The 20,000 square metre depot in Sydney’s south-west hums with activity as Big Rigs reels off our story shots, the clock ticking louder than usual in our ears.
Four of South Western Logistics’ eight A-doubles are already lined up on the 10,000 square metres of hardstand as two giant reach stackers deftly pluck 40-foot empty containers from the geometric towers onto the trailers.
The truckies are anxious to get moving again, because here, in container logistics, the rule is brutally simple – from the moment a container lands in the yard to the second it leaves, every movement is measured in dollars and minutes.
“It’s all about your trip density in port logistics,” says South Western Logistics Managing Director Luke Mullins, who’s standing alongside Depot Manager Andrew Littlewood as they watch an expert reach stacker driver – “we have the best in Sydney” – ease another 40-footer in place.
“It’s all about how much freight that one driver is moving, so the more freight you can tow, the more efficient you’ll be.”
South Western Logistics was clocking between 70-100 slots a day between its imports and exports, but when Big Rigs visits it had just switched back to 24-hour operations for the first time since the frenetic Covid boom of 2020-2022 and that volume was expected to quickly double.
“We’ve just been awarded a big contract,” reveals Luke. “I can’t mention who that is for, but it will mean an extra 400-500 containers a month.”
“With some of the new customers coming on board in the next two or three weeks, that will move us up to 2500-3000 containers a month pretty quickly.”
It’s been a remarkable rise to the top for the container sector’s dynamic duo since the company first opened for business in 2019 with little more than a vision of Prestons becoming the next major container hub in the city.
Although born into a family steeped in a road freight transport history, Luke never set out along a trucking road.
He was working in construction in his late teens when his developer dad told him to go and get his builder’s licence because he had big plans to build logistics warehouses around Sydney and Australia.
“I was working through the day doing carpentry and concreting, and doing my construction management degree at night,” recalled Luke who just turned 30 earlier this month.
By 2017, while also running his own projects for the building company he worked for, he took over the build at South Western Logistics’ site on Yarrunga Street in Prestons because the builders originally tasked with the role were taking too long.
Two years later – and burnt out by the frenetic work schedule – Luke took the full-time plunge into his current role, kicking off operations with an empty 8000 square metre warehouse and little more than an old 2004 reach stacker, a rented forklift and a giant blank slab of concrete.
The only time he gave himself before starting the role was the two weeks he took to get his truck, forklift and reach stacker licences in readiness for what lay ahead.
“So, I went door-knocking down at Mainfreight and I established a relationship with them. When the bushfires kicked off back in 2019 a lot of their trucks couldn’t distribute out from their depots into the regions so they needed an overflow solution quickly.
“They grew me from near zero pallets into a couple of thousand.”
Then it was just a case of cold-calling and more door knocking, up to 20-30 prospecting calls a day chasing new clients, often while buzzing around the yard himself on the forklift.
“I would just be telling everyone there was a new depot starting in Prestons. I didn’t even have any trucks at that point.
“I was still in high-vis three years deep into the company. I needed to be hands on, doing it all.”
Although operating on a much smaller scale than he is today, Luke said he took that initial transition from construction to logistics in his stride. “I get freight. I’m a very systemised, processed person and that’s what freight is.
“Construction and logistics are also similar, from documentation, to the process of it going down to your operators and flowing downstream to your drivers.
“You just pick it up – what the end goal is, how you get there and what the most efficient way is to get there.
“When there’s a lot of money on the line, there’s no real room for error.”
The biggest turning point for South Western Logistics came early in 2020, soon after the company’s first two trucks arrived through the gate.
“They were parked in the warehouse for the first two weeks, then everything just boomed,” recalled Luke, who was just 24 at the time.
By June he had six trucks and a month later he was “all in” with a further 14 on order over the next two years from Scania, still Luke’s main supplier today.
Andrew arrived through the gates soon after, thinking the role would be a nice, quiet change of pace after the comparative “bedlam” of running operations for TNT and Toll with 120 staff answering to him.
“I thought I could cruise for a while, then it exploded with Covid,” Andrew said.
“And now, here we are five years later. We’re at 27 prime movers, 78 trailers, eight A-doubles, seven side-loaders and three reach stackers.
