OPERATIONAL DIVERSITY
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Operations director Davd Lightfoot, himself a former driver, consummately coordinates a complex variety of traffic. Late afternoon is the busiest time at Mini Clipper, with collection and delivery vehicles returning, while carefully timed loads for the pallet network night trunks are consolidated.
Smaller consignments, mainly servicing storage accounts, are dispatched by parcel carrier. Mini Clipper's own vehicles provide a core transport fleet to support all of the firm's operations and are increasingly kept relatively local in order to facilitate double shifting.
The exceptions are the half-dozen two-man driver/installer crews who take goods —frequently fragile and high-tech IT items and medical equipment — into customers' premises, right to desktop, point of sale or exhibition stand. Mini Clipper has been moving all of the furniture for Nationwide building society branches for the past 15 years, often out of hours and at weekends.
There are also important contracts to install industrial plant into commercial buildings. Such equipment is frequently imported to Mini Clipper and assembled and encased by its workers before onward transport to the final destination. Every part of the move, bar the final services connection, is provided as part of the Mini Clipper dedicated service. To ensure the security of these goods, high-value cargo vehicles are satellite-tracked and staff are checked for criminal