What Is Drop-and-Hook Logistics?
The shipping and logistics industry is built around efficiency. If you can increase the speed at which you load and unload shipments, you can get back on the road faster while avoiding unnecessary downtime and detention fees. Drop-and-hook logistics strategies help you do just that. Keep reading to learn more about how drop-and-hook logistics works and how it can optimize your supply chain.
A Logistics Solution Built Around Speed
In the simplest terms, drop-and-hook logistics, also called drop-and-hook trucking, is the process of dropping off a full trailer at its destination and immediately hooking up to a pre-loaded trailer in the same location. After hooking up to the pre-loaded trailer, drivers can quickly return to the road to deliver their next shipment. This process of dropping and hooking loads is crucial in reducing the amount of idle time that drivers spend on location, which they’re often not paid for.
However, this type of logistics requires quite a bit of planning and coordination between shippers and carriers—pre-loaded trailers need to be ready to go by the time the truck driver arrives with their shipment, and shippers need to have enough onsite space to accommodate extra, empty trailers. Integrating TMS software can help shippers manage their carrier relationships and make the drop-and-hook process as seamless as possible.
4 Important Benefits of Drop-and-Hook Logistics
As mentioned earlier, drop-and-hook services streamline the process of loading and unloading shipments. And increased speed isn’t the only benefit. Below, we’ll explore how drop-and-hook logistics strategies help you avoid unnecessary detention fees, cover more ground throughout the day, simplify scheduling, and reduce stress.
Minimized Detention Fees
Most shippers and carriers have an agreed-upon window of time in which loading and unloading must be completed. If the process takes longer than that, the shipper must pay detention fees for any amount of time that the carrier is held up at their location. On average, detention fees range between $50-$100 per hour, though, depending on the carrier, fees may be as high as $250 per hour.
When you implement a drop-and-hook strategy into your shipping process, you minimize the amount of time that carriers spend on location. This significantly reduces the possibility that the loading and unloading process will take longer than the allotted amount of time, effectively minimizing detention fees.
Less Downtime, More Miles
Drop-and-hook logistics also gets truck drivers back on the road quickly, allowing them to travel more miles throughout the day. Over time, this creates a massive cumulative effect.
Imagine that your window for live loading and unloading is normally 2 hours. A successful drop-and-hook delivery might only take a few minutes—let’s say 15 minutes, as an example. If a truck driver were to perform one drop-and-hook delivery every day for a week, they would save themselves from more than 12 hours of idle time.
By circumventing the loading and unloading process, truck drivers can travel more miles and make more deliveries. And they’re not the only group that benefits—the end user does, too. Shaving off downtime, no matter how small the increment of time, means that products reach their final destinations faster.
Simpler Scheduling
Drop-and-hook logistics makes scheduling deliveries and pickups much more convenient. Shippers can load their shipment onto the trailer throughout the day, and, as long as the loading process is complete by the scheduled appointment time, drivers can drop off their loads and pick up their next shipment with little to no downtime.
Pressure Relief
Similarly, drop-and-hook reduces pressure on both truck drivers and warehouse employees. With a wider window of time to pre-load trailers, shippers have to worry less about detention fees, and truck drivers can look forward to getting to their next delivery location faster.
In an industry with such high stakes, any chance at relieving pressure on both shippers and carriers throughout the shipping process is welcome.
Sheer Logistics Helps You Find the Best Logistics Solution for Your Business
When you partner with a reputable logistics service provider like Sheer Logistics, you guarantee that every step of the shipping process is streamlined. This lets you cut costs, avoid fees, and deliver shipments more efficiently.
If you’re looking to implement a drop-and-hook strategy into your logistics operations, we can provide you with the technology to make it possible. Our managed transportation services and effective TMS software let you manage carrier relationships and track shipments in real-time to make pickups and dropoffs simple. With these tools, you can successfully implement drop-and-hook logistics strategies and reap the benefits of an optimized supply chain.
Contact Sheer Logistics today to learn more about our managed transportation services!
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