Northamptonshire haulier C Butt has secured an exclusive deal with Engineered Foam Products (EFP) to supply all its national freight services from its Northampton manufacturing facility.
This three-year deal is the culmination of a 12-month project, which has seen the two companies working together to streamline EFP’s logistics, reduce driver waiting times, cut carbon emissions and maintain a high on-time delivery standard – the manufacturer’s key EFP performance metric.
The partnership has been driven by the increasing demand for thermally efficient expanded foam products from the construction and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) sectors.
Jonathan Butt, C Butt MD, said: “With our joint focus on sustainability and efficiency this partnership means a higher volume is being shipped with fewer trailers every week.
“We have integrated our teams with the manufacturing teams of EFP, we attend their daily production planning meetings, have a dedicated transport manager on site and use our own fleet for the vast majority of jobs.
“The environmental benefits have been significant and for EFP, a company which shares our commitment to sustainability, this has been an exciting development.”
One major environmental benefit is the co-location of both businesses on the same industrial estate.
C Butt has also optimised deliveries by upscaling trailer capacity and reducing road miles through geographically scheduled deliveries.
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The haulier’s permanent on-site presence also enables real-time monitoring of trailer movements to streamline loading and unloading.
Other highlights from this new partnership to date include a cut in the use of smaller, rigid vehicles, thanks to C Butt’s fleet management and planning and a reduction in the number of vehicles on the road due to the increased capacity of the haulier’s mega trailers, which has expanded capacity from 65-70m3to 80-90m3.
C Butt’s on-site presence has also enabled real time monitoring of trailer movements with data relayed to central transport planning, to help streamline loading. Meanwhile geographically scheduled deliveries have led to a marked reduction in vehicle distance travelled
Ken Dyer, who is transport supervisor for C Butt, and EFP’s on-site representative, said: “When you are dealing with numerous moving parts and a small goods in/out loading bay, freight management can present its challenges.
“Over the last six months though we have seen less congestion at pinch points, better vehicle utilisation and with standing trailers close by we can ensure empty trailers are in the right place when needed.”
David Vallance, Engineered Foam Products’ chief executive, added: “Prior to working with C Butt our Northampton site was close to logistical capacity. So, when we won a large construction contract in 2020, we knew we needed to reorganise to be prepared for a very strong bounce back, to pre-pandemic levels of demand.
“With C Butt at the reins of our logistics we have been able to confidently grow and cater for any order uplifts whether forecasted or not, this level of supply previously would have been extremely challenging.
“We are convinced that C Butt are the right logistics partner to support our growth ambitions and this contract is a key part of our commitment to keeping pace with the increased demand and delivery of thermally efficient materials expected in the coming years.”
