Business View Magazine
3
Supply Chain
Octob r – Business View
51
or somebody we don’t
know.”
The Trailiner operation
is up and running
24/7/365, she said, and a
steady flow of customer
feedback is encouraged
and
maintained
to
allow the leadership to
address issues and adjust
as necessary. Many
customers send in weekly
or twice-monthly reports
and Edmondson said the
information is valued.
“That’s a common
tool we use and we try
to manage it often,” she
said. “We try to learn from any issues that come up
and see how we handled it and how we can improve.”
The company’s operation reach stretches across
the 48 contiguous states and includes carriage
of commodities from produce and grocery to
pharmaceutical and retail goods. It was founded in
1982 by Edmondson’s grandfather, H.B. Whitener, and
he’d established a storied industry career of his own.
He’d been an owner-operator as far back as 1955
and started Midwest Farm Lines in 1976. Whitener’s
daughter and wife became part of the operation,
whose name was changed to Trailiner in 1982 to better
reflect its scope and intention to offer a better service
to a greater number of customers.
Edmonson arrived in 1999 and worked in
