Supervising Friends and Teammates you used to work alongside with can be great or it can be challenging.

Click the link below to be taken to a 4 minute Youtube video where I look at one key element to successfully managing friends and former colleagues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8IpftYk8-c

David Benjatschek is "Your Man with the Plan for Better Teams and Better Results"
www.marketbeamer.com david@marketbeamer.com

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With great interest I noticed that the 2009 acquittal of Avtar Singh Sandhu on cocaine trafficking charges had been overturned by Justice Janet Simmons of the Ontario Appeals court on Feb. 11 of this year. This means a new trial should be coming up soon. Stay tuned.

After being found with a massive quantity of coke (205 kgs.) in his trailer in 2007, Sandhu walked away on a technicality. The original judgement, delivered by Justice Michael Quigley, found that the evidence was gathered improperly and violated Sandhu's right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

To quote a recent TorStar article from one of their satellite publications, Inside Halton, “One constable said he decided to go into the vehicle after Sandhu said he’d been ordered at gunpoint to load the trailer. Another officer, a 21-month-rookie, said it never occurred to him to get a search warrant before climbing on-board and slicing open bales of cocaine with his knife.”

However Justice Simmons ruled that Quigley had not established a “meaningful balancing” of other considerations and...“the further fact that exclusion of the evidence would put an end to the prosecution of a very serious charge.”

The granting of an appeal in this case must be some comfort to Ned Kelly (not his real name, for obvious reasons), who is the unsung hero in this case. At the time of the incident, he was working as security chief for Truck Town Terminals of Milton, Ont., Kelly no longer works there, but I caught up to him recently and asked him to tell me what happened that day.

On Sunday Feb. 4, 2007, Kelly pulled into Truck Town Terminals in the industrial outskirts of Milton, Ont., and proceeded to take a routine cruise around the yard

His curiosity was piqued when he saw a strange tractor trailer in the restricted parking area along with another car. He confronted two men and asked them what they were doing. They told him they had stopped for lunch. “I smelled a rat,” says Kelly. “For one thing it was 9 o'clock in the morning and too early for lunch. Something about these guys just didn't feel right.” Kelly noticed foot prints in the snow leading to the back of the trailer and could see the trailer had probably been entered.

The truck and car sped off when Kelly told the truck driver he wanted his dispatcher's number before he would allow him to leave the lot. Kelly gave chase and cut off the tractor on Steeles Ave., not far from Truck Town. “You're really p***ing me off. Now, I want your dispatcher's number and I want to see your driver's licence, because I don't think you're qualified to drive that thing,” he told the driver.

The tractor roared off again and Kelly gave chase pulling him over a little further down the road. The truck driver again bolted repeating the scenario one more time until Kelly finally managed to cut him off on the west bound 401 ramp at the James Snow Parkway. By then a MTO officer, who noticed the disturbance, had arrived on the scene followed soon after by a Halton Regional Police cruiser.

Initially, the officers thought this was a dispute between a motorist and a trucker. Neither Kelly nor the officials had any idea that the trailer contained a mother lode of cocaine: $8 million of the powder wrapped in bundles and stashed among a load of baby carrots.

Kelly was anxious to get back to Truck Town and left the scene before the contraband was discovered. He only found out about the arrest after a female officer arrived at the terminal that afternoon to take his statement.

When Kelly was finally subpoenaed to testify in 2009, he told the Crown that he no longer lived in the area and had to travel some distance to attend the trial. He was told: "Feel free to make up an invoice an I will see if I can get you some witness money.”

Kelly replied, “'I'm embarrassed enough when I think of the taxpayers money that has been wasted on this farce and I will pick up my own expenses.' As it turned out, I went to court 3 times and never saw a nickle.”

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I am saddened to report that long-time Motortruck editor and publisher Barry M. Holmes has passed away at the age of 73.

Holmes was a fixture in the 80-year history of the magazine, serving with the publication from 1973 to 1986. During this time he raised the publication to prominence while reporting on the issues and technologies that shaped our industry such as deregulation, drug and alcohol screening, the failure of large unionization drives, cross-country owner/operator protests, the rise of intermodalism and the introduction of satellite tracking, electronic engines and 53-foot trailers.

