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A moving company, removalist or van line is a company that helps people and businesses move their goods from one place to another. Moving companies may offer additional or all-inclusive services for relocations, like packing, loading, moving, unloading, unpacking, and arranging of items to be shifted. Additional services may include cleaning services for houses, offices or warehousing facilities.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2007, 40 million United States citizens had moved annually over the previous decade. [1] Of those people who have moved in the United States, 84.5% of them have moved within their own state, 12.5% have moved to another state, and 2.3% have moved to another country. [2]
The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest household goods shipper in the world with the Personal Property Program accounting for 20% of all moves. [3]
In the U.S. and Canada, the cost for long-distance moves is typically determined by the weight of the items to be moved, the distance, how quickly the items are to be moved, and the time of the year or month when the move takes place. Some movers also offer consolidated shipping, which reduces costs by transporting several clients' items in the same shipment. In the United Kingdom and Australia, the price is based on the volume of the items rather than their weight. Some movers may offer flat rate pricing.
The use of truck rental services, or simply borrowing similar hardware, is referred to as DIY moving. Typically, the parties who are moving borrow or rent a truck or trailer large enough to carry their household goods and, if necessary, obtain moving equipment such as dollies, furniture pads, and cargo belts to protect the furniture or to facilitate the moving process itself.
The moving process also involves finding or buying materials such as boxes, paper, tape, and bubble wrap with which to pack boxable and/or protect fragile household goods and to consolidate the carrying and stacking on moving day. Self-service moving companies offer another viable option: the person moving buys space on one or more trailers or shipping containers. These containers are then driven by professionals to the new location.
Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers. Containerization, also referred as container stuffing or container loading, is the process of unitization of cargoes in exports. Containerization is the predominant form of unitization of export cargoes, as opposed to other systems such as the barge system or palletization. The containers have standardized dimensions. They can be loaded and unloaded, stacked, transported efficiently over long distances, and transferred from one mode of transport to another—container ships, rail transport flatcars, and semi-trailer trucks—without being opened. The handling system is mechanized so that all handling is done with cranes and special forklift trucks. All containers are numbered and tracked using computerized systems.
Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption according to the needs of customers. Logistics management is a component that holds the supply chain together. The resources managed in logistics may include tangible goods such as materials, equipment, and supplies, as well as food and other consumable items.
An intermodal container, often called a shipping container or ISO Container, is a large standardized container designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – such as from ships to trains to trucks – without unloading and reloading their cargo. Intermodal containers are primarily used to store and transport materials and products efficiently and securely in the global containerized intermodal freight transport system, but smaller numbers are in regional use as well. These containers are known under a number of names. Based on size alone, up to 95% of intermodal containers comply with ISO standards, and can officially be called ISO containers. Many other names are simply: container, cargo or freight container, shipping, sea or ocean container, container van or sea van, sea can or C can, or MILVAN, SEAVAN, or RO/RO. The also used term CONEX (Box) is a technically incorrect carry-over usage of the name of an important predecessor of the international ISO containers, namely the much smaller prior steel CONEX boxes used by the U.S. Army.
Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation, without any handling of the freight itself when changing modes. The method reduces cargo handling, and so improves security, reduces damage and loss, and allows freight to be transported faster. Reduced costs over road trucking is the key benefit for inter-continental use. This may be offset by reduced timings for road transport over shorter distances.
In transportation, freight refers to goods conveyed by land, water or air, while cargo refers specifically to freight when conveyed via water or air. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facilities, including warehouses.
A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, towns, or villages.
A distribution center for a set of products is a warehouse or other specialized building, often with refrigeration or air conditioning, which is stocked with products (goods) to be redistributed to retailers, to wholesalers, or directly to consumers. A distribution center is a principal part, the order processing element, of the entire order fulfillment process. Distribution centers are usually thought of as being demand driven. A distribution center can also be called a warehouse, a DC, a fulfillment center, a cross-dock facility, a bulk break center, and a package handling center. The name by which the distribution center is known is commonly based on the purpose of the operation. For example, a "retail distribution center" normally distributes goods to retail stores, an "order fulfillment center" commonly distributes goods directly to consumers, and a cross-dock facility stores little or no product but distributes goods to other destinations.
