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Estimated 25,000 truck driving positions to go unfilled in 2013, who can fill them?

Take a look. Almost anywhere you look in the transportation industry, you will see some sort of report concerning the projected truck driver shortage. With the trucking industry well on the road to recovery from the recession, 2012 showed some favorable gains. According to the American Trucking Association, truckload activity was up 1 percent, truckload intermodal loads were up 20.1 percent and less-than-truckload tonnage increased 4.3 percent from 2011.

Predictions for 2013 show continued increases, but at a slower rate than 2012.

Overall, though, the shortage of truck drivers still looms. The industry will need more than 96,000 new drivers every year for the next 10 years, according to ATA, to offset lost drivers and older drivers getting out of the business. Fewer and fewer young people are moving into the industry as a way of life. An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 driving positions could go unfilled this year, according to projections.

So, where can the industry turn to fill the void?

Women.Rosie Riviter

According to statistics from 2008, 8.8 million people participated in one way or another in the trucking industry. Of those, only about 15 percent were female, of 1.3 million. That, however, involves the entire trucking industry, from offices to drivers.

There were about 3.4 million truck drivers in the United States in 2008, of which only about 166,000 were women. That comes down to about 4.9 percent of the total driver population.

The trucking industry has always been thought of as a predominantly male-dominated industry. The female presence in the industry, though, has been increasing over the past decade with more women drivers, owner and managers.

Several studies indicate that women are well-suited for leadership roles within companies. Those studies show that women are better at communication, engaging employees and overall planning than men. The same, I believe, would be true for the trucking industry and truck drivers. While the stigma of the industry stereotypically places a male behind the wheel of a big rig, women are well suited and perfectly capable of doing the same job.

The image of men being behind the wheel of big rigs, though, is perhaps the first and most difficult hurdle to clear when talking about women filling the gap. Another issue that could have an impact on women driving is the time away from home. This has also become an issue with male drivers, who want to spend more time with their families. The same would be true with female drivers and may develop the industry to consider shorter routes and delivery schedules to reduce the time spent on the road.

One area that will help in getting women more involved in the trucking industry, though, comes from the Women in Trucking Association. In 2012, WTA formed a separate, charitable organization known as the Women in Trucking Association Foundation, a nonprofit organization designed to provide funds for members seeking training in areas vital to the trucking industry.

After spending a year obtaining funds, the organization is now ready to award its first scholarships. The $500 scholarships will be awarded in four categories: leadership, safety professional, technical skill and professional driver. Applicants for the scholarship are able to submit a request for funding online at www.WomenInTruckingFoundation.org. To be awarded a scholarship, you must be a member in good standing with the organization.

Scholarship applications will be accepted through the end of July and scholarship recipients will be notified in August. Funds will be dispersed to the educational facility of the woman’s choice on behalf of the grant recipient.

It is a good start. Women and the trucking industry are a great fit. It is an employment pool the industry can draw from to overcome some of the shortages that are predicted and would benefit both the industry and women in the long run.

 

About the Author
Larry Hurrle is the editor of IT Magazine. Hurrle, 51, has been a professional journalist for more than 30 years at both daily and weekly newspapers in the Northwest. He attended Boise State University and has served as editor of the Kellogg Evening News in Kellogg, ID; the Argus Observer in Ontario, OR; and the Independent-Enterprise in Payette, ID.

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Avoid the Ill-Planned Innovative Rollout – Plan, Communicate, Execute

It happens repeatedly. A company adopts a new technology platform that ostensibly will ease the workload, streamline operational processes and result in overall gains in efficiency and budget spending. The intention is spot-on, but the execution is decidedly less so. A post-mortem will usually reveal errors in the execution but will miss the real culprit: planning errors. While “Garbage In-Garbage Out” (GIGO) is true for any process, it is especially apparent in any change initiative. If the initiative is not planned properly, the end result will almost always reflect that lack of planning.