Holmes, an avid news reporter, dove into these issues with a striking passion, becoming famous for his exclusive cover features and his hard hitting column. In his last year with the magazine his column was awarded the gold prize at the prestigious Kenneth R. Wilson Awards, the Pulitzer Prize of business journalism.

“Barry had a real love for and deep fascination with this industry and all the issues and challenges it faced as it grew into maturity. Both his love and fascination were evident in his writing from issue to issue and with the sheer excitement he felt every time he reported on a new issue or scored another exclusive,” said editorial director Lou Smyrlis, who started as managing editor with the publication in the latter years of Holmes’ tenure. “But beyond that, Barry was a complex man who was informed on a variety of topics from economics to gardening and always cared for the little guy.”

Don Besler, former publisher of Motortruck, remembers many meetings where Barry stood his ground on all matters editorial. "He took on some absolutely unwinnable causes and you have to love him for it. He was a very unique character and a good man," Besler said.

Ted Light, former publisher of Truck News, fondly remembers entering the industry some 25 years ago and meeting Holmes for the first time. At the time, Truck News was a competitor publication to Motortruck.

"At this time Barry was the man, he was in top form, the dean of our industry, a widely respected writer whose opinions carried much weight. Frankly I was a little intimidated by him. Much to my surprise and delight Barry was the first to welcome me aboard, a kind and all too rare gesture from a competitor. Through the years Barry and I shared many beers and many conversations, his editorial integrity was unrivalled and often fierce yet as a man he was generous and thoughtful. He will be missed," Light said.

Upon his retirement from Motortruck Holmes became the owner of Apple Route Bed & Breakfast in Smithfield, Ontario with his wife of 47 years, Jane Marion (nee Cook).

He is survived by his wife and two children, Pamela Buttery (Brian) of Castleton, and Marcus Holmes of Toronto and his grandchildren, Claire and Anna Buttery.

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In life as in business we have the enormous benefit over all other creatures of being able to review the decisions we have made over our lifetimes. Some of us chose to dwell on past situations and second-guess our decisions and some of us choose to use past experiences, both good and bad, as lessons learned and apply them today’s reality.

Even with all the advancements made in trucking over the years it seems to me that we are perceived by the public an industry that moves very slowly when it comes to change. We get comfortable with our past and we stay there, innovation is not easily adapted unless it is wrapped in something that looks very similar to what we are using now.

The current situation concerning hours of service comes to mind, we as an industry will never be free from Crash and Public Citizen type scrutiny and other such safety groups funded by the railroads until the technology that is available in the market to measure fatigue is adopted in the truck. Any legislation that dictates to a human being when they will sleep and when they wont can never be fully effective, let alone legislation that was written in 1938 and really has not changed all that much.

If you think about it, consider how trucking has evolved since 1938 in almost every aspect it has changed but for two things that remain constant we still have a graph type log book electronic or paper and we still have a human being behind the wheel. The roads that we drive on have changed every component on a truck has changed, communication and monitoring of the truck has been invented. We have even recognized that the human being needs to be trained differently that in 1938 and hopefully FMCSA’s (Federal Motor Carriers Safety Association) entry level driver training rule will have some teeth in it when it finally comes out. We have different classifications of commercial drivers and separate specific testing of skills. What have we changed since 1938 on the logbook other than finally recognize that we all have this thing called a circadian rhythm, the confusing thing is that each of our circadian rhythms is a little or a lot different.

Technology exist that measures the driver's eyelid closure rate which detects the onslaught of fatigue, Lane Departure Warning Systems (LDWS) monitor the location of the vehicle within the lane and alert the driver when the vehicle drifts from the lane. These are just two tried and tested technologies that are based in science that should be investigated with the end result of getting rid of log books and letting science take over to determine when an individual should be driving. A recommendation was made to FMCSA in 2005 by the (NTSB) National Transportation Safety Board to adopt the new technologies available, for example, a dashboard-mounted camera that tracks a driver's eye and eyelid movements could alert a driver who appears to be falling asleep, NTSB suggested this to FMCSA six years ago.

