Established in 1995, Senior Haulage is a respected family-run company specialising in the movements of bulk powder, refrigerated goods, and general haulage. With a fleet of 12 trucks, they deliver seamless transportation solutions across the nation. Led by Kevin Senior as the company director, the Barnsley-based transport firm combines expertise and reliability to ensure exceptional service. Kevin’s daughter, Jess is the firm’s Transport Manager who orchestrates their smooth operations, while Kevin’s son contributes as a skilled driver. Together, this dedicated family team have worked hard to improve their operations through hard work and consistency.
In this exclusive interview, we sit down with Jess Senior to discuss her role, the company and how she helped form a smoother administration process through Transport Management Software.
HaulTech: Can you tell us about what it’s like being a Transport Manager at Senior Haulage?
Jess: I’ve been born and raised in the industry and have had the luxury of learning everything from my family at the company, so becoming a Transport Manager has always been a natural progression for me. My role means I overlook sales and make sure all the work is planned so our drivers can hit the road. Historically the work we have had has been a struggle to keep on top of, but we recently made a few changes it’s really smoothed over those rough patches.
HaulTech: What were the rough patches you faced?
Jess: So we used to work with a paper diary and only one of us could obviously access it at a time. So let’s say we had a phone call and a job got cancelled and someone forgot to update the diary, the next person wouldn’t be able to schedule work to replace the cancellation because they would be under the assumption it was still going ahead. So we could lose work that way. There are more examples I could give but when there’s more than one person doing a job which requires manual labour and you don’t have constant visibility of it then it can be difficult. Especially when you’re running a fleet of vehicles and have to schedule work going out and have tonnes of paperwork like PODs coming back in, it’s easy to get confused.
HaulTech: So how did you overcome the challenges you faced?
Jess: We moved to a Transport System. It’s not something we really considered before, being a family-run business that’s been going for nearly three decades means we’ve always been traditional in our methods but we knew we had to keep up with the times. The Transport System has really allowed us to improve our operations massively. Now everyone who organises the work has access to the system and the system updates everyone live, so if something was cancelled, we would see and could replace the work. It gives us all a view of what’s going on and takes out the need for a paper diary.
HaulTech: Have you noticed any disadvantages to using a Transport System?
Jess: Not really no, nothing is perfect and there are always a few things as with anything that you would want to change but it’s as close to perfect for us as we need it to be and it’s helped us to be leagues ahead of where we were.
HaulTech: Have you noticed any other advantages to using the system?
Jess: It’s allowing me to track sales and get a better grip on the money coming into the business. It’s given full visibility to all the family so we know where we stand. And, it’s helped to boost our efficiency, the system is so simple to use and we are getting work done so much faster, it’s saving us a lot of hours a week, with the cost of the system being so little, it practically pays for itself in the way it accelerates our efficiency.
HaulTech: Did you have difficulty learning the system?
Jess: Not at all, it took me about a week to get used to it. We had training from Lateef (a HaulTech training specialist) and he took us through every step of the way and now it’s like second nature to all three of us in the business who are using it.
HaulTech: Would you recommend it to other hauliers?
Jess: Yes! Having a system like this is definitely the right step to making your business collaborative and efficient.
We are proud to be supporting Jess and the team at Senior Haulage. If you are looking to create efficiency and fluent communication in your haulage business then contact the team at HaulTech today by clicking here, calling 01782 662244 or saying hello@haultech.co.uk.