I frequently observe companies that attempt technology-based change initiatives with the latest and greatest new technologies (i.e. EOBM, TMS-rollouts, etc.). Many companies believe that the provider of this technology will also ensure that their technology will successfully effectuate the intended changes. They effectively defer the planning, execution and, most importantly, control to this third party. More times than not, this recipe fails and along with it goes the change initiative. The result: Blame the technology and try to find a “better technology.” In other words, they blame the equipment and not themselves.
When my clients engage my consulting services to help effectuate change, I advise them that successful change involves a three-step process: Plan, Communicate and Execute. These are not mutually exclusive as each step comprises elements of the other two steps.
Step 1 – Plan
Since planning is the most critical step, most of my attention will be here. Successful planning means an objective discovery of the real problem driving the change. Frequently the stated and/or obvious problem is not the real problem, but rather a symptom of a bigger, underlying issue. We can better discover the real issue by channeling our inner four year old and repeatedly ask why. In Total Quality Management (TQM), the 5-Why Process is a useful tool to achieving real issue discovery. For example, if we are having trouble staying compliant with the Unsafe Driving portion of CSA:
Q1: Why are we having this trouble?
A1: We’re ticketed too often for speeding, illegal lane changes, etc.
Q2: Why are we getting ticketed so often?
A2: Because our drivers are rushing to make their deliveries
Q3: Why do they need to rush to make their deliveries?
A3: Because their schedules require them to make “x” number of daily deliveries
Q4: Why do we need to schedule so many deliveries per driver?
A4: Because otherwise we can’t meet our service commitments
Q5: Why are our service commitments so tight?
A5: Because the competitive landscape requires them.

The 5-Why Process doesn’t have to repeat 5 times and it could actually be more than 5 questions. When we hit a why, that we don’t have a clear answer for, we likely are at the real issue.
Once we have discovered the real issue, we need to properly define the scope of both the problem and its intended solution. A frequent planning occurrence is when the problem is clearly defined, but the solution slowly expands to include more than just the problem. In project management terms this is called “scope creep.” While it is admirable that a solution goes well beyond its intent, if the “well-beyond” is not planned, it could compromise the entire initiative. The signs of scope creep will usually include budget and time overruns.

Once the scope has been established, proper risk management must be employed. What are the risks involved with rolling out this new technology? If it is an EBOM rollout, will our veteran drivers have trouble with it? If they do have trouble, can we provide them the proper support? With the difficulty in finding new drivers, what is the risk with rolling out this initiative and possibly losing some veteran drivers? What is the plan if we do lose these drivers? While we cannot possibly plan for every contingency, we can plan for every category of risk. This will give us a significant head-start in successfully addressing the problem and continuing unabated.

Step 2 – Communication
There is no such thing as “over-communication.” The key is to provide honest, constant and relevant communication between the change team members, upward to senior executives and outward to those that will be affected by the change. This communication must take place in every step of the change process for the initiative to be successful. Since most of us resist change primarily because of the fear of the unknown, we must make special and concerted efforts to combat this through every form of organizational communication (i.e. face-to-face, email, video conferencing, etc.). Most importantly, if we don’t have an immediate answer, we must honestly and in a timely fashion, communicate this as well.

Step 3 – Execute
Assuming that we have planned and communicated properly, we still must execute according to plan. If we have planned properly, then the likely “hiccups” inherent in any change initiative will have been planned for and can be addressed according to plan.
The end result will not be an ill-planned innovative rollout, but a rollout that encompasses the best of change management and most importantly, accomplishes its intended goal(s).

About the author

MoeGlennerMoe Glenner is a twenty year plus veteran of the logistics and supply chain industry, a highly volatile and frequently changing industry. Throughout this time, he has served in a variety of management and senior management roles as well as an outside consultant. As a one-time entrepreneur, Mr. Glenner founded 2 separate privately-held transportation companies.

Mr. Glenner holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in History from Northeastern Illinois University, a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management (Lake Forest, IL), Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification from Villanova University (Philadelphia, PA) and is an professional general aviation pilot.

As Director – Global Logistics for Steel Warehouse Company (a $2 billion major enterprise in the steel industry), Mr. Glenner transformed both the culture and finances of the previously ailing transportation department from a cost center to a profit center, earning him the respect and accolades of colleagues and senior management.

Currently he is President of PURElogistics, LLC, a leading change management, logistics and supply chain consulting firm entirely dedicated to providing best practices in change management, logistics and supply chain strategies. He is an in-demand and frequent speaker at industry trades shows and conferences, speaking particularly on leading organizational change.

Mr. Glenner, a longtime Chicago native (and die-hard Bears/White Sox fan), currently resides in South Bend, Indiana.

