Dallas-based Greatwide Logistics Services has entered into a five-year agreement to manage the owner-operator based transportation services of Tyson Foods.Greatwide will provide transportation services to Tyson by engaging an estimated 300 owner-operators and their equipment to operate between Tyson production facilities, distribution centres and customer locations across the US.
The agreement does not affect Tyson's private fleet of 1,000 company trucks, nor its relationship with third party trucking companies.The agreement is the result Tyson's efforts to build on its successful owner-operator strategy, which the company developed to meet increasing needs for transportation during what has become an extended period of driver shortages.According to supply chain consultant Richard Armstrong of Armstrong & Associates, given that the driver shortage is expected to worsen, shippers now realise that they need to find ways to create new sources of reliable truckload capacity.“The outsourced dedicated contract carriage market hit $10 billion this year, and for the first time has seen two years of double-digit growth, but that is still only about 3% of the total private fleet market,” said Armstrong.Greatwide expects the vast majority of owner-operators who currently lease to Tyson, as well as the workers who support them, to make the transition to Greatwide. This transition is expected to be completed by the end of January 2007.Greatwide president & CEO Ray Greer believes that the owner-operator solution is often a better alternative to a contract carriage solution.