Transcontinental road to rail transition study
With three national manufacturing sites (Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth), our client made the strategic decision to close the Brisbane facility and increase manufacturing throughput in Melbourne and Kwinana.
This resulted in service challenges into Northern NSW and QLD, requiring Prological to undertake a redesign of the National freight strategy and network from design through to implementation.
This redesign included a transition to rail for trans-continental movements, however this was not achievable on the VIC-QLD leg. Containerisation, land bridge costs extended lodgement/retrieval timeframes could not be off set by the lower terminal to terminal rail costs.
Challenges of freight conversion
The failed efforts to convert east coast road freight to rail freight typifies the challenges and required enablers of rail within Australia on short haul (<2000kms) legs, particularly the capability of the SEQ IMT to attract road freight conversion to the Inland rail network.
Service solutions
Prological’s role was to solve the service-related issues brought about by the closure of the Lytton manufacturing and Distribution site. Our objective was to do this while decreasing costs and increasing service levels.
There were both internal and external components to the redesign, implementation, and final outcomes.
Internal ordering processes, warehouses and loading practices were all modified to align with the new freight methodologies and new freight partners.
A new 3rd party Logistics provider was engaged and established in Townsville.
The combination of the internal and external modifications enabled South East QLD service levels to remain the same without the Lytton facility and FNQ improved by 3 days due to the network changes made.
