Great Western Transportation

Interesting Video Productions

mattgw — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:26:40 +0000

Great Western Transportation would like to share some interesting video productions in hopes that you will enjoy them as much as we did, the links to them are below.

Video of the Mercedes SLS Tunnel Roll

Video of VolksWagen factory in Germany

Great Western Transportation is your complete trucking service specializing in Temperature Controlled (Frozen & Chilled), Dry, Flatbed, and Heavy Haul freight on both a Truckload and LTL basis. If there is anything that we may assist you with please do not hesitate in contacting us.

Happy New Year

mattgw — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:11:59 +0000

Great Western Transportation would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Great Western Transportation is your complete trucking service specializing in Temperature Controlled, Dry, Flatbed, and Heavy Haul freight on both a Truckload and LTL basis. If there is anything that we may assist you with please do not hesitate in contacting us.

Happy Thanksgiving

mattgw — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:40:20 +0000

Great Western Transportation would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t ruin your Holiday season by using an inexperienced trucking service, instead go with the people you can trust at Great Western.

As always, Great Western Transportation is your complete trucking service specializing in Temperature Controlled, Dry, Flatbed, and Heavy Haul freight on both a Truckload and LTL basis. If there is anything that we may assist you with please do not hesitate in contacting us.

Mission Statement

mattgw — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:52:08 +0000

We at Great Western Transportation value the relationships we make with our customers knowing that good relationships in business benefit both parties. In expressing our value in relationships we have decided to include our mission statement to let you better understand our core values and direction:

“To maintain a leadership position in the transportation industry by providing better services that are reliable and consistent, with honesty and integrity. Our success is defined by that of our customers.”

We consider ourselves a leader in the transportation industry and the reason we believe we are is because we provide more consistent and reliable trucking services than our competition. One way we do that is by conducting our business with honesty and integrity, the foundations of building trust in any relationship. A relationship is only as good as the trust you can put in one another, so we do our best to make sure we are a company you can trust in helping you to achieve your goals.

The last part of the mission statement means that our success is defined by the success of your business; we hope our services provide you the value you need to be successful and grow.

As always, Great Western Transportation is your premier trucking service that specializes in Refrigerated (Chilled & Frozen), Flatbed, Heavy Haul, and Dry Freight Trucking on both a LTL and Truckload basis.

Karen Dengler, CEO

Labor Day Weekend

mattgw — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:53:18 +0000

Great Western Transportation would like to wish everyone a safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend, often considered the unofficial end of summer.

In regards to the recent passing of Hurricane Irene, the biggest effect appears to be the massive amount of flooding which has required the need of road detours that are leading to transit delays. What this means to shippers is that there may be delays to shipments into and out of some parts of the Northeast region of the country but unlikely enough to severely affect your operations.

Expanded Heavy Haul Services

mattgw — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:19:44 +0000

Great Western Transportation has expanded their Heavy Haul Trucking services to help cover the increasing demand to move large shipments. Heavy Haul Trucking serves the needs of customers looking to ship specialized loads that are large in dimensions, heavy in weight, or both. The most common types of heavy haul shipments are construction equipment like excavators or dump trucks but isn’t limited to just those.

Specialized heavy hauling shipments are just that, “specialized.” It takes a certain type of company to handle oversized shipments. Great Western handles the shipments many other companies will not. No matter the size or weight Great Western has the experience and knowledge of specialized transportation needed to offer a transport solution for your oversized shipment.

As a reminder, Great Western Transportation still and will always handle LTL and Truckload shipping of Refrigerated, Dry Van, and Flatbed freight in addition to our Power-Only services. If you have any questions about our expanded Heavy Haul Trucking or other services, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Green Supply Chain

mattgw — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:15:45 +0000

We at Great Western Transportation would like to share with you a news article on the Logistics View website about the Greenpeace organization finding that a common textile supplier of Adidas, Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch, Calvin Klein, Converse, H&M, Lacoste, and Puma has been found to be dumping toxic waste into local rivers in China. The Greenpeace organization has been pressuring these companies to stop using the supplier. It’s a very common type of story in regards to getting the bigger companies who are more susceptible to negative press to pressure their suppliers to become green and environmentally responsible.