***This is an article written for IT Magazine, you can view the full  March/April 2013 magazine at itmagazine.truckstop.com

by admin

(Non-commercial Drivers are) On the Road Again

Cyclists often display bumper stickers or yard signs reminding motorists to “share the road.” The U.S. Department of Transportation even has a website providing information about safe road sharing.
Although these reminders are typically lighthearted, the message is serious: as road congestion increases, vehicles of all types are more likely to be involved in collisions. This unsurprising relationship between road congestion and vehicle collisions has been documented repeatedly for quite some time, and applies as aptly to large commercial trucks as to smaller vehicles.
For this reason, drivers of all vehicle classes should take note of the recent travel monitoring reports from the U.S. DOT, which show that monthly miles traveled increased year-over-year during nearly every month in 2012. During the recent recession, motorists broke a long-running trend of annual increases in vehicle miles traveled, and the trend then remained flat to decreasing for much of the past five years (Figure 1).
JeremyWest
As the economy slowly improves – and provided gasoline prices remain fairly stable – annual vehicle miles traveled are likely to continue increasing, perhaps returning to the long-term trend. Over the next few years, the phrase “share the road” may ring truer than ever.

by admin

More on the Ebb and Flow of Truck Drivers

Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported (.pdf) that firms added 157,000 employees to their payrolls during January. As in December, the Construction and Manufacturing sectors continued to expand. But, for-hire trucking employment also grew, increasing by 5000 employees since December.

In another article, I examined transitions from and to for-hire employment in trucking. If manufacturing and construction are close substitutes for trucking, should all three of these occupations be swelling their payrolls simultaneously – especially when the overall unemployment rate remains at 7.9 percent?

Below, I update my previous analysis to incorporate time, showing the extent of employment transitions to and from trucking during each year over the last decade. Specifically, I use the previously discussed CPS-MORG employment transitions to show the ratio of new truckers to former truckers by year, rather than combined into a single measure for each sector. I present this ratio for three of trucking’s most related sectors: construction, trade (wholesale or retail), and manufacturing.

In the figure, a value of zero for a sector indicates that there is an equal flow of workers moving from that sector to employment in trucking as there is exiting for-hire trucking to that sector. A value of 0.5 indicates that there are three new truckers coming from that sector for every two former truckers departing for that sector.

Construction activity sharply declined during the recession, so it is not surprising to see an influx of construction workers into trucking towards the end of the decade. However, now that the construction sector is rapidly expanding again (.pdf), this trend could easily reverse.

The relative shift of truckers to manufacturing during recent years is also concerning, and as manufacturing activity continues to improve, this pattern is likely to continue.

Retail and wholesale trade appear to be the most balanced of the sectors, in terms of transitions to and from trucking. At this time, there is little reason to anticipate this pattern changing substantially.

 

About the author

Jeremy West is the Internet Truckstop research economist for the weekly Trans4Cast. Jeremy examines the broader economic picture and reports how the current economic headlines relate to the trucking industry. He holds a bachelor of science in Economics, with minor degrees in Business and Creative Studies, from Texas A&M University, where he is currently completing a doctorate in Economics. His research focuses on empirical analysis of topics in industrial organization, particularly those affecting the transportation sector. In addition to his academic training, Jeremy held several previous positions in corporate financial planning and economic forecasting. Jeremy enjoys the opportunity to offer highlights and analysis of the trucking industry.

 

by admin

Internet Truckstop is First Load Board to Help Members Navigate New CARB Regulation

For Immediate Release

New Plymouth, Idaho

January 7, 2013
Internet Truckstop is First Load Board to Help Members Navigate New CARB Regulation

Internet Truckstop has rolled out a new decision support tool and a free webinar series to help Truckstop.com members’ transition into new regulations, now in effect, from the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

The new CARB regulation just went into effect, on January 1st, and requires every carrier driving on California roads to comply with the rules, or face hefty fines. While the weight of the regulations primarily fall on carriers, brokers and shippers will face penalties if they fail to ensure they are contracting with compliant carriers.

Internet Truckstop is the only load board that offers companies looking for trucks a quick sort function to find compliant carriers, saving time when searching for trucks to move freight on California roads.

Internet Truckstop’s four-week CARB webinar series begins on January 9th, with a different hour-long webinar being offered each Wednesday starting at 12:30 p.m. MST.  Each meeting will feature a visit from a member of CARB, with topics to be covered including: vehicle inspections, diesel particulate filters (DPFs), TRUCRS Reporting System, Truck and Bus Regulations, the Transport Refrigeration Units (TRUs) regulation, drayage truck regulation, public fleets, public transit agency, solid waste collection vehicle regulation, tractor-trailer greenhouse gas emission reduction regulation and enforcement of regulations.