“With the growth explosion, we also had to build a structure here, from scratch. We had to put together a customer service team, a biosecurity team, accounts, operations, fleet maintenance, allocators, the whole bit. We had to get bums on seats very quickly.”
Luke and Andrew were also writing HR policies and safety procedures as well as the vehicle compliance piece on the fly, from scratch, all the while juggling an increasingly busy workload that soon evolved into a 24/7 operation.
By early 2023, however, the boom was over. By March that year, Luke said the volumes fuelled by the massive spike in online shopping came “crashing down”.
They cut the night shift, but costs were still climbing through the roof.
“Including drivers and forkies, we were at a total of 70 staff so we had to rewrite the book again and cut right back,” Andrew recalled.
“It was just as hard to go down the hill as it was to go up it.”
All the while, Luke was doing his level best to hold his ground on rates but he’d lost nearly 50 per cent of his work overnight.
As the pressure built, by the Wednesday of the same week, he was already negotiating a bank loan to buy more trucks.
“I back myself and I love this industry – and I knew this was just a point in time,” said Luke, who hit the phones again himself to rebuild the client base.
“Sometimes if you don’t take the opportunity on offer, you don’t get that other chance for a while. We had to restructure, and I had to listen to the economy and my customers.
“They wanted reduced rates, so I had to work out how we were going to be more efficient in what we’re doing operationally.
“So, from that point on I was able to systemise and automate data creating long lasting efficiencies which we are still developing further.”
It’s all about providing “boutique” serviceability at competitive rates – that’s what sets South Western Logistics apart from its rivals, said Luke whose customer base includes a major supermarket and suppliers of a wide range of consumables and high demand commodities.
“If you’re a customer and you want to speak to Andrew Littlewood or Luke Mullins, you’ll get them on the phone, you don’t have to go through a 1800 number or offshore in the Philippines,” Andrew added.
“Our customers are our bread and butter and that is our focus – looking after them and servicing them to the best of our ability. We’ve had customers leave for cheaper rates, but they often come back knocking on the door because they [others] just can’t do it the way we do.”
Andrew is also proud of the fact the company is able to provide an end-to-end boutique service through the various licences it now holds, from Border Force, customs and quarantine inspections, HACCP food accreditations, export licences, and on-site fumigations.
“We do everything here on site and have pretty much every licence you can imagine.
“Every answer to every customer is, ‘yes, we can’.”
Much of the company’s success is also anchored in the unique relationship between Luke and his veteran depot manager.
Their complementary skills – Luke’s innovative drive and Andrew’s strategic experience – create a powerful combination.
“He’s made a massive, massive difference – he saved my life,” admits Luke.
“He’s like a father figure to me and we’ve got a very close and very good relationship.
“Whatever I’ve said I want to push, and when I’ve said we’re going this way forward, he’s always been right on board.”
For Andrew, 56, the role has also allowed him to grow in ways he never thought possible when he first walked through the gate.
“I’ve probably learnt more in five years here than I did in all my other roles because you’re involved in everything, and no two days are ever the same.
“It’s been extremely challenging [at times] but very rewarding.”
As for the next stage of major growth spurt for South Western Logistics, Luke is taking a pragmatic approach after the hard-won lessons he’s learned over the last six years.
He and his father are already eyeing another 20,000-30,000 square metre site in Sydney’s west on farmland that he’ll again oversee the build on.
But any expansion must always be strategic and balanced by keeping a firm grip on costs, said Luke.
More trucks running, doesn’t always mean profitability, after all.
“Each period of growth has its own restraints and restrictions and you need to do things differently, from your truck drivers to your route planning because often your customer base changes as well.
“It’s about evolving with that revenue to ensure that your profit is still increasing as well.
“You need everyone on board in the business with growth because if they still want to do things the old way, that’s where you’re going to get inefficiencies and that’s where you lose money.”
When he hits capacity again at around 2500-3000 containers a month, Luke says it’ll be time to recalibrate again.
“I need to read the state of play as to where my staff are at operationally and where the sales are at, what’s in the pipeline, and how quickly the economy and all the DCs are taking in their containers.
“So, it’s really a bit of a jigsaw in terms of how I see it – you just have to be able to read the play.”