Nine technicians working in a three-bay facility keep 60 tractors and 75 trailers running constantly for Conley Transport. The fleet averages 250,000 miles per tractor per year, and some teams log almost 300,000 miles in a year.
Conley Transport, based in Searcy, Arkansas, is a truckload carrier of perishables on coast-to-coast lanes. Searcy is a small community about 60 miles northeast of Little Rock. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2003, it was founded in 1983 by Rory Conley and his wife, Autumn. Prior to starting their own company, the pair worked as a driving team for another truck line. Conley Transport has 37 company tractors and leases 23 tractors from independent contractors. The company provides all trailers.
A typical route for Conley Transport runs round-trip from California to the Northeast, as far north as Maine, with a return load for a receiver on the West Coast. In general, loads are produce on the eastbound leg and time- or temperature-sensitive goods on the westbound leg. “A lot of our westbound freight requires only protective service, not continuous refrigeration,” says Conley.
Almost 99% of the company's freight moves all the way across the country with an average length of haul of 2,600 miles. Virtually no freight terminates in Arkansas or the surrounding states. “We only stop in Searcy for two reasons — to perform maintenance or to switch tractors,” Conley says. “The fleet is handled by husband/wife driving teams in more than 90% of the equipment. We have a few solo drivers who take over loads from a team and finish the run to the Northeast and back to Searcy. A solo driver can run the Northeast fairly efficiently, because most of our freight off the East Coast is drop-and-hook.”
Plenty of drivers
Teams that make the whole trip run an average seven-day turn. Some teams stay on the road for 10 to 14 days at a time, but most tend to run for three weeks and then take a week off. Conley says that he tells drivers that they can earn a good living running at least 20,000 miles a month. Time off is not a problem, he says. As long as teams run consistently, time off is up to the teams. Tractors are permanently assigned, but they are not allowed to sit idle while the primary team takes off. Another team keeps the truck working. At any given time, Conley has only four or five tractors on the yard in Searcy.
“We don't have a driver problem,” Conley says. “In fact, we've always been spoiled by having a steady supply of good, professional drivers. Six of the teams in the fleet today have been with us for the entire 20-year history of the company. I think holding down driver turnover helps us be one of the safest fleets in Arkansas. We recently completed a year with only 1.74 accidents per million miles. Our routing helps with safety as well. Our teams go to the same shippers and receivers week after week. They know where to go and how to handle the potential hazards.”
High mileage puts a premium on efficient, detailed maintenance. Conley Transport wants to see its equipment every time it runs through Searcy, which is normally weekly or at least every other week. With a 15,000-mile change interval, engines get new oil and filters at least once a month. The fleet runs Shell Rotella 15w40 multi-grade motor oil.
Transmissions and drive axles use synthetic gear oil — Dentax 50-weight in transmissions and Spirax 75w90 in the differential housings. Gearbox lubricant is changed every 250,000 miles. In addition, Mystic JT6 heavy-duty waterproof grease is used for chassis lubrication.
Detailed inspections
“We tried a longer oil change interval, but oil analysis showed more metal in the oil at the longer interval, so we dropped back to 15,000 miles,” says Jim Hayes, service manager. “What we really put trucks in the shop for is a detailed, bumper-to-bumper preventive maintenance inspection. The cost of changing oil and filters is minimal compared to an inspection and repairs resulting from things found during the inspection.”
Although some fleets perform different inspections at graduated mileage intervals, Conley Transport uses just one inspection regime that is designed to take care of problems in Searcy before they can become a failure on the road. In addition to the physical and electronic inspection, oil samples are taken to provide a snapshot of conditions inside the engines. Inspections take two to three hours plus the time needed for repairs.
Most equipment is under load when it stops in Searcy, so time in the shop can be critical to delivery time. “If we have a load on a short delivery schedule, we make sure a truck gets in and out of the shop in a hurry. If we need to put three or four, even five, guys to work on one truck, that's what we do,” says Hayes. “We service the fleet, and at the same time, we make sure that the freight keeps rolling.”
If getting a truck rolling requires major component replacement, that's what Conley Transport does. The shop keeps one spare engine, two spare transmissions, and two front and two rear differentials.
Hayes says that Conley Transport technicians do all overhaul work except that covered by warranty. “We probably replace more parts in the course of an overhaul than an engine distributor would, but we think we do a better job as well,” he says. “If we see a part with noticeable wear, we don't estimate how long it might live before failure, we just replace it. When we finish an overhaul, the engine is ready to run as many miles again as it ran prior to the overhaul.”
Overhauls are thorough, but fast. Within the last year, Conley Transport shop personnel completed three full in-frame overhauls in three days. “I don't think any maintenance crew anywhere else could have done a job like that,” Hayes says.
By far the most important factor in good vehicle maintenance is to have good people, Hayes says. “That one thing cannot be stressed enough,” he says. “We can have the greatest plans and policies for maintenance in the world, but without good people our program will not succeed. In contrast, a carrier can have average plans and policies and great people in the shop, and it will have one of the top maintenance programs anywhere. We have great technicians, and that's what makes our maintenance program so good.”
Inspections are designed to prevent failure, not to find things to work on. “We intend to get every mile possible from an engine before overhaul,” Hayes says. “That includes watching indicators such as oil analysis results, oil consumption, and fuel consumption, plus monitoring total mileage. Prior to 1999, we had engines that routinely ran nearly one million miles before requiring overhaul. Some changes inside the engines have reduced that mileage. On those post-1999 engines, we sometimes open them up for a look when they get close to the mileage on other engines that have already been overhauled. We are trying to prevent sudden wrist pin failure, a malfunction that usually is pretty catastrophic.”
Frequent trailer inspections
Trailers get an inspection every time a tractor is inspected. The inspection includes brakes, suspension, and the refrigeration unit. Conley Transport runs its units an average of 4,500 hours a year, a lot of hours for a truckload carrier. With the refrigeration unit oil change interval set at 1,500 hours, unit oil is changed an average of three times annually — double, sometimes even triple, the number of unit oil changes at many carriers.
The company runs Yokahoma tires as its standard and reports good service life. Steering axle tires run an average of 117,000 to 118,000 miles. On drive axles, tires usually last 270,000 miles. Keeping tractors and trailers properly aligned and tires balanced is credited with prolonging tire life. Conley Transport uses a Hunter alignment machine to check tractor alignment every 90 days. Trailer alignment is checked every 180 days. Steering-axle tires are spin-balanced on the axle using a Hunter balancing system. Drive axle tires are spin-balanced with a Coates machine.
Conley Transport's reputation for maintenance skill extends well beyond the company fleet. Responding to repeated requests from other operators for maintenance services, the company began taking in work from other fleets in February 2002. “We had people tell us that they had heard that there is nothing that our people cannot repair,” Hayes says. “We don't really advertise this service or aggressively pursue new customers. In fact, we are extremely selective about the amount of work we take. However, outside work does keep our people busy when we hit a slow period, and it helps offset the cost of maintenance for our own fleet.”