“It can be overwhelming to those in the industry to stay on top of the stream of new regulations.  Internet Truckstop continues to offer information-driven solutions to our Truckstop.com members.”  Pat Dickard, Internet Truckstop Corporate Trainer

For more information on Internet Truckstop’s free CARB webinars, contact Pat Dickard at 800-203-2540 x 6181 or visit the ITS Business Development Webinar Series page.

About Internet Truckstop

Founded in 1995, Internet Truckstop was the first online freight matching service. Listening to the transportation industry is the driving force behind all of the innovative business tools that they develop. These easy-to-use tools, the largest freight database and a commitment to their customers makes Internet Truckstop the leader in Internet freight matching.

Source:

Justin Morken

800-203-2540 ext. 6283

justintm@truckstop.com

www.truckstop.com

Internet Truckstop

Po Box 99, New Plymouth, ID 83655

www.truckstop.com

 

 

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CARB Webinars receive an overwhelming response

 

Today marked the first day for ITS and CARB’s month long webinar series, “Will You be Able to Drive in California?”

With over 150 participants that came to the webinar full of questions regarding the new laws for driving in California. There will be another chance next week for more questions to be answered when another webinar is offered. The topic for January 16th is  Diesel Particulate Filters (DPFs), Truck and Bus Regulation, TRUCRS Reporting System. Don’t miss your chance to register! Click here for more information and registration.

 

by admin

SOMETIMES YOU’VE GOTTA BREAK IT IN ORDER TO FIX IT

When we send out a product we want it to be as ‘bug free’ as possible. To that end, we employ an avid testing process, wherein testing starts at the beginning of development and continues even after the product has been deployed.

Our tech team begins the testing process by gaining a good understanding of what the product is and how it should function. After getting a thorough handle on the product, we write a test that, when run, will make sure the product is functioning correctly. We run this test after the product is finished being coded, going back and fixing coding problems until the test is passed. These tests are retained for the life of the product, and are constantly running to make sure that no future additions or alterations damage the product.

After the product passes this initial test, the developers test it further, and then upload it to a test environment (test environments are often clones of live website, wherein testers can demo functionality of new products without affecting the live website). Our quality assurance testers (QAs) manually try the functionality of the new product in the test environment, making sure it does what it is designed to do, and nothing that it isn’t. Strangely enough, the most valuable QAs are those who are agile enough to find ways to ‘break’ the product. The more ways in which testers can try to ‘break’ a product, the more durable and ‘bug free’ the product can become. All of the bugs and missing functionality found by the QAs are sent back to the developers for repair. After a bug is fixed, it must again go through testing.

Before the QAs get into the detailed stages of testing, they explore the product to make sure all obvious bugs and functionality has been dealt with. Then they send out the product to testers throughout the company, as each Internet Truckstop department has a few people designated to help test, with testers rotating quarterly. Each company tester spends an hour a day doing nothing but testing products for functionality and bugs. The more eyes exploring a product, the better, as the diversity of approaches and perspectives makes for a more thoroughly tested product. When company testers find the product to be ‘bug free’ and user friendly, they communicate to QAs that the product has ‘passed.’

QAs continue to test even while they wait for the product to pass through the company testers. After confirming that all bugs have been fixed, that functionality is working and user friendly, and that company testers have given the ‘thumbs up,’ the product is finished, and ready for rollout.

After passing through our developers, our QAs, and our company testers, the product then moves on to its most important test of all – your daily use! Our entire testing process is designed to make our products function in the useful, user friendly ways that you would like it to. We greatly value your feedback because your opinion is the most important of all.

About the Author
Chelsea Baguley, is a certified Scrum Master at Internet Truckstop and works hand in hand with the development department. Chelsea started as a tester at Internet Truckstop and has a keen insight of the functions on the load board.

by admin

Some (Cautiously) Optimistic News for the Economy

Last week, two key economic reports showed an improving environment for trucking. In one, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that total monthly retail sales increased by a seasonally-adjusted 0.3% during November, or 3.7% year over year. In the other, the Federal Reserve documented a full percentile increase in the monthly industrial production index for November, including a 1.1 percentile improvement in the manufacturing component.

Contrasted with the weakness seen in these measures during recent months, the November reports are especially promising for trucking. The improvement in industrial production, for instance, was the largest monthly increase in this index since December 2010. Retail sales, meanwhile, are now up nearly 25% from their recessionary bottom.