Electronic on board recorders are nothing more than another way of ensuring that a driver complies with a format of driver monitoring from 1938. Why not push for the science to take over and measure how alert a driver is in real time. I drove for ten years there were times when I didn’t get two hours into a trip and I was bushed and just kept pushing myself, there were other times when I felt on top of my game and fully alert at the end of a shift that is now mandated as a time one should be in the bunk. Every driver knows what I am talking about, if I am physically alert after 10 hours and the camera in my truck that is focused on my eye movements says that I am still alert then I should be able to keep at it. Conversely if I had a little to much party the day before I was scheduled to go out and didn’t rest the way I should have before my trip and a couple hours in the unit says shut it down, then I should be shut down.

The governing bodies of trucking on both sides of the border suggest that driver fatigue is the number one factor in class eight vehicle collisions, ATA argues that the numbers used in the latest rewrite on HOS are inflated, this dance will never end. We are a safe industry that has made tremendous inroads in reducing all types of collisions. I truly believe that we have progressed so much on safety that the next series of advancements are going to be all the more difficult to achieve, and that we have to look at the science of individual performance if we are going to move forward as an industry.

“Safety is a moral imperative for the trucking industry” as eloquently stated by past TCA Chairman Jimmy O’Neil. We have the science, it is available it has been tested and it works. We need to use that science to come out of the 30’s and adopt it to our industry so we can advance to the next level of safety in this industry. The endless decades long arguments on HOS rules are not productive and in fact only serve to frustrate our drivers and our industry. If the same amount of effort had been spent on the science as has been on this archaic system of monitoring human behavior I wonder where we would be right now. Regret for the past is a waste of spirit, lets stop fighting over log books and EOBR's and lets start talking about moving forward and letting the science lead the way.

Safe trucking
Rjh

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The transportation and logistics practices so ingrained into our business culture – from JIT deliveries to global supply chains -- stem from trying to most efficiently distribute goods produced in massive production runs and reliant on economies of scale. But there is a new manufacturing technology that may change both manufacturing and the supply chain practices that support it.

In a recent cover story, the Economist declared this new technology “may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did,” proclaiming a “new industrial revolution may be on the way.” Professor Richard Hague heads a world-leading manufacturing group and is so enamored with the almost limitless freedom the new technology gives to designers that he was quoted in the UK’s The Engineer magazine as calling it “almost as close to Nirvana as you’re ever going to get.”

And this is no far into the future vision. Dr. Hod Lipson, director of the Computational Synthesis Laboratory at Cornell, recently told the BBC: “In 20 years this technology will be mainstream.”

The technology I’m talking about is called additive manufacturing. It’s also often referred to as three-dimensional printing as it works in a similar way to a laser printer. Using this technique along with a blueprint on a computer, a solid object can be built up gradually from a series of layers - each one printed directly on top of the previous one. The raw material used is a powder, which can be a metal, plastic, aluminium, stainless steel, etc, or a combination of these. The object – a spare part for a car, a hearing aid, a bicycle frame – is built by either depositing material from a nozzle or by selectively solidifying a thin layer of plastic or metal dust using tiny drops of glue or a tightly focused beam.

When production becomes that easy, it does not require a factory in many instances and so greatly reduces the cost of manufacturing by making production lines and the expensive tooling they require unnecessary. Smaller items can be made by a machine like a desktop printer, in the corner of an office or the back of a shop, maybe even a house. And as the Economist and the other publications I read explained, three dimensional printing makes is as cheap to produce single items as it is to produces thousands. Just as important, since this new technology allows each item to be created individually, rather than from a single mould, each item can be made slightly differently at almost no extra cost. This could push business away from mass production and towards mass customisation for all sorts of products. For example, Digital Forming is a company already using 3D design software and offers a service to mobile-phone companies in which subscribers can go online to change the shape, colour and other features of the case of their new phone.

These three factors combine to undermine the economies of scale our current manufacturing business models – and the supply chain strategies that support them – are built upon.

Three dimensional printing is not new to manufacturing; 3D printers have been used in factories for more than a decade, but mostly to make prototypes faster and more cost effectively than with traditional methods. As the advantages provided by the new technology became more apparent they were put to use making final products rather than prototypes. Already more than 20% of the output of 3D printers is final products and that figure could more than double by the next decade.