We handle the transportation needs of customers who are in some way attached to a supplier either because they are a supplier to another company or they have a lot of suppliers to themselves. Suppliers frequently end up moving overseas to cut costs in labor and to avoid having to follow regulations that are set by the US government to prevent waste dumping like in the article. The debate that rises is if the government should reduce environmental regulations to keep businesses in the US or to increase them in favor of the environment.

We at Great Western Transportation like to keep you up to date on any interesting news and events in hopes you keep us in mind for any future shipments. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to call us at 1-800-972-8484.

California Refrigerated Truck Shortage

mattgw — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:20:37 +0000

I wanted to let people know that we are experiencing the worst Refrigerated Truck shortage in California in many years and it has caused a significant increase in rates for truckload shipments. The reasons for this are multiple but the most significant are that the surge of seasonal freight along with a believed recovery of the economy has created more freight than there are trucks.

The unbalanced freight and truck ratio mixed with California passing clean air regulations requiring older refrigerated trucks to be refitted to pass inspections has put a major burden on truckers that many can’t afford. This has pushed a large amount of truckers to sell and salvage their trucks or simply refuse to come to California. There are trucks available but their cost is at a much higher premium than many are used to and it has put a strain on everyone in the industry. This surge in rates seems to be affecting truckload shipments primarily, with LTL remaining balanced.

Great Western Transportation is providing this information because we want people to know why shipments coming out of California have seen an increase in their rates. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call us at 1-800-972-8484.

Downfall of Work Ethic

mattgw — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:27:04 +0000

With the down turn of the economy there has been a surplus of available employees but there is a common theme, and that is the lack of work ethic. It’s common to hear employers complain about how hard it is to find good help and not much has changed even with the extra supply of people looking for jobs. Specifically in the transportation industry it has been very hard to find people who have experience in the field but also come in with the drive to help build the business.

Most people who come to work do so for the sole purpose of the paycheck and don’t love what they do though I believe people should enjoy what they do and get paid as a bonus. It can be hard to find intriguing jobs in this day and age when most work is done at a desk but I think everyone can find something to enjoy in their work even when at first it may be hard to get into.

At Great Western Transportation we are always striving to find the best employees who have the drive to reach the high expectations that our customers expect.

Doubts in the “Just in Time” System

mattgw — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:40:24 +0000

In college I learned about the Just-in-Time supply chain model in regards to Toyota and how it was far superior to the massive build up of inventory that was standard in the early days of Ford. After the crisis in Japan earlier this year I was going to make a blog post about how when a chain is so efficient to the point that there is no inventory buildup and then a natural disaster hits your operations immediately stop. I held off on making a post about it because I felt that it might have been out of the scope of this blog but with the recent tornado in Missouri in addition to someone making a similar argument in Transport Topics, I decided to briefly bring up the issue.

In Transport Topics May 23, 2011 issue there is an editorial “Rethink the ‘Just-in-Time’ Delivery System” by Julian Keeling which talks about the same idea but he noted a system I never heard of called “Just-in-Case” (JIC). JIC is basically the idea of consolidating shipments and doing them in advance to avoid the potential immediate stop in productions in case of any unexpected delays but it requires inventory to be built up which goes against the idea behind JIT system. The benefits of JIC are that it puts less strain on the supply chain because they will have more room to deal with problems as they come.

At Great Western Transportation we always recommend shipping important loads out a few days early to compensate for any unforeseen circumstances so that productions will not be held up. Please visit our Truckload Trucking and LTL Trucking pages to learn about the options available to you when deciding to ship your product. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call us at 1-800-972-8484.