five pallets because he hasn’t been able to deliver them, then nothing has been achieved.”
However, despite this, it has been possible to increase the VFR overall.
“By maintaining our focus and holding small local competitions where the drivers can see how high a vehicle fill rate they have each had, we’ve managed to increase the VFR,” says Dennis, while emphasising that the ambitions are not stopping here.
“We obviously want even higher vehicle fill rates, and we’ve set targets for 2021 which are ambitious, but by no means impossible.”

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