With a central planning office set up at our Padiham Depot and supported by planning teams based at our Frontier Park & Coventry depots, the staff in our Transport Planning department, overseen by F&W Transport Operations Director Daniel Fagan, are responsible for keeping everything moving!
“The team that looks after our transport operations really functions as the beating heart of everything we do,” explains F&W Transport Operations Director, Daniel Fagan. “The Transport Planning department serves as a 24-hour operation, with dedicated day and night planning teams keeping our articulated fleet moving around the UK and ensuring the consignments of our clients are all taken care of and delivered on time.
“As a team of eighteen staff members, including senior planners, the responsibilities for this department are broadly split into two core areas, with a proportion of the team taking care of the load and journey planning for the vehicles in our articulated fleet and the remaining team members looking after the return-load and subcontract side of things.
“Once a client has placed an order and this has gone live on our system, the Transport Planning team will get to work. The job requires the team to be focused, analytical, and to have great organisational skills, as they’ll be required to find the most efficient way of moving freight from one destination to another, whether it’s coming from one of our warehouses or direct from a client’s site, taking into account the space available on the vehicles, any time-sensitive requirements from the client, and any other jobs the drivers may already have booked in, and they do this for full loads, part loads, and groupage consignments.
“Our planners also have to be able to work well under pressure, to think on their feet and react quickly to any news coming in from drivers who are out on the road, reevaluating and reorganising journeys in the event of road traffic collisions or any substantial road works to ensure consignments always reach their destination according to schedule.
“We have an excellent team of staff in our Transport Planning department, all of whom are dedicated to keeping things running smoothly and keeping our clients and our drivers happy. They do an amazing job in boosting the efficiency of our 140-vehicle articulated fleet and providing practical solutions as and when required to minimise delays and keep our operation ticking!”
Looking to work with a dedicated team of logistics specialists? We’ve been moving goods for over 95 years! Contact our offices to find out more about the transport and distribution solutions we can offer to help with making your own operations more efficient.
