Managing hazardous loads
March 1st 2011 Specialist training for drivers carrying hazardous goods is essential says Rhys Davies
Freight Logistics says Rhys Davies's commercial manager Gary Phillips
Every day, huge amounts of hazardous goods are
transported across the country for delivery to end users.
However, not all companies recognise the need for
specialist driver training and may be unaware of the complex
regulations involved in transporting hazardous material.
This makes it important that as their logistics company we
know exactly what's involved.We operate strictly in accordance
with the ADR (Accord Dangereuse Routiers) the European
directive on the carriage of hazardous goods and all of our
drivers are trained to meet those exacting standards.
As a member of the Responsible Care Programme operated by
the Chemical Business Association, Rhys Davies is recognised as
being committed to the continuous improvement of health,
safety and its environmental performance. The accreditation
covers the warehousing and transport of chemical and hazardous
products and provides a third-party endorsement that a
distributor's procedures are correct and working properly.
The Responsible Care Programme has practical benefits for the
company and its customers. The Programme ensures that we have
the right procedures in place when we're handling hazardous
chemicals including our arrangements for dealing with spillages
and the segregation of products. It can also have a beneficial effect
on our insurance premiums helping us keep our prices competitive.
Across each of its eight depots in the UK Rhys Davies's drivers
are ADR trained, which is essential for carriers transporting
potentially dangerous or hazardous goods. The company's entire
network of vehicles and warehouses are also equipped to store,
manage, pick and deliver hazardous goods, such as those
produced by Water Treatment Products Ltd, who formulate and
manufacture speciality water treatment chemicals for a wide
range of companies and applications.
Tim Carter, director ofWater Treatment Products was keen to
find a company that could offer a good, reliable service to the
company and its clients.He found this in Rhys Davies. "They give
us the combination of good, reliable service at a reasonable cost and
we can now offer our clients next-day delivery which is a bonus."
Value-added services of this kind are something that Rhys
Davies offers all of its customers. This can be anything from reworking
faulty batteries; removing small samples of product and
sending them to the client for testing; separating pallets into
smaller quantities and re-packaging for delivery or, in the case of
European paint manufacturer PPG, mixing paint on site.
Rhys Davies provides this service for PPG at its Birmingham
warehouse. As PPG is based in Belgium it makes more sense for the
paints to be mixed at our warehouse rather than them shipping
paint colours speculatively. It saves them time and money and a
local despatch point gives a much later order cut-off for customers.
Rhys Davies also offers a comprehensive service to those
dealing in liquids, carrying a pump on their vehicles to pump out
the product from the Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBCs) on
the vehicle into the customer's tank. For example, when they
deliver chemicals on behalf of Water Treatment Products the
driver is sometimes required to pump product directly into the
customer's on-site tanks.
Trusting the delivery of your product to an external contractor
is a big leap of faith, especially when the products are hazardous
chemicals. Not only are you putting them in the hands of someone
else and trusting them to deliver the chemicals safely, you are also
allowing them to represent your business to your customers. Rhys
Davies's experience in delivering to large corporations has also
proved invaluable to Spanjer Chemicals, one of Europe's leading car
wash chemical manufacturers. Glen Warriner, director of Spanjer
Chemicals said: "We are delivering into some large companies that
have strict booking-in and booking-out procedures. Rhys Davies is
used to dealing with this and
runs an efficient system." More articles from Rhys Davies Freight Logistics: | 
