Trucking Shortage: How to Tap Into Underutilized Capacity

Supply chain disruptions in recent years have taught us how important it is to get creative when securing trucking solutions.

This article was originally published at renkertoil.com. It has been edited.

In periods of national and global supply chain disruptions, finding specialty trucking solutions becomes much more challenging.

There are many possible specific reasons why it’s been difficult to secure enough trucking capacity in recent years.

Some have pointed to a national driver shortage. Experts debate this. Others point to increases in online consumer spending that have caused increased demands on the supply chain overall.

But there is another possibility that could be good news to companies that are struggling to source reliable trucking solutions.

Some evidence suggests that there is plenty of trucking capacity out there. As much as 40 percent may be underutilized.

Whatever the exact figure, we have observed that this is true. You just may have to get creative to tap into these trucking solutions.

Searching for New Trucking Solutions

We were faced with what has been a common problem for all kinds of industries in recent years. Coming out of the pandemic, companies were eager to diversify their vendor relationships to build redundancies and stability into supply chains.

Or, to put it another way: trucking companies were struggling to attract and retain drivers. In a climate like this, all it takes to potentially cause a major supply chain disruption is for a driver or two to not show up one day. Contingency plans are a must.

This is why we were eager to do more business with trucking companies that transport our specialty products. We just couldn’t find them.

Finding Untapped Trucking Capacity

In our case, the product was bulk food-grade oil (white mineral oil). Transportation of bulk food-grade oil must meet several quality control and safety standards. The companies we found that had capacity were not prepared to meet these standards.

These companies had at least three reasons to turn us down, none of which had to do with driver availability. They lacked:

• Equipment. These companies either didn’t have a suitable trailer or the trailers they did have were used for transporting liquids that could contaminate our product.
• Procedure. They weren’t prepared to thoroughly clean the tanker prior to transporting food-grade oil, a necessary step to avoid product contamination.
• Time. They believed the extra steps for the proper handling of our product would only worsen the problem of long lines for cleaning, loading, unloading, and weighing that keeps drivers off the road for hours each day.

Again, they did not lack drivers, and we needed drivers. So we came back to these companies with a new proposal.

What if we were to equip them to help us tap their capacity?

Making Our Own Trucking Solutions

We decided to stop searching for companies with the solutions we needed. Instead, we offered to facilitate those solutions.

Problem: Equipment

Solution: Trailer Rental

Renkert Oil began renting dedicated trailers for trucking companies to use in the transport of food-grade oil. The benefit to us and our customers of having that trailer on standby far outweighed the investment.

Problem: Procedure

Solution: Simplification

By providing a dedicated trailer for our product, we minimized the cleaning requirements that would have been necessary had the tanker been multi-purpose. This simplified the prospect of transporting our specialty product.??

From a quality perspective, this even reduced contamination risk from “wet trailers” after washing.

Problem: Time

Solution: Terminal Efficiency

This was a problem we were already prepared to solve with our high-efficiency and no-appointment terminals. The schedule of appointments most terminals work on is rarely realistic. Long lines to unload, weigh, load, and weigh again can leave truckers waiting for hours.

In contrast, we arrange our terminals so that loading occurs near the tanks. The best have a drive-on weight scale at the loading location, making this a much more fluid process. Even with no appointment, truckers at our terminals can load up in as little as 40 minutes.

Additionally, the dedicated trailer does not need to be cleaned for every load, saving the driver time and the hassle of washing the trailers. With dedicated trailers, wash waivers have been accepted by nearly all of our customers to load their USP white oil on top of a prior white oil load.?

Work with Renkert Oil to Create Trucking Solutions

We’re more than your specialty oil supplier. Renkert Oil draws from four decades of experience solving complex logistics problems to help you solve yours.

This extends beyond offering you the best supply security for specialty oil products in our industry. As partners with you, we’re also eager to share our expertise to help you solve your own supply chain challenges.

So if you’re looking for a specialty oil supply partner that can help you create the innovative trucking solutions you need, talk to Renkert Oil today.