www.viewpoint.net.nz - NZ Transport, Aviation, Logistics & Supply Chain Blog

Log Book & Work Time Changes

Below is a brief video that Agoge Training has made to summarise the changes in Logbook and Work time rules effective 1 October 2007. If you would like a free high quality copy please contact Jim on 0800 42 46 43.

Transport & Logistics Bodies

One of the most noticeable elements of the Australian T&L seen is the fact that so many of the industry bodies are actually working together.

The have a body called the Australia Logistics Council which is a government and industry partnership to raise the profile of the T&L industry. They deal with all modes of transport and logistics except self loading transport (an Aussie term for passenger transport).

This body along with its many partner bodies has developed the T&L brand. They realised that everyone calls Transport, Road Transport, Aviation, Logistics, Supply Chain by different names. This dilutes the industry and most people think it is just smelly old truck drivers.

T&L is a brand aimed at encouraging younger people into the industry. T&L incorporates Rail, Warehousing, Road Transport, Stevedoring, Transport Administration and Logistics, Aviation and Maritime.

The also have a strong push to get more women involved in the industry.

The lesson for NZ is simple: We (Road Transport, Warehousing, Maritime) are competing against each other for the same pool of people rather than working together to make the industry more appealing to young people.

There is career path in T&L.

In fact I think we should use T&L to describe the industry in NZ. I’m sure the Aussies wont mind, they steel most of our stuff.

Transport & Logistics (NZ vs Aussie)

Greetings from Freight Week 2007 in Melbourne. I thought I would start my reports on the week by giving you a quick insight into Transport & Logistics in Australia.

Firstly, Australia has some very similar issues to New Zealand.
• The average age of their drivers is 48 (NZ in their 50’s)
• They are struggling to be seen to be sexy enough to attract Gen Y’s and now Gen Alpha.
• They have reasonably high interest rates (although they are 2% below NZ)
• The cost of fuel is high.
• Unemployment is at all time lows.
• The industry is going to double by 2020.

Next, they actually bundle all of transport and logistics (T&L) together and I’ll post more on that later. In Victoria alone they have 330,000 people employed in T&L and it makes up 14% of the Gross State Product. Nationally, T&L employs 4.5% of the Aussie workforce, is 15% of GDP and the industry contributes A$76 billion to the ecomony.

Finally, the Linfox CEO spoke at lunch and said they would not be acquiring much in the next 18 months (He said they are preparing for large Asian acquisitions) Anyway the issues they face in the next 18months is higher fuel rates and higher interest rates, and they appear to be preparing to weather the storm of a slowing economy.

All in all, a very interesting day yesterday and I came away with a few ideas about what NZ could do better to improve the Transport & Logistics employer brand.

RFID tags

There are a lot more issues for supply chain companies that are looking at implementing RFID into their process than just the cost of the tag.

They need to consider investment in technology, current system integration, and the bandwidth to handle huge volumes of tags in one spot (like a truck driving through a entrance, and a reader capturing all tags)

Back in 2003 the Auto ID Centre in the US did some predictions on the price of RFID tags into the market place.

It is interesting to look at the chart produced by the Centre almost 5 years ago. They envisaged two scenarios: (1) By 2008, EPC tags have come close to reaching the mythical "5-cent" tag, and there would be "fast adoption"; (2) tag prices stay higher, and there is "moderate adoption.”

Clearly the adoption of RFID has been slower than expected and at best is their second prediction.  We are a while away before we really see RFID become a significant force in the tracking of products.

NB: RFID means Radio-frequency identification (see wiki) and are small tags that generate a genreally unique radiowave, which can be read by devices without having to scan bar code etc. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader.

  Hattip: SCDigest

Work time and logbooks

As of 1st of October some of the rules around work time and logbooks are changing considerably.  These changes will affect most transport companies at some level.  Below is a summary of the changes and when they take affect.

Key Changes

Work time and logbooks

• From 1st October 2007, instead of recording ‘on-duty’ time and ‘driving hours’ separately, all time spent working must be recorded as ‘work time’.
• Drivers must take a break of at least 30 minutes after 5.5 hours of ‘work time’, regardless of what kind of work they were doing.
• In any 24 hour period drivers can work a maximum of 13 hours then have to take a break of at least 10 hours.
• Drivers can still work up to 70 hours before they must take a break of at least 24 hours.
• Failure to produce a logbook can result in a fine of up to $2,000/individual, $10,000/company, and 35 demerit points.

Chain of Responsibility

Employers or those that control drivers can face fines of up to $25,000 if they knew, or should have known, that a driver under their control did, or was likely to, breach work time provisions.

Key Dates

• 1st October 2007 - 2 new logbook formats released (general and taxi), and all work time provisions become law.
• 1st April 2008 - All existing logbook exemptions expire.
• 1st July 2008 - Only new format logbooks may be used.

Freight Week 2007 (www.freight2007.com.au)

Andrew Nicol here

I am heading to the Freight Week 2007 (www.freight2007.com.au) in Melbourne starting the 17th September 2007.

If any people from New Zealand or Expats stumble across this post, give me a call or drop me a line and I’ll buy you a beer.

I am attending the following sessions

• Freight Careers Day (Mon)
• Freight Expo (Wed)
• Safety Day (Thu)
• Innovate/Collaborate (Fri)

Interested in catching up and discussing the implications to the NZ market.

Email:   andrewn [at] viewpoint [dot] net [dot] nz  (spam avoidance)
Phone: +64 7 957 7609
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