Whitewell Logistics are a bespoke aggregate and asphalt haulier based just outside Ilkley, West Yorkshire, covering Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and Scottish borders. We pride ourselves on being a family run business, always striving to maintain the highest level of quality and 24/7 service to our customers using our ever-expanding modern-day fleet of 8-wheeler tippers. The majority of which meeting euro 5/euro 6 emission standards. We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and equal working environment for our staff and an efficient and economical service to our customers. 
We came across FORS through our high-profile customers when they introduced a minimum of Bronze accreditation to work across their sites. We realised it would help us to achieve best practice and benefit us by improving our company profile.
Whitewell Logistics passed their initial audit first time round in May 2017. This was a brilliant experience for us as a company and showed us which areas we were fully compliant within the FORS standard, but also areas for our improvement. From here we were encouraged to go for Silver straight away, which we gained later in May 2017 and aimed to gradually progress to Gold.
After gaining our Bronze accreditation, we really made the most of the benefits on offer, in particular, the various driver professional development tools, practitioner workshops, the transport fines/charges toolkit and the collision management toolkit.
‘FORS has been invaluable within the staff training programme, as well as exceeding our customers’ expectations.’ – Rebecca Sorbo, Director
Whilst on our journey to becoming FORS accredited, we have implemented an anti-idling policy to help maintain, and in future improve, our carbon footprint. We have also seen improvements in not just driver but also overall staff knowledge, through having a practical participation in FORS workshops, eLearning and classroom courses, which have been made available to us throughout FORS so far.
‘Our customers satisfaction is our priority!’ – Barry Holmes, Sales and Strategic Planning
Once we were Bronze, we decided that we should progress to Silver because it would further gain us higher profile clients and higher recognition within the industry. Once we gained Silver, the Director of Whitewell Logistics decided we were well on our way to improving our compliance and safety, but as a company could strive for better to gain our Gold accreditation and exceed the expectations of our customers.
Performance data – Through introducing our anti-idling policy we aim to reduce our carbon footprint. Below you can see our average MPG for years 2016 and 2017. The figures show that we managed to nearly maintain our average MPG, despite our fleet nearly doubling in size. After implementing our anti-idling policy in 2017, we aim to see an improvement across our fleet from 2017 – 2018.
| Jan – Dec 2016 | Jan – Dec 2017 | Percentage MPG Improvement | |
|
Number of Vehicles |
4 | 7 | 75% |
|
Total Litres Used |
158,634.45 | 240,671.00 | 52% |
| Total Mileage | 244,901.91 | 375,111.32 |
53% |
| Average MPG per vehicle | 7.02 | 7.08 |
0.85% |
*Annual improvement in average MPG per vehicle
- Driver health and fitness review – Our drivers sign an annual driver declaration form to consent they have no known medical conditions which prevent them from driving at the time. Through this, they additionally consent to notifying us and the DVLA if they develop any conditions. The declaration aids Whitewell Logistics in monitoring driver health and fitness and keep incidents to a minimum.
- Strategy for recruiting drivers – Our company is currently signed up to the military covenant and where applicable, offers assistance to individual’s throughout doing their HGV test.
- Noise assessment – Fortunately, our customers sites are not located in noise sensitive areas, although we do monitor the daily activities of our drivers to ensure their Health and Safety at all times. Activities/zones which exceed 80 decibels, are designated as ‘Ear Protection Zones/Activities’, to which ear defenders are located in each truck and issued to all staff as part of PPE to use during these activities/zones as set out in our policy.
Modal shift and alternative vehicles – We have researched all types of modal shifts/alternative vehicles, although these are not currently suitable for our industry. To reduce the company’s carbon footprint as a whole, we are currently researching electric cars as an alternative to the current company cars and are seeking to engage a cycle to work scheme in the near future.
In order to make continual fleet improvements, we are currently in the progress of replacing 4 of our oldest members of the fleet and purchasing new Euro VI vehicles, as this will help our company to reduce our carbon footprint. Also, with Leeds entering into the Low emissions zone in the latter part of 2019-2020, we need to have the majority of our fleet at euro 6. By the latter part of 2019-2020 our fleet profile will comprise of 1 euro 3 truck, 1 euro 5 truck & 8 euro 6 trucks.
Whitewell Logistics Ltd strives to become the first Gold haulier in our local area. This will not just give us great satisfaction knowing we are working to the highest level of compliance and best practice, but also give us the advantage to improve our company profile. This would further enable us to seek higher profile customers and aid us in the expansion of our fleet. Becoming Gold accredited would allow us to further promote FORS, continue staff professional development and assist in the continuation of improving our fleet operations and safety.
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