McColl’s has a long and proud history in the management of bulk chemicals logistics. It has been transporting an array of dangerous goods and other industrial chemical products since the early 1970s.
McColl’s customers support a wide range of industries such as construction products, coatings, water treatment, paper and packaging, mining and automotive.
Over the past five decades, as its customers have grown, McColl’s has grown with them, expanding its presence across the eastern states and into Western Australia.
“McColl’s has built its business on meeting the needs of its chemicals customers,” said McColl’s customer solutions manager Matt Carr. “We support their growth into new markets, geographies and for new product categories, such as powders and packaged chemicals. We have a history of evolving our business to ensure we’re always best positioned to respond to the changing environment – and it’s our future too.”
This change is happening in a number of areas. McColl’s has been active across its businesses in purchasing higher mass equipment to provide improved unit cost efficiencies to volume and its Bulk Chemicals business is no exception. Recently, McColl’s has invested in two Omni A-double combinations to support new Dangerous Goods work.
Carr also noted that over the past few years there has been a significant shift in the chemicals manufacturing industry and that has meant that McColl’s has had to rethink the way it delivers its services too.
“With the rationalisation and decline of local manufacturing, the market has moved towards the importation of bulk chemicals as well as increased movement of domestically produced chemicals across state boundaries,” said Carr.
“In both cases, this has meant that our customers have an increasing need for logistics providers to cost-effectively manage the transfer of isotainers. This has been a significant growth area for McColl’s.”
McColl’s has supported this change by investing in equipment to handle isotainers as well as managing the transfer of isotainers by rail and other means. “We are continuously developing our partnerships and capabilities for handling isotainers. While the Covid pandemic may have slowed the expansion of this segment, we believe that over the long term, the isotainer market will continue to grow substantially,” Carr added.
Another major focus area for McColl’s is the broadening of its offering to include integrated supply chain management services. “McColl’s has for a long time provided integrated supply chain services in its Farm Milk Collection business,” said Carr. “We have already applied those capabilities to provide benefits to a number of our key Bulk Chemicals customers, from using receiver bulk tank telemetry to lead the delivery schedule setting process, through to full management services of the order-to-invoice process.”
The future looks bright for McColl’s as it reshapes itself into a full supply chain service provider across multiple transport modes.