The scene is not all rosy, however. As the Fed’s report noted, “The gain in November is estimated to have largely resulted from a recovery in production for industries that had been negatively affected by Hurricane Sandy, which hit the Northeast region in late October.”

Moreover, inventories continue to grow throughout the supply chain. As shown in the figure, the growth rate of inventory accumulation has outpaced that for retail sales and production since late 2010, and the volume of business inventories steadily increases. So long as the supply chain struggles to move existing stock, we will continue to see a disconnect between new production and demand for more trucking.

Whether the November improvements in manufacturing and sales will continue is an open question. Some early answers to this question will be provided this week in the December regional production reports from the Fed Banks in New York, Philadelphia, and Kansas City.

 

Jeremy West
ITS Economist

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NEW EOBR from uDrove!

The U.S. Congress has passed the MAP 21 Transportation bill that requires drivers to track their hours of service using electronic logging devices. All truck drivers in the U.S. and Canada who drive more than 100 air miles from their home base must maintain driver logs. These logs are monitored by federal authorities to ensure that drivers are not exceeding their time on duty or driving hours. An Electronic On Board Recorder (EOBR) fleet solution automates Hours of Service reporting.  If you are required to file a record of duty status (RODS), this mandate affects you.

When the FMCSA first made its cost assumptions for requiring the use of EOBR, it used a popular device in the marketplace that a number of large fleets had adopted as a fleet management and electronic logging solution. The price for the hardware of this device was estimated at $1,675, according to the Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis. Smaller companies and owner operators that wanted a Fleet Management System to help reduce operating expenses, simplify business management, and improve driver habits could never justify the expense of purchasing the equipment, or committing to a long term contract. uDrove has built a solution for companies that is affordable and easy to use, minus the contracts.

While implementing an EOBR system in your fleet does require an initial investment, the long term benefits outweigh the costs incurred up front. Hours Of  Service violations are virtually eliminated and Fuel/Mileage tracking is done electronically, simplifying IFTA reporting and reducing driver error.  Not only does uDrove eliminate driver error but we have integrated with PC Miler to give our customers access to real-time date for a single truck, a group of trucks, or an entire fleet’s in-state and interstate mileage, with automated reports for fast and efficient compliance with state and federal tax regulations.

Using smart phone technology, drivers can also maintain their fuel and business expenses electronically. By taking a picture of fuel and expense receipts, anything a driver spends money on can be captured and kept on their web account at uDrove.com.

uDrove provides companies a simple, cost-effective solution that truckers can purchase pre-mandate, and still have it make sense financially. They came into the market well before the MAP 21 Transportation bill was proposed and passed. With the data received from the EOBR and the capabilities of the smart phone, companies realize their R.O.I. (return on investment) almost instantly.

For more information on uDrove’s EOBR please contact 888-983-7683 or visit eobr.udrove.com

by admin

Upward 2012 Q3 GDP Revision Reflects Mainly Growth in Inventories

Last Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a 2.7% annual rate during the third quarter of 2012, which was an upward revision from the preliminarily reported annual growth rate of 2.0%. At a first glance, this appears to be good news, but as economist James Hamilton points out, a more thorough reading of the report shows that the U.S. economy is “growing a slower rate than any of us would like.”

In particular, 0.8 percentage points of the growth in GDP translated into increased inventory accumulation, and 0.7 came from higher levels of defense spending. Excluding these factors, Q3 GDP grew at a measly 1.2% annual rate. Hamilton reasonably anticipates that GDP will continue to grow at below-average rates during 2012Q4 and in the near future.

For the trucking industry, I find the increased accumulation of inventories to be the most concerning aspect of this report. As shown in the below figure, U.S. total trade inventories increased by $135b, or 9.1%, from March 2011 through September 2012 (the most recent month currently reported by the Census Bureau). Over the same time period, total retail sales actually declined by $17b, or 1.4%. Basically, retail sales have been largely flat for nearly two years, while inventories have steadily accumulated.

I have discussed the problems of increased inventory accumulation previously on this blog, and it remains troubling for trucking to have increasing production volumes be simply stashed in warehouses.

New orders for durable goods (products with a useable life of at least three years) remained flat during October (.pdf), as did new home sales (.pdf). Moreover, consumer confidence improved by only 0.6% during November.

Recently, the American Trucking Association reported that truck tonnage declined by 3.8% in October, the first year-over-year drop since November 2009. Clearly, the trucking sector is in need of a positive shock to demand. A possible source for such a shock is much less clear.

 

Jeremy West
Internet Truckstop Economist