By Tom Nightingale Your distribution center is maxed out with inventory with no possibility for expansion. It’s not in the most strategic location. Customer service is declining. What’s the answer? Add a new DC, right? This seems logical, but it’s not necessarily the correct path…
By Walter Kemmsies, chief economist, Moffatt & Nichol
Many container trades are lopsided, with great numbers of loaded boxes moving in one direction but not the other. Such imbalance has led some companies to investigate the possibility of building folding containers to reduce the cost of storing and transporting empty units. Several say they have workable designs and are seeking to […]
By Biju Kewalram Global IT systems are a unique and increasingly crucial part of the logistics industry. But many organizations fail to recognize that IT should be considered a competitive tool and not simply a productivity opportunity. This is especially true of the small-to-medium logistics companies and forwarders that don’t have access to capital […]
Trade compliance software is inherently an unsexy space – except for those compliance practitioners that live and die by their global trade management system. The question is whether the merits of such a system are recognizable to a public that has little time or inclination for customs rules, much less the tools developed […]
The relationship between customers and their drayage providers is undergoing a shift, fueled by evolving technology, which allows for greater visibility along the entire supply chain and incorporating increasing regulatory changes. Add in the fact that many companies are doing more work with fewer people, and the market is ripe for the introduction of […]
Hanjin Logistics’ Ambrite asks if industry is losing its entrepreneurial passion. Globalization has been a boon for the shipping industry, resulting in a huge increase in cargo volume.
For Rory Anne Hepner, general manager of vehicle logistics and distribution at Mercedes-Benz, making sure both truckers and ocean carriers are performing at the highest level of service is the utmost importance. Hepner has started sharing key performance indicators (KPIs) with Mercedes’ truckers and plans to soon start sharing measurement data with ocean […]
Kapow hammers together manual connections to different systems in the supply chain. Wrangler Jeans has a shipment that needs to go to Walmart, and as a customer service employee for one of the leading trucking companies in the country, your job is to get the jeans from point A to Z. Once the […]
Overcapacity, lackluster rates, terminal inefficiencies and potential labor disruption could upset liner carriers’ performance into 2015. At best, shippers and liner carriers in the transpacific trade are faced with several challenging years. Neil Dekker, head of container research at the London-based consulting firm Drewry, told attendees of the Journal of Commerce’s TPM 2014 […]
Amports operates in eight seaports—if you include efforts to launch business in Port Tampa Bay—and two inland rail ramps in Mexico (Toluca and Salamanca). In two of those locations—Baltimore on the East Coast and Benicia in California—it owns, rather than leases, its land. That essentially makes the auto processor a mini-port authority. The […]
Global pure car and truck carriers (PCTCs) have 63 vessels on order for delivery between 2014 and 2017 and 65 percent of them are post-Panamax size, according to Höegh Autoliners. The number of new buildings is down a third from the peak in 2008-2010, but the vessel size is greater. The […]
Water route could support more finished vehicle exports to United States. Global manufacturers are stampeding into Mexico to take advantage of affordable, quality labor and proximity to the U.S. market and no one is investing more than the auto industry. Plants are springing up around the country, but questions about whether there is adequate […]
Nothing stays the same, and that also goes for American Shipper. The 62-year-old publishing company, based in Jacksonville, Fla., has made a number of changes since the start of this year, which we would like to share with you on this page. For starters, we have expanded our editorial and research staff, […]
Mexico is the first country in North America to achieve a single window. The system has processed nearly 40 million transactions covering 215 procedures for nine different agencies since commencing in October 2011, Alejandro Chacón, the administrator general of Mexican Customs, said March 7 at the U.S. Customs Trade Symposium in Washington. There […]
SeaLand will be Maersk’s intra-Americas brand. Earlier this year, Maersk Line announced it would spin off its intra-Americas service into a new independent unit and operate it under the SeaLand name, reviving a brand of the company founded by container shipping pioneer Malcom McLean. Maersk acquired the international container business of Sea-Land Service […]
Obama puts agencies on notice to be team players, join unified trade data system. In less than three years, many bureaucratic headaches associated with importing and exporting cargo could be minimized if the U.S. government follows through on its goal of implementing new information technology for modernizing how trade is processed to ensure […]
BIS wants to clearly define responsibilities for these transactions. Navigating U.S. export control regulations has always been a tricky task and it’s not uncommon for exporters and their freight forwarders to get tripped up over regulatory language alone. One of those trouble spots, which the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security […]
After a protracted battle and much hand wringing, the European Union’s plan of taxing foreign airlines for emissions is officially dead—at least for the time being. Europe’s controversial aviation law, which took effect in 2012, would tax airlines traveling into or routing through Europe starting in 2013. Now a vote by Parliament on […]
Plano Molding designs and manufactures plastic storage boxes, including tackle boxes for fishermen. When it needed steel molds for its Illinois factory it contracted with CMT International, a company that assists American customers that wish to purchase products in Asia. CMT solicited bids from manufacturers, and Plano selected Kunshan, a Chinese company, to […]
