Ray C Smith  started out 35 years ago as a coal merchant operating in Stamford. His son Simon expanded the business  into haulage and 12 years ago moved to Corby. The business has never looked back and with a new livery and branding RCS  Logistics is a progressive and forward looking business.

The company now  has a turnover of £5m and occupies a modern 15-18 acre site with 500,000 sq ft  of warehousing space mostly block stacked and racked out. The fleet of 40  vehicles is a mixture of 15-16 artics, 10 7.5 tonners and 15 vans with the rest  being made up of 18 tonners.

RCS Logistics is  still a general haulier with major contracts moving plastic dvd cases and  greetings cards for a major greeting card publisher throughout the UK into greeting card retailers. The warehousing  is run on a shared user basis with ASDA and Dubois being the main customers. RCS started out with one van delivering supplies for the NHS to local patients  at home. This has developed into a major pick and pack operation utilising 15  vans. RCS is a member of Palletforce for nearly four years and has developed a lot of single pallet customers. It also  has developed partnerships with other hauliers including Bedfords Transport on  a 24/7 same day service for the Robert Horne Paper Group.

RCS Logistics  chose to use the Haulage Exchange as rates got tighter and tighter, they found  they needed to work harder and harder for backloads especially from Devon , Cornwall and Scotland. " We have now seen the opportunity to be  loaded for all mileage," commented Darren Beaty Operations director, This  philosophy has been extended to our rigid fleet.

Darren says the  use of haulage exchange has been so successful that RCS now looks to put loads  out particularly with ASDA who can give them anything up to 15 loads a day. "We  have added to our planning team to take HX movements into account, taken on  more work without extending our own core fleet," adds Darren. "It is a great  tool and easy to use. HX really helps busy traffic offices with members vetted  in advance."

Using HX we have  definitely been able to use fleets to their full potential and it fits in well  with our pallet network operation. "The site certainly has paid for itself as  we would certainly not been able to deal with the level of work without it". AS R C Smith the company used to be a classic  general haulier obsessed with filling its own vehicles. As RCS Logistics and using HX Darren says the company is re-educating  its staff to think differently and look at the work that makes us the most money.

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