M.S. Carriers Offers Customized, Expedited Services To Furniture and Fixture Shippers

Furniture World Magazine

M.S. Carriers’ new Furniture Fixture Division (FFD) is offering customized, high-priority transportation services to North American shippers of furniture and fixtures. Team managed, time-sensitive truckloads of furniture or fixtures for new store openings, remodels, or relocations are the FFD focus. The FFD customer base centers around retailers, hotels, offices and hospitals. Specialized 53-foot Air Ride vans with 110-inch rear door openings carry the blanket wrapped and individual strapped cargo. These shipments are driven by JIT (just-in-time)-certified drivers to ensure that each truckload departs and arrives on time and intact. The shipper is afforded 24/7 real-time monitoring capability for each load. In addition, instant electronic notification is given should the valuable cargo be delayed for more than a pre-specified period of time at either the point of origin or final destination. Loads destined for Mexico will receive door-to-door service by utilizing M.S. Carriers’ Furniture Fixture Division. M.S. Carriers has put together an experienced project team, who pre-plan and communicate the loading, transportation, and delivery of each shipment accurately and on-time. "These types of specialized services are very important to shippers of furniture and fixtures, and until now were unavailable from any truckload carrier serving all of North America," said James W. ‘Woody’ Welch, senior vice president for marketing for M.S. Carriers. "State-of-the-art logistics are important for all time-sensitive loads, and our FFD team is trained and equipped to provide the highest level of customer service any shipment may require." Because each shipment represents a valuable commodity, FFD’s customized services may be negotiated by the shipper on a project-by-project basis. The project team visits origins and destinations to profile all aspects for a safe and error-free transit of the customer’s loads. M.S. Carriers’ FFD Expedited Service Center is manned by JIT monitoring personnel around the clock, providing up-to-the-minute information at the shipper’s convenience M. S. Carriers is a North American coast-to-coast line haul and regional carrier operating approximately 5,100 over-the-road power units. M. S. Carriers’ operations included eight full-service terminals, which combined to help the company generate revenues of more than $697 million during fiscal 2000. M. S. Carriers maintains corporate headquarters in Memphis, Tenn., and is publicly traded through NASDAQ national market issues under the stock symbol MSCA. A planned merger with Phoenix, Ariz.-based Swift Transportation Co. Inc. (NASDAQ: SWFT) is expected to close during June 2001.