Forklift unloads CHEP pallets at Rosehill service centre

CHEP's new express appointment booking service, piloted at Rosehill Service Centre in Sydney, has delivered impressive results with eight months of data showing savings of 15 minutes per truck.

The booking system was aimed at improving productivity and cutting downtime by significantly reducing truck waiting times.

CHEP's Australian operations require some 350,000 truck movements annually, resulting in tens of millions of pieces of equipment transiting to and from CHEP's service centre network.

To quantify the problem at the outset, the CHEP team used GPS units in CHEP trucks to capture data on service centre traffic and queuing times. The data showed peak waiting periods early in the morning, dropping off throughout the day. Modelling indicated that waiting times would increase over time without action. The team identified that the greatest factor affecting waiting times was unscheduled and clustered truck arrival times.

Previously, trucks were serviced on a first-in, first-out basis. While this was flexible and simple, this system operated at the expense of predictability and resulted in heavy 'waste' activity. Through CHEP Express, customers elect a preferred three-hour window, and a guaranteed appointment time is offered within the preferred period. Bookings can extend to multiple loads, which facilitate scheduled programming for up to weeks ahead, significantly increasing productivity.

Following the success of the pilot, CHEP Express is now operational at Rosehill (NSW), Clayton and Altona (VIC), with a further four sites - Gillman (SA), Meeandah, Rocklea (QLD) and Canningvale (WA) - under consideration.

The system allows truck arrivals to be spread out at regular intervals throughout the day, minimising the impact of waiting and servicing periods. CHEP NSW Metropolitan operations manager Craig Johnson says transport operators told CHEP that waiting times were a pressure point they'd like relieved, as idle trucks cost money. Customers are now realising value from the new system, which has been well received.

"Rosehill, Clayton and Altona each handle about 150 trucks a day, and it takes about a half-hour to service each truck," says Johnson. "In peak times such as early morning, a queue of 12 to 15 trucks can take two to three hours to clear. That's not efficient for transporters, their customers or for CHEP."

Using a Six Sigma model to improve productivity and efficiency, the Rosehill project cut waiting times for scheduled trucks, and more than 75% of daily movements are now using the scheduling service.
Similar to its predecessors Quality Control and TQM, Six Sigma is an effective systematic and data-driven method for eliminating process inefficiencies while offering a Just-In-Time approach to logistics management.