FUEL EFFICIENCY ON TOP OF BRIDGEWATER LOGISTICS’ AGENDA
While businesses may not be immune to the recent rampant fuel hikes, partnering with a reputable road transport logistics expert has helped them mitigate their exposure to this risk.
Quinton de Villiers, managing director of Bridgewater Logistics, says that the company’s many clients have access to a very efficient short- and long-haul truck fleet that is also operated by a team of highly-competent drivers, who undergo regular training to hone their skills.
“South Africa is a transport-intensive economy and a net importer of fuel – the lifeblood of our industry – and supply chains will, therefore, always be vulnerable to external shocks. It is during challenging times such as these that the real value of partnering with a skilled third-party logistics provider truly comes to the fore. As an expert in road-transport logistics, it is our role to ensure that we use diesel sparingly at all times to assist our clients to retain efficiencies in their supply chains,” De Villiers says.
Importantly, Bridgewater Logistics’ robust fleet-management strategy has also played an immense role in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the company.
This comes at a time when many unscrupulous operators have neglected important maintenance and repair, as well as fleet-replacement cycles to provide their services at a vastly reduced and unsustainable rate in an approach that has also led to many accidents involving trucks on South Africa’s road network.
De Villiers explains that developing an effective and robust fleet-management strategy is extremely complex, encompassing the purchase, maintenance and disposal of trucks.
It includes a database inventory that greatly assists the team track serviceable or non-serviceable trucks to identify high-cost commercial vehicles.
Importantly, it also assists in identifying fleet-replacement cycles, which minimize maintenance costs, in addition to ensuring that high levels of safety are maintained at all times on the country’s highly-congested road networks.
In addition to fuel-consumption patterns, this life-cycle analysis considers overhead and resale value, as well as maintenance and depreciation of Bridgewater Logistics’ large fleet of trucks, which are one of the critical cornerstones of its cutting-edge distribution and line-haul operations.
