Case study: ‘Online courses have us well prepared for whatever comes in January’

Established in 2004, award-winning Pallet Xpress is one of the leading freight companies in Ireland which will be significantly impacted by Brexit. The company, based on Dublin’s northside, has a nationwide distribution network comprising twenty-five haulier members. The company specialises in consignments of up to six pallets with the capacity to handle larger deliveries. It also delivers cartons in Ireland.

Some 3,000 pallets are processed per day at Pallet Xpress which has a staff of thirty. As the company’s compliance and quality manager, Gary Pedreschi says: “We’re going to be very much affected by Brexit because we’re part of the ‘Just in Time’ movement model . A lot of our consignments would be on a frequent order basis with goods arriving in a forty- eight hour import/export service to and from the UK. With this model, I don’t have to keep stock. I have the freedom to order it when I require it.”

The fast turnaround will be affected because of the level of entries and customs formalities that will be required from January 1.

Mr Pedreschi says, however, “that there will be cleverer ways of consolidating freight.”

Pallet Xpress employs the services of freight hauliers to deliver goods. Brexit will affect approximately 20% of its volume.

“A couple of our network members which are transport companies are involved in networks in the UK. They have customs departments and some of them are dealing with customs already. They’re the freight forwarders.”

To prepare himself for Brexit, he reached out to Skillnet Ireland, a government agency preparing business people for the changes in trade occurring from January 1st.

“I took part in Skillnet’s Clear Customs training course last year and I continued it this year when we got additional staff upskilled in the training. So now we have four staff in total, including myself, trained. I also participated in the Customs Compliance and Trade Facilitation course that Skillnet organised.”

Mr Pedreschi says: “I found the Clear Customs course excellent. It was delivered by really professional people with very good speakers. It’s online. Before that, I took part in a classroom scenario.”

The Clear Customs course, delivered through an app, is flexible, says Mr Pederschi. “You could do some of the modules in your own time. Each week (for five weeks), you did a class. Learning data entry process was part of the course. It was educational. There were some references to the transit requirements of the freight that goes across the water.”

Mr Pederschi says the assignments he had to complete “were well designed and well thought out. We had no issues with them. Our staff didn’t think they were frightening or anything. They all felt comfortable doing the assignments.”

As a freight network, Mr Pederschi says his company “wouldn’t be doing a huge amount of entries but we needed to talk about the terminology that would be used regarding some of the customs formalities.”

Pallet Xpress has worked closely with its IT supplier to produce a software-operated version of entering in customs data. “Between our membership, there will be a lot more data entry required for processing import or export consignments. So that’s a big change for us. But I think it’s something we’re comfortable with. We’ve been able to pass on some of our knowledge to our membership. We are looking at taking on more staff, at least two, in the first quarter of 2021 (to deal with Brexit requirements.)”

Mr Pedreschi is confident that Pallet Xpress is “well prepared for whatever comes in January. Certainly from the software side of things, we’re ahead of the pack.”