With fuel prices hovering around $2.00 per gallon, I‘m reminded that the first industry wide impetus to improve dairy and ice cream delivery productivity arrived along with the original OPEC Oil Embargo in the fall of 1973.
As route-cases-per-delivery averages became larger, delivery trucks became larger; frequently becoming tractor semi-trailer delivery routes. Along with those increases in delivery size came corresponding demands for improved material handling productivity and labor savings on the delivery routes. The old dairy route delivery practices of drivers manhandling cases out of a route truck rear or side door, one case at a time, and stacking on the ground for two-wheel hand trucking in the customer's door were no longer adequate.