The Cost of Failed Deliveries & Missed Time Slots

What is the cost of failed deliveries for the UK Retail Sector?

Just recently Tesco's complained that haulage companies cost them £50 million in lost revenue last year and have now started fining their top 40 suppliers for missed loads. It's such a high turnaround in the docking bays each delivery gets a 2 hour window to unload...they get half an hour after their allocated start time to turn up and after that are turned away and a new time slot needs rebooking, which can be days away in some cases.

With UK roads becoming more and more congested it is becoming increasingly difficult to hit the time slots booked in. It only takes an accident or some road works to take out a motorway for a couple of hours and the knock on effect can be disastrous for a driver’s schedule.          

We often see European lorries parked up for days around here waiting to tip their loads - the further they come the more likely they are to miss their delivery times, even with plenty of contingency in place. So what do they do with missed loads? If they are part of a large network with depots they can deliver in to then the driver can get back on schedule. If they aren't then it means waiting....it means the transport manager needs to deploy other vehicles to pick up the jobs the driver waiting with the missed loads can't get to..it means rebooking in another time slot. One big headache for the office staff, long periods of unproductive down time for the driver.

So we came up with a solution to this and are about to launch this new service for failed deliveries! Our M.D is full of great ideas - he's a real problems solver and after seeing some European hauliers parked up near our warehouse for days at a time he thought of the idea of offering a failed delivery service.

We have an extensive fleet of vehicles, extensive warehouse space at our premises and access to warehousing elsewhere where we can receive in their loads, rebook a new time slot and redeliver the load successfully on behalf of them.  They can on with their next jobs and get back to mainland Europe. For perishable goods we can dispose of them if they cannot be booked back in on time, freeing up the vehicle and driver to get on with the next job.

Any thoughts or suggestions about this new service would be most welcome - what are your experiences? What do you think the cost impact is for your company, either retailer or logistics?