A RESTRUCTURING plan at Quadrant Container Line offices in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town is under way, based mainly on centralising staff for closer linkage in working operations.
The major thrust, says Paul Pelizzari, executive director of liner services, is to improve communication and service to customers. Secondary to that is the aim to be smarter in terms of back office operations.
What we have done in Durban in particular is to get the staff closer together, to have the commercial people and the sales people on the same floor.
We've had them separated in three different buildings up to now. Although these have been little more than 500m apart it hasn't always worked.
Now we've brought the freight desks onto the same floor as the people doing the outside business. It means more rapid communication between personnel, quicker answers for the clients. It's easier for your container trackers and your haulage staff to answer the questions when the commercial manager gets a deal going. The sales team, which has traditionally been on the agency side, will now come into the line with the others. Pelizzari wants to see planned improvements in the harbour itself speeded up.
We have some serious concerns about the present situation. Container theft is one of them. We face difficulties here, especially in transhipments. Security has to be jacked up as a priority.
Then there aren't sufficient teams to man the new gantries in the container terminal. Portnet must speed up training in this respect, he says.
By Leonard Neill
