Logistics/fleet management
Logistics/fleet management
Reducing fleet travel
While we are committed to providing our franchisees, affiliates, and corporate operations with superior store delivery service, we are continuously looking for opportunities to fulfill this commitment in the most efficient manner possible.
We accomplish this by:
- Choosing strategic locations to build our distribution centres in order to support service areas economically and efficiently.
- Using computerized routing systems in our Québec and Ontario regions to select the most efficient routes to travel to and from their delivery destinations.
- Regularly analyzing the effectiveness of existing store delivery frequencies, and adjusting the frequencies where it makes sense to do so.
- Where practical, designing our stores' receiving areas to accommodate 53' trailers. This allows us to use larger vehicles capable of making more deliveries in one trip.
- Using multi-compartment trailers that can transport loads requiring multiple temperature zones, such as dry grocery (ambient temperature), produce (refrigerated), and frozen products in the same trailer, thereby reducing the number of trips we need to make to service our retail network.
Wherever possible and feasible, after making a store delivery, we arrange for our vehicles to pickup product from our suppliers' warehouses on their return trip to the distribution centres, rather than returning empty. This practice, referred to as backhauling, reduces the kilometres travelled by our trucks and eliminates the need for suppliers to place trucks on the road to deliver goods to our stores and distribution centres. Our corporate and third-party fleets travelled approximately 3,300,000 backhaul kilometres during the past year, which helped our supply chain partners reduce their carbon footprint and reduce our cost of goods.
Also when feasible, we arrange for products to be delivered to our distribution centres using intermodal transport. This involves delivering shipments to and from railyards by truck with the shipment then being transported by rail from city to city. This practice reduces transportation-related emissions. Within our organization, intermodal transportation is used most extensively by our Western region, which receives approximately 30% of inbound shipments by rail.
We are also encouraged by the continuing efforts among our many suppliers to reduce the cubic space requirements of their products and packaging, which reduces the number of shipments required to supply our stores each year.
