PALLET NETWORKS\\\


Issue 1 2015 - Freight Business Journal


23


Networks set their sights on Europe


At least one group of people are keen on further European integration – the pallet networks. Once mainly a domestic affair, many are increasingly looking to the Continent for the next stage of their growth.


The benefits of networking


As a member of both a domestic UK pallet network – Palletways – and a German freight network – CTL - Adam Shuter, managing director of Rugby-based Exact Logistics has a unique insight into how such systems operate on both sides of the North Sea. “The German networks


have a wider definition of what they can carry – it doesn’t have to be palletised necessarily,” he explains. While the freight networks are not parcels carriers as such, it would be feasible to present them with, say ten boxes of unpalletised goods or similar loads that fall outside the normal weight limits for express parcels carriers. “The other difference is the


sheer scale of the German networks compared with the UK ones,” Shuter continues. CTL has a central hub in Homburg but it also has four regional hubs, each of which is pretty much the same size as a UK central main hub. There is also much less


emphasis on feeding traffic through a single central hub in Germany; typically, most business will move via one of the regional locations. Partly, this reflects Germany’s geography. While the


English Midlands is also a prime producing and consuming area, as well as being at the centre of the English motorway system, the equivalent region of Germany is comparatively empty of people and industry. This therefore lends itself to much more regionalised traffic flows; the central hub in Germany tends to be used only for the comparatively small amount of traffic that cannot be more easily handled through one of the regional locations. “In the UK, it’s the


other way round. The regional hubs are much smaller and tend to move only that business for which it wouldn’t be logical to move via the Midlands,” Shuter explains. So in a UK pallet network, a regional hub near Manchester might be used for traffic moving from Leeds to Liverpool, for example, but anything going from London to Scotland, or from East Anglia to Cumbria, would naturally gravitate towards a hub in the Birmingham area.


Exact Logistics is though an


enthusiastic pallet network participant in the UK. It is, for example, a full Palletways member, handling collections and deliveries for the Rugby, Southam and Stratford-upon-Avon areas. At the same time, the Palletways network gives Exact Logistics a collection and delivery service for every corner of the UK for its own international groupage services to and from Germany, Austria and


Switzerland. Interestingly, though, the


other Palletways members are not a major source of traffic for Exact’s own German services; any business for that country would tend to be handled by Palletways’ own German network. In a mirror image, the CTL


network gives Exact collection and delivery coverage of the whole of the German-speaking world, with 120 depots in Germany alone. This makes it feasible to offer a service to and from every part of Germany to every nook and corner of the UK, and vice-versa. Exact Logistics runs


its own trunk services into the CTL network. Shuter would consider similar set-ups with networks in other European countries, but he would have to give it serious thought before committing himself.


New boss for Palletline


Palletline has appointed Graham Leitch its new managing director. He joins Palletline from Aberdeen- based member company ARR Craib where he held the position of


group distribution director.


He brings extensive operational and commercial experience gained from directorships


It was worth Adrian Shuter (right) is an enthusiastic Palletways participant


Exact taking the risk of setting up its own trunk into the CTL system, “because Germany is a big


enough market for us to do that.” The reasonably even spread of people and industry throughout Germany makes it ideal for a network approach, he adds. But feeding into a Spanish network, for instance, might be a different proposition. For a start, for an


with a number of high profile companies including a national newspaper group and a large UK and European distribution network. It follows the departure of


former boss Kevin Buchanan to join the rival Pall-Ex network in November 2014.


operator that didn’t specialise in the country, there would be no guarantee of regular traffic and Shuter suspects that a network approach would be less successful in a nation of long distances and relatively few major cities and industrial regions.


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