Traffic Manager, Karen Tracey, who works for Palletways Edinburgh in Newtongrange, has put herself firmly in the driving seat by achieving her Certificate of Professional Competence for Transport Managers.
The CPC qualification is designed for road haulage managers of national and international operations and covers areas such as business management, law and technical aspects of vehicles. Karen, who lives in nearby Gorebridge, has been the traffic manager for Palletways Edinburgh for the past two and a half years. She joined the company ten years ago, initially working in the Planning and Routing team.
Palletways Edinburgh is part of Palletways, Europe’s largest and fastest growing express palletised freight network and serves customers across Scotland and the UK. The network includes 114 UK depots and the Edinburgh business handles single pallet loads to large scale consignments and covers the EH postcode. It employs 15 drivers for its evening trunking operations and daily collections and deliveries from a single pallet through to a full 27T–28T trailer load.
Commenting on her CPC Transport Manager achievement, Karen said: “I oversee the planning for all our collections and deliveries, and manage our driver team. This includes monitoring their working hours, compliance, training and recruitment, so it’s important to understand the industry’s requirements on professional driving and how it impacts our business and specifically for me, this depot.
“The CPC training helps me understand more about vehicle maintenance for example, and why we ask drivers to comply with changes to ecosafe and fuel-efficient driving, defensive driving, first aid, health and safety and hours regulations. We’ve just taken delivery of ten new branded Mercedes trucks as part of a £7 million investment across the business and so we need to make sure all drivers are fully inducted in the new vehicle’s capabilities. Even if they have been driving for a long time already, there’s always lots we can do to make things better.
“This is a continuous process, and the demands of the certification process will make sure we expand our learning and knowledge in an ever-changing marketplace and contribute to Palletways Group’s success at a local level.”
Vanda Roberts, General Manager for Palletways Edinburgh, added: “The industry has seen many changes over recent years, such as an increasing use of technology and a shortage of skilled drivers, so training and development like this is very important to sustain a high-quality service. What is probably unexpected is the rise in women working in the logistics sector. I am proud to have Karen lead a team which is so often male-dominated and succeed in it.
“This is the start of a fantastically exciting career for her. My depot management team is 80 per cent female and so I’m very excited to be challenging the women in logistics statistics with great managers like Karen.”