Truckload shipping is the movement of large amounts of homogeneous cargo, generally the amount necessary to fill an entire semi-trailer or intermodal container. A truckload carrier is a trucking company that generally contracts an entire trailer-load to a single customer. This is as opposed to a less-than truckload (LTL) company that generally mixes freight from several customers in each trailer. One advantage Full Truckload (FTL) carriers have over Less than Truckload carriers is that the freight is never handled en route, whereas an LTL shipment will typically be transported on several different trailers. Truckload shipments are typically run on 48' or 53'dry van trailers which will hold 24 or 26 pallets respectively.
A freight rate is a price at which a certain cargo is delivered from one point to another. The price depends on the form of the cargo, the mode of transport, the weight of the cargo, and the distance to the delivery destination. Many shipping services, especially air carriers, use dimensional weight for calculating the price, which takes into account both weight and volume of the cargo.
United Van Lines is an American moving and relocation company and a subsidiary of UniGroup, Inc.
Interstate Van Lines is a family-owned American moving company based in Springfield, Virginia. The company handles storage and shipping for corporate and government clients, including AOL, Hewlett-Packard and the US military. It is a subsidiary of Interstate Group Holdings, Inc. which owns a number domestic and international moving and logistics companies of which Interstate Van Lines is the largest.
Self storage is an industry that rents storage space, also known as "storage units," to tenants, usually on a short-term basis. Self-storage tenants include businesses and individuals.
A moving scam is a scam by a moving company in which the company provides an estimate, loads the goods, then states a much higher price to deliver the goods, effectively holding the goods as lien.
Material handling involves short-distance movement within the confines of a building or between a building and a transportation vehicle. It uses a wide range of manual, semi-automated, and automated equipment and includes consideration of the protection, storage, and control of materials throughout their manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, consumption, and disposal. Material handling can be used to create time and place utility through the handling, storage, and control of waste, as distinct from manufacturing, which creates form utility by changing the shape, form, and makeup of material.
Relocation, also known as moving, or moving house, is the process of leaving one's dwelling and settling in another. The new location can be in the same neighborhood or a much farther place in a different city or different country (immigration). It usually includes packing all belongings, transferring to the new home, unpacking, and administrative or bureaucratic tasks, such as changing registration data.
Order processing is the process or work-flow associated with the picking, packing, and delivery of the packed items to a shipping carrier and is a key element of order fulfillment. Order processing operations or facilities are commonly called “distribution centers” or “DC 's”. There are wide variances in the level of automation associating to the “pick-pack-and-ship” process, ranging from completely manual and paper-driven to highly automated and completely mechanized; computer systems overseeing this process are generally referred to as Warehouse Management Systems or “WMS”.
The American Moving & Storage Association (AMSA) was the non-profit trade association representing members of the professional moving industry based primarily in the United States. Its approximately 4,000 members consisted of van lines, their agents, independent movers, forwarders, industry suppliers, and certain individuals and organizations.
Mail storage is a type of on-demand self storage whereby customers send items by mail or delivery service to be stored at a central location. It may be a viable option for people who prefer 'pay-as-you-go' storage, in which only items that are stored are charged storage fees, rather than renting a larger storage unit that may not be fully utilized.
Toll Domestic Forwarding (TDF) is a division of the Toll Group specialising in freight forwarding by road, rail and sea within and between Australia and New Zealand.
Self-storage boxes, also known as self-storage bins, are storage containers often rented by individuals and businesses in metropolitan areas. The storage box service offers on-demand pick-up and drop-off services to storage facilities; the self storage service does not.
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