CANE TRANSPORT IMPROVEMENTS AT MACKAY SUGAR

IN 2006 MACKAY Sugar developed an improvement plan to enhance the relationship between growers, harvesting groups and Mackay Sugar’s cane supply department. This improvement plan included the development of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between Mackay Sugar and each harvesting group. The SLA spelt out to both parties a bin delivery and collection schedule for each siding used by the group. The introduction of GPS on locomotives including a touch screen interface provided the means of communicating bin delivery and collection details and the recording of the actual time of these to the traffic office. The actual collection and delivery details can then be compared against each group’s SLA. The improvement plan also included the introduction of an issues resolution process which detailed how issues or complaints are to be raised, resolved or managed. A customer service officer position was created to assist in this initiative. An SMS messaging service was also introduced to automatically advise all groups of their siding booking, daily allotment and planned deliveries at 7.30 am each morning. A further text message at 2.30 pm in the afternoon provides the same information in relation to what is planned for the following day. Finally, the development of an end of season harvest group survey provided the opportunity for harvest groups to assess the overall level of service provided by the cane supply department during the season and to score that performance accordingly. This paper describes these improvements and reports on the results to date.