Unusual jobs: Behind the flow of global liquid trade

As a Flexitank Field Technical Manager in DHL Ocean Bulk, Hannah helps customers move huge volumes of liquids around the world. Some products need special handling. Some need custom-designed equipment. And every now and then, one presents a challenge nobody has encountered before.

Take, for example, pepper mash, the fermented mixture of peppers and salt used by major hot sauce producers. During long ocean voyages, the mixture naturally separates. The solids rise to the top and form a crust, while the liquid settles below, making unloading difficult once it reaches its destination.

In partnership with the customer, the team designed a flexitank that allows the product to be mixed upon arrival at destination, a process that injects pulses of air into the tank, churning and re-mixing the contents into a uniform paste before discharge. "Then the mixture can be pumped out," Hannah says. In this case, the customer has partial rights to this specific flexitank, as well as a patent on the mixing system.

For Hannah, solving unusual technical challenges is only one part of the job, but a very important part. "We're the ones who ask 'why, why, why' until we figure it out," she explains.

That investigative mindset is essential because every shipment is different; every customer has different requirements, and the consequences of getting it wrong can be significant.

In fact the lion’s share of Hannah’s work is prevention. It involves training customers, suppliers and logistics partners on how to correctly install, load and discharge flexitanks. She and her team conduct audits, visit customer sites and answer questions, long before a shipment begins its journey.

"I would rather spend two weeks on emails, phone calls and meetings before the first truck arrives than have a problem later," she says.

That preparation often involves translating technical information for very different audiences. One day she may discuss engineering specifications and environmental protection measures with executives at a global chemicals company. The next could find her training a first-time winery customer who is concerned about protecting the product from oxygen ingress. Whatever it takes to create the best end-to-end solution for the liquid logistics in question.

Different commodities have different requirements, whether that means managing temperature, accommodating highly viscous liquids or selecting the right flexitank configuration.

Hannah works with customers and technical specialists across our network to design solutions that fit those requirements from the outset. "You have to know how to talk to many different people and tailor what you say to their biggest concern," she says.

International logistics involves many moving parts and, despite extensive planning and risk management, unexpected incidents can occasionally occur during transport or handling. When they do, the response follows risk assessments and agreed emergency response procedures.

Those are the days when Hannah's phone rings. “My phone number is literally on the door of every container where a flexitank is installed,” she says.

And the calls do come: “An hour from now I can get a call that a receiver somewhere in the US is having an issue. That activates a response from either me or one of our regional technical specialists, depending on where support is needed.”

The goal in that instance is to protect product quality, support the customer and reduce losses. The team investigates what happened and captures lessons that can strengthen future operations and equipment design. 

“We walk the customer through the insurance claim process and run a full root-cause analysis to figure out what went wrong and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she says. “It’s never dull!”

A customer facing role like Hannah’s requires well-honed people skills. Communication can be just as important as analysis. "Customers don't leave because of an incident. They leave because of how they're treated during that process," Hannah says.

She has even been known to lend a hand to previous customers who find themselves in a pinch. “People who shipped with DHL flexitanks in the past have called me in an emergency, saying they can’t get an answer from their current provider. I’m always willing to help. My thinking goes, ‘If I save the day for that customer, they're more likely to give us their business next time’.”

That philosophy helps explain why customers often continue contacting her, years after they first worked together. 

Asked what skills matter most in the role, Hannah doesn’t hesitate: “You have to be curious. You have to be analytical. You have to take in a large amount of information and narrow it down to what's actually important, under pressure.”

Much of the work resembles assembling a puzzle whose pieces arrive one at a time. When a challenge is investigated, the focus is not simply on identifying what happened but understanding why. The findings can then be shared with customers and technical teams so that future shipments, operating procedures and product development benefit from the lessons learned.

“Figuring out the ‘why’ when something goes wrong can take time, but eventually there is an ‘aha moment’ when the real cause of a problem becomes clear,” she says. 

One case involved a customer shipping gluten-free malt, a product used in hard seltzers, which emits off-gasses during transit. Tanks were rupturing during shipment, “even though we had installed pressure-release valves on the flexitank,” Hannah explains. After much digging, her team finally discovered the problem: the shipper had changed their malt recipe and were adding too much carbonation to the stored mixture prior to loading.

“They had changed their blend without informing us. Unfortunately, the equipment can't perform if the specs aren’t adhered to,” Hannah says. “It took quite a while to figure out what the problem was. But after working with the customer to ensure that the agreed upon CO2 levels were adhered to, we haven’t had any more issues.”

It’s challenges like these that keep Hannah engaged after more than 14 years in the flexitank industry. "In general, I love solving problems for people," she says. "This is just a very niche way of doing it."

For most of us, a bottle of hot sauce or glass of orange juice is just another everyday product. For Hannah Rogers, it's another reminder that behind even the simplest items, there's often a fascinating logistics puzzle waiting to be solved.