Trucking news: ODFL expands in Dallas with new service center
Jeff Berman, Senior Editor -- Logistics Management, 4/3/2008
THOMASVILLE, N.C.—Regional less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) said today it has officially opened up its relocated and expanded its Dallas Service Center.
The new 160,000 square-foot facility is comprised of 234 doors on a 60-acre lot, which is a significant upgrade compared to the former Dallas Service Center, which included 130 doors on 19 acres, according to ODFL. The company broke ground on the facility on February 17, 2007.
Prior to attending an opening ceremony at the new location later today, ODFL Director of Sales, Gulf Coast Region, Dale Kelly told LM that this new facility was needed because the company’s continued growth in the Dallas area, as well as in surrounding regions has reached the point where its previous facility’s size and capacity was no longer sufficient.
“Growth in Houston, Austin and other parts of the region all puts pressure on Dallas, because Dallas is a break bulk center [for ODFL],” Kelly explained. “So it is not just Dallas business; it is also business in the surrounding region that put ‘door pressure’ on our existing facility, and that is what [drove] us to go forward with this super-center.”
Regarding the biggest benefits of the new Dallas Service Center for ODFL customers, Kelley said that the increased size will be a big help. The extra 130 doors, he said, will allow for more passing freight—moving in and out of the center—at one time which he said will improve customer service levels as well.
Despite the increase in size, Kelley said it was too early to tell how it will specifically impact the number of shippers served by ODFL in the Dallas region.
“As freight is picked up in the outside areas of the region—from places like Oklahoma and Arkansas—that freight will move into Dallas and be broke out and distributed within the region,” he said. “What the additional doors will allow us to do is get that freight up to the dock and start working it immediately upon arrival to Dallas. Whereas in the old facility, that freight may arrive in Dallas, and we may have not had doors in place to put it up and had work trailer after trailer and continuous locating of the doors. This allows us to do that more quickly, and it will provide better service because the freight will not be sitting as long.”
Trucking Technology: ODFL said in a statement that the new Dallas Service Center will offer various new technological advancements that will provide various benefits for shippers. They include: a Dock Yard Management System (DYMS), which will reduce customer cost by allowing more efficient handling of customer shipments at the Dallas facility; driver hand-held computer technology deployed by OD, providing for more effective and efficient delivery and route planning; all Old Dominion trucks will have RFID electronic tags so drivers do not need to check in, instead they are scanned in automatically as they enter the facility; and computers will be mounted on forklifts to prevent the drivers from having to get out of the trucks to enter information into ground-level computers. ODFL added that all of these technological offerings work in unison to enable real-time tracking of shipments on the Old Dominion Web site—www.odfl.com—to provide shippers with end-to-end visibility.
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