This is certain to change transportation and distribution practices. Customization is certain to lead to smaller and more frequent shipments. And when that is the case, would it make sense to have such products made overseas or would the move away from economies of scale reset the economics of regionally-based manufacturing and shorter shipping distances? That possibility was already on the agenda of a conference put on by DHL last year.
Add it all up, and the future of transportation and logistics could be significantly different from what we have become used to.

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Interesting how the Trucking community has now become a mobile warehouse. We spot trailers at shippers and receivers doors for their conveneince, and yet not only they do not want to pay for the convenience, WHEN THEY DAMAGE THE TRAILERS, THEY CRY FOUL, SAY THE CARRIER DROPPED IT DAMAGED, THE SHUNT COMPANY DID IT, AND A MULTITUDE OF OTHER EXCUSES.

The average new 53' Dry Van Brand new is in the vicinity of $28,000.00. Small carriers, may have a 2:1 ratio Trailers to Trucks, Larger carriers maybe the same to a little more like 3:1 ratio. Recently a friend of mine in this industry was telling me how they spotted a trailer and the shunt company damaged, the reefer unit on the front of it. First they tried to say it was dropped like that. (Sure they drove all the way from Canada to the MIDWEST) and dropped a damaged reefer trailer (Value new $60,000.00) give or take a few thousand. Funny enough then the shunt company told the 3PL we are not paying anything we have a contract signed by the carrier.

The carrier though read the contract, and it says right on it REASONABLE WEAR AND TEAR. This of course does not mean damage. Especailly when you can blatenly see the damaged peices fallen off of the reefer unit laying right in the picture they provided, and clearly their fault. Yet the 3PL tried to say U.S. law says we are not responsible. I would not only beg to differ but I am sure Mr. Henry Seaton who specializes in Transportation Law, will back me on this. WHoever the contract is with the carrier and they request spotting trailers, that is who is gulity. It is then up to that party to SUBROGATE AGAINST THEIR CUSTOMER. Read: Shipper, Receiver, or Shunt Company Not the carrier.

Sure it gets messy and no one wants to loose a customer, or charge them. However damage the carriers property and somone has to pay. Certainly not the carrier. It is not in their care and control anymore. Big lessons here, for the BIG3??? to learn. Numerous carriers, have been dropping trailers on site for years, and the shunt compnay damages the trailers, and the carrier, gets strung along for a year or two. Then they are told too bad, we won't pay. Well a lot of carriers are now saying TOO BAD WE WON'T DROP EITHER.

Too much money invested in equiment to have everyone have such a CAVALIER attitude towards the carrier and their money. Remember eventually it comes out of your pocket one way or another.

P.S. (K.S. no not me! although same initials, I am not grouchy just telling the facts like they are. Most carriers, are like the movie NETWORK "WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE"

Hope to see everyone at EXPOCAM in Montreal this year, April 7th 8th and 9th. Looking forward to it.

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Here is a question I heard this weekend for all you Leaders, Managers & Supervisors out there:

Does your team see you as a Person or do they just see Power?

If they see you as a Person they are much more likely to trust, respect and succeed for you. If they only see Power they may reclude into an environment of fear, hiding, hesitancy and failure.

Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric once said the secret to his success was "When I get power, I give it away"

Jack, by his 40 year distinguished track record shows that he gets it.

A leader's job is to lay down clear and challenging expectations of their people and equip them for success. Great leaders, once they've done that, let go. Yes they are there for advice, counsel and equipping but they won't just take over the game from an employee when they struggle.

The power of consequences, not the power of position will help protect the interests of the company, department and team of getting things done and done right.

That's great news because as a leader it takes the pressure off. Cheer them on, equip them with expectations and tools and give them the power to decide their future. That lets you present yourself as a person who cares about their success and wants to dialogue on how to continue to make it happen.

When employees own their future .. great things happen. Most Owners try not to let a business fail.

Have a great week!

David
"Your Man with the Plan" for Better Teams and Better Results.
www.marketbeamer.com

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