American Shipper

   A new transportation management Website has popped up, promising to help shippers, distribution centers, manufacturers, and other companies get better rates from a list of more than 28,000 available carriers.    The RateMyShipment.com site comes from TranZcenter, a logistics and supply chain management services provider, and its head of operations Milton Collier. The network of […]

     Texas-based American Movers Group, which focuses both on domestic and international moves, has announced it will use Track What Matters’ GPS asset tracking system to improve its records and help settle customer disputes.    The GPS units on trucks will be used not only to ensure delivery but also track employee’s driving habits […]

Alan Bersin will step down as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, effective Dec. 30, leaving behind an industry-approved record of trade facilitation reforms.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday named David Aguilar, deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as acting commissioner. Aguilar will take over Dec. 30, with Thomas Winkowski serving as acting deputy. 

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) released its final “hours of service” rule for truckers on Thursday, reducing from 82 to 70 hours the maximum number of hours a truck driver can work within a seven-day period. 

The Port of Baltimore took another step towards becoming a bigger center for containerized imports with the news this week that German liner Hapag-Lloyd will begin serving the Seagirt Terminal operated by Ports America as its first port of call on its transatlantic Gulf of Mexico Express service. 

The liner carriers Hamburg Süd and Mediterranean Shipping Co. are merging two separate Mediterranean-east coast South America services into one from mid-January.

     Test transmissions and processing of electronic sea and rail manifests for the new Automated Commercial Environment are going well, putting U.S. Customs and Border Protection on track to soon transition transportation providers to the new system, the agency announced Friday.    A sea/rail manifest pilot program involving one rail carrier and one ocean […]

Finnish police and customs officials have reportedly seized a cargo of 69 Patriot missiles and explosives on the ship Thor Liberty bound for China. Patriot missile systems are made by Raytheon, the Waltham, Mass. arms maker.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have removed thousands of unsafe Christmas lights from the distribution pipeline to stores after a central squad of analysts dedicated to import safety zeroed in on several questionable shipments. 

     The World Trade Organization Appellate Body agreed with the United States that Philippine excise taxes on imported distilled spirits were discriminatory and inconsistent with the Philippines’ WTO obligations.     The appellate body affirmed similar findings made by a WTO panel earlier this year. The Philippines imposes taxes on imported distilled spirits, such as whiskey […]

     Newly minted U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson will lead his first trade mission on March 25-30 to India, focusing on infrastructure opportunities.     India plans to invest about $1 trillion in infrastructure during the next five years.    “Selling more made-in-USA infrastructure products to India will help U.S. companies grow and hire more […]

     CargoWise, which provides logistics technology platforms, has signed an agreement with Senator International to implement its ediEnterprise application across Senator’s operations.    The implementation will cover more than 1,000 individual users across the Hamburg-based logistics services provider’s global operations.    According to CargoWise, ediEnterprise is a modular supply chain platform designed to automate the operations “of international […]

     Dupré Logistics, a Lafayette, La.-based third party logistics services provider, has named Jeff Colonna as vice president of operations.    Colonna will oversee the operations of Dupré’s three business groups: site and private fleet services, strategic capacity services, and energy distribution services. He joined Dupré in 2009 as the director of operations for […]

     Wared Logistics, a unit of the Saudi-based Construction Products Holding Co., is nearing completion of the first temperature-controlled warehouse in a series planned for operation in Saudi Arabia by mid-2012.    This first warehouse is a 5,000-square-meter facility in Riyadh and is expected to be fully functional by Jan. 1. This operation will be followed by […]

   The CKYH alliance of liner shipping carriers has dropped the Jeddah call on its weekly NE2 Asia-North Europe service.    The last voyage to call Jeddah will be the Dec. 13 sailing of YM Uniform. The NE2’s new port rotation is Shanghai, Xiamen, Kaohsiung, Yantian, Singapore, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Felixstowe, Antwerp, Singapore, Shekou, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.    The […]

     Growers Express, a large U.S. supplier of fresh vegetables, has picked Junction Solutions to increase its warehouse efficiency and visibility.     Specifically, Growers will use Junction’s Wireless Warehouse platform. The system allows companies to manage their inventory and order management with automatic data collection and wireless connections between the platform and handheld devices. […]

   Mediterranean Shipping Co. said this week it is raising rates from the Far East to the Caribbean, Central America and Colombia.    The increases to all three regions are $560 per 20-foot container and $800 per 40-foot or 40-foot high-cube container from Jan. 5. On cargo from Taiwan or to Colombia and Puerto Rico, […]

Rising production costs could change dynamics of eastbound cargo volumes. Analysis by Eric Johnson    The container shipping industry that’s built a large part of its empire on the Asia-to-North America goods pipeline is facing a troubling question: Is the cost of producing goods going to stay high?    Here’s the issue: Sales figures and revenues for retailers and other beneficial cargo […]

IBM will acquire Massachusetts-based Emptoris, a cloud and on-premise analytics software provider with a focus on supply chain management. The buy is the latest in a series of additions to IBM’s “Smarter Commerce” initiative.