When small Connecticut manufacturers need to move goods they typically call on a trucking company like Middletown’s Bailey’s Express.
The company’s fleet of 35 trucks and 75 employees serves as a “less-than-truckload” carrier, or LTL, helping move anything less than a full trailer of goods.
Trucking companies are a linchpin in the state’s economy, providing key transportation services that ensure goods produced in a manufacturing plant are picked up, transported and delivered safely and on time to the end customer.
Mike Mallon, vice president of operations at Bailey’s, said the company has about 25 drivers that live locally and who pick up freight in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They bring the freight back to their Middletown terminal where goods are repackaged each night and shipped out to the next and sometimes final destination, via a larger, over-the-road linehaul trucking company like YRC or Con-way Truckload.
Mallon said up to 45 percent of the freight his company handles on a daily basis originates in Connecticut and moves through its network. The company handles about 500 shipments per night.
To ensure Bailey’s has enough freight each day for its workforce, a group of five salespeople scour the three-state region cultivating potential customers. Bailey’s also uses a third-party logistics provider (3PL) to stir up business, which can be spotty at times.
Third-party logistics providers are specialized companies that serve as a sort of Craigslist for freight shipments.
“They put shipments out to bid to several different carriers and then it becomes a bidding war,” Mallon said. “It’s a daily challenge [to fill trucks]. A lot of trucking is seasonal, so you’re always making adjustments; consolidating runs, to make sure these trailers are coming home [to Middletown] full every night.”
For Bailey’s Express, filling trucks and working around customer and governmental restrictions are just a few of the challenges it faces on a daily basis. The firm was founded in 1920 by Robert Bailey to deliver 40-quart cans of milk to New Haven.
While it no longer delivers milk, its varied customer list includes businesses of all sizes from a myriad of industries. To handle all the freight, Bailey’s has three employees in charge of making shipping decisions on a nightly basis. The Middletown terminal operates about 20 hours per day, Mallon said.
Software has also become a big part of the logistics process.
“Trucking will always be a manual process, but computers have developed a big role,” Mallon said. “We have a system with satellite tracking all our vehicles with almost up-to-the-minute location information. With [federal safety regulations], we can’t communicate with our drivers anymore so we have tracking now.”
The software not only schedules pickups and deliveries, but also provides customers an estimated arrival time, and helps determine the resources needed on a given night to accomplish the work.
Among other challenges Bailey’s faces is the current rate environment. With a still uneven economy, “pricing is stagnated at best,” Mallon said.
“We try to keep a very strong, disciplined pricing module,” he added. “Back in 2007 and 2008, a lot of carriers lowered prices just to put freight on trailers.”
The pickup and delivery requirements set forth by big box stores are also challenging Bailey’s and the trucking industry as a whole, Mallon said.
“They have very tight delivery windows and if you don’t get there [in that timeframe] they assess financial penalties,” Mallon said.
