In Gear - Today's Trucking

The Big Three
For Ontario line-haul carriers, it means
rethinking some partnerships and diversifying
across a broader spectrum of sectors
and industries.
Obviously, trucking companies able
to secure lucrative contracts with any of
the growing Japanese
firms and their providers
will be riding shotgun
along the Mich-Can corridor.
Others will likely look
to increase their stake in
general goods and blanketwrap
truckload freight like
electronics and computer
equipment. Bigger companies
with capital to burn
are making a mad dash for Alberta’s oil
patch these days, buying local assets and
equipment in hopes of getting a piece of
the booming energy sector.
However, while most large carriers are
careful to spread themselves out evenly,
there is a sizeable contingent of smaller
Southern Ontario truckers and owner-ops
that could be feeling the pinch for being
too heavily invested in a couple of Big
Three-related contracts.
“If you have 70 or 80 percent of your
business with the Big Three, you’re pretty
much at overexposure,” says Norm Mackie,
54 TODAY’S TRUCKING
If you have 70
or 80 percent of
your business
with the Big
Three, you’re
pretty much at
overexposure.
John Ferguson isn’t interested in hearing all the doomand-gloom
forecasts about southern Ontario. Even as
Ontario’s Premier pleads to Ottawa for more of booming
Alberta’s cash to rescue his province’s struggling sectors, the
new general manager at Schneider National’s Canadian
division says he’s still making a good living off Ontario
manufacturing—auto, and otherwise.
Trucking in the province is particularly robust for carriers, so
long as they don’t pick up most of their loads at one dock.
Ferguson, who was recently named the first GM at Schneider’s
Guelph, Ont., office, says diversification is key in weathering
storms in any one sector. Schneider is known for being a
preferred transport provider of U.S. auto manufacturers, but
Ferguson says the company has made it a point to remain
flexible in a variety of industries.
“We have done work with the Big Three, but not so much
that, as they’ve scaled back, we’ve seen a degradation along
the corridor … We have a very diversified client mix and we
of Oshawa, Ont.-based Mackie Moving
Systems. “The long-term planning is you
need to try to shift to other markets.”
Mackie says about 30 percent of his
business is with GM—still his largest customer,
but allowing enough flexibility to
position the company in
other markets. There’s no
denying the desire to pick up
other automotive business,
both in Japanese auto business
and other Big Three
freight. “I’ve been trying for
over a year to get my foot in
the door at Chrysler,” says
Mackie. “Obviously the plum
of the business right now
seems to point towards the Japanese, and
we’re going to work at trying to get our foot
in the door with those folks as well.”
Rick Way of Guelph, Ont. doesn’t haul
so much as a wheel nut, but he’s still paying
close attention to what’s happening
in the automotive sector. Way, president
of 30-truck general freight and flatdeck
carrier WayFreight Services, says that
transport providers heavily leveraged on
GM and Ford business are looking to
maintain volumes by poking around
other general freight and niche sectors.
“I sense it’s happening already with
DIVERSITY INC.
VARIETY IS THE KEY IN ONTARIO, SAYS SCHNEIDER GM
make sure there’s
not any one business
that makes up
too high of a per-
[truckers] moving into other markets.
There’s some carriers with capital equipment
tied-up and drivers looking to
work,” he says. “When you need 100 loads,
it doesn’t matter whose 100 loads they are.
You need to get ’em back somewhere.”
Way knows of a few carriers, including
himself, that are watching rates more
closely than they were a year ago. After
several plush years of raising rates and
successfully recouping surcharges, Way
predicts a mini-price war in some lanes
along the corridor. “I found myself in the
last couple of months paying more attention
to the competitive factor, especially
on van traffic, whereas on the flatbed
there’s still a little more market freedom,”
he says. “I just hope it doesn’t reach a
point where carriers start to give back
some of the gains they’ve worked so hard
to get collectively. For some people, I think
rates are going to be under attack just to
keep the volumes up.” ▲
John
Ferguson
centage overall. That’s a continual strategy at Schneider.”
The Green Bay-based truckload giant has held operations in
Canada since 1990. But now, head office in the Badger State
wants a more Canadian identity for its northern ops. Enter
Ferguson, who’s been charged with development and execution
of a new business strategy in the Canadian marketplace.
“The role has been put in place to really look at Canada more
strategically, where [originally], we were put in service for our
cross-border customers, which were pretty much U.S. based,”
says Ferguson, who comes to Schneider via PBB Global
Logistics, a provider of third-party international logistics
services in Fort Erie, Ont.“As Schneider becomes more of an
international player, as we go beyond asset-based trucking, we
need more representation around the world.”