A former insurance assessor has come up with a 51p solution to a problem which is costing the transport industry millions of pounds a year.reprinted from WarehouseNews.co.uk, 7 June 2004
A former insurance assessor has come up with a 51p solution to a problem which is costing the transport industry millions of pounds a year.
While working as a business development manager in overnight pallet distribution for MTH Logistics, Hayley Shirley noticed how much time and money was wasted when pallets were wrongly stacked on top of fragile items, damaging them.
Believing there had to be a simple solution to the problem she designed and developed the "Palletcap", a bright yellow cardboard warning cone which is fixed to the top of a fragile consignment ensuring drivers are aware they cannot stack anything on top of it.
"It is easy to see why problems occur," she explained. "When large volumes of pallets are being moved by forklift, it is not always possible to identify fragile goods by label alone.
"The need for speedy deliveries and space constraints both in the warehouse and on the vehicles means there is a temptation to stack items which shouldn't be stacked."
Although only a small percentage of goods are actually damaged in this way, it is estimated that the cost to the industry exceeds £10m in insurance claims alone, with a further £2.5m being spent dealing with the administration.
But Mrs. Shirley added: "This doesn't take into account how much it costs the customer to administer the claim and the resulting increase in insurance premiums. The biggest cost, which is difficult to quantify but probably outweighs all other considerations, is the cost of losing a customer and the damage caused to a company's reputation. That could be many millions more."
According to Mrs. Shirley, the signs so far are that the industry is very receptive to Palletcap and keen to look at new ways of preventing losses.
Orders are already being placed.
"We've had some big orders from all over the UK, and received some really positive feedback," she said. "Our orders have been from the general haulage, pallet network and warehousing sectors. Most encouraging for me is that we are getting repeat orders."
Mrs. Shirley, came up with the idea while working for MTH, a Lichfield-based haulage company which specializes in overnight palletised freight distribution. Part of her job was to deal with insurance claims from customers.
She said: "It was a real bugbear of mine. We all understand accidents happen but for a consignment to be written off simply because something had been stacked on top of it during transportation just seemed a pointless waste of everyone's time and effort."
However she admits that initially she didn't envisage setting up her own company.
She credits Paul Fishwick, a business adviser she met through Business Link, with giving her the confidence and self-belief she needed to pursue the idea.
He had seen her in action at a seminar earlier in her career and was immediately impressed by her ability to think on her feet.
He said: "I have not been advising Hayley specifically on the setting up of her business but when I first met her I could see she had this impressive capacity to absorb and use information. She certainly has the ability to succeed in in business at a high level and I was keen to encourage her to see that.
"If she continues to show these same qualities with hew new venture she will no doubt have a very successful business." A prototype was originally created in rubberised plastic but remodelled in reinforced cardboard so that it would be more environmentally-friendly, easily stored flat-packed and wouldn't need to be recovered at the end of its journey.
The unit cost of the Palletcap depends on the number ordered but could be as little as 51p. As is often the case with new products, this belies the time and effort which has gone into developing the concept.
Mrs. Shirley believes there is a huge potential market for the Palletcap.
There are currently around 44 million pallet movements per year in the UK alone and this is growing at around 3-4 per cent annually. She hopes her invention could eventually become a recognised symbol worldwide within the industry.
It's not so much about the product itself as about the way it's used," she pointed out. "If all freight operators adopted it then everyone would understand what it meant and the system really would be effective in preventing unnecessary damage."