on delivery costs How you can save Gr a,

IN THIS issue the tables are being Iturned and you will be asked to answer the questions, but only privately and for your own benefit.

During the week of Oct. 9, the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association is holding its annual convention at The Pointe in Phoenix, Az. We will be speaking during the meeting on delivery practices in support of our soon-to-bepublished (by the NLBMDA) manual Monagement Surveys The Black Hole of Delivery. Containing the details of studies on reducing delivery costs, it was commissioned earlier in the year by the association's Transportation and Materials Handling Committee.

There are three parts to the study. Each is depictive of a different sales volume classification. The classes are less than $2,000,000, between $2,000,000 and $5,000,000 and over $5,000,000 in total annual sales. A Delivery Practices Questionnaire will be circulated to those in attendance at the seminar. The answers and their meanings will be explained as part ofthe workshop.

The questionnaire is shown below for your use. Cut it out, reproduce it or put your answers in the spaces pro- vided. There are no right or wrong answers-just your answers. So be candid with yourself and your company.

In next month's issue we will begin to answer the questions and identify their meaning so that each of you may get an over-view of your own delivery practices.

Deliyery Practices Questionnaire

(1) Does your firm periodically identify the profitability of its delivered sales?

(2) Take 6090 of your total sales last year and divide it by the number of delivery trucks you operate. If the result is under $1,000,000 check "No," if over $1,000,000 check "Yes."

(3) Do your yard people generally work 8 hours or less per day most of the time?

Yes No !n

Does your company nor- n n mally charge for hand placement of items like shingles and wallboard, or picking up materials for credit?

From existing company n ! records could you state how much in sales were delivered, at what cost, and in how many separate stops (deliveries) last year?

(E) Did you or anyone in n n your company shop "delivery" at your competitors last year?

(9) Do you know or have ! ! records to show where you made deliveries to your best customers, and in what amount?

(10) Doesyourcompanyhave tr n a published delivery policy your employees follow to insure that your customers are serviced in an effective and understood method?

Correction: the chart relating to contract delivery in the September issue should hove listed drive hours at 39,000 miles instead of 15,(N0 miles-ed.

Questions on delivery costs? Send them to this magazine at 4500 Campus Dr., Suite 480, Newport Beach, Ca. 92660. Wally Lynch will answer them in future issues. This is your chance to take advantage of his expertise in cutting your delivery costs.

(4) Do you have personal knowledge of a written Iist of responsibilities and duties set up for whoever does the dispatching in your company to follow?

(5) Do you use or know of a load management system used by your company to insure effective load building, routing and dispatching?