CASE - Hardee Transportation

Jim O'Brien of Hardee Transportation has his hands full with the requests from his largest customer. However, a new and possibly greater issue has presented itself to Jim: the new hours-of-service rules. Hardee's freight lanes and customer pickup and delivery (PUD) operations are set to reflect the previous 10 hours of maximum drive time for his drivers. The dispatch centers and bobtail patterns to service customer trailer pools are also set up on the previous rules.

Jim's customers don't necessarily agree with his concerns. They argue that drivers will actually have more continuous drive time under the new regulations. They also argue that the reduced on-duty hours for drivers will reduce driver fatigue and result in fewer accidents, lowering Hardee's operating costs. Jim doesn't agree. Even though driving hours are increased, total driving time might actually be reduced. If PUD times are increased at certain customer locations, driving time is reduced to comply with the 14-hour on-duty time.

This is a great concern for Jim because some of his largest customers have the longest PUD times. Plus, some of these customers also require that the driver bobtails to their shipping locations. Jim has approached his sales team with the request that they require their customers to reduce loading and unloading times. If they can't, Hardee has no choice but to either increase detention charges or seriously consider dropping those customers. Obviously, these two options were not well-received by the sales organization. Sales perceived these actions to be against Hardee's service strategy and were fearful that some customers may rebel.

CASE QUESTIONS

1. Using the information in this chapter, how would you tell Jim to proceed?