Quick News : Sunday 13 Nov 2005
Inreasingly, 3PLs are adding extremely valuable services to clients’ supply chains. Some of these added services include the partial assembly of furniture, allowing the customer to ship more items per box and reduce shipping times :
In that corner of a former Pillowtex Corp. textile plant is where seven MGM employees assemble the dining-room-chair components of A-America Inc., an importer of wooden furniture. A-American is based near Seattle.
Letting MGM handle the assembly part enables A-America to ship more components a box and cut shipping time to East Coast retailers and consumers nearly in half, to two weeks. In some categories, importers ship about as much air in the box as assembled furniture – a less than productive way of doing business.
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MGM’s Eden center is part of an emerging trend among logistics companies, getting involved in the supply chain beyond just moving product from point to point.“It’s about providing production services while the product is in motion in the supply chain,” said Scott Szwast, a marketing manager for UPS Supply Chain Solutions.
UPS combined several supply-chain operations into the solutions division in 2002. Among the services that UPS provides with its employees at its distribution hubs and centers are tuning musical instruments, repairing high-tech equipment and doing light assembly of products.
“It’s about reducing costs, inventory and time for your customers, yet meeting the demand for product choices from an instant-gratification society.” Szwast said. “With this fulfillment strategy, companies can keep their plants freed up to handle more production.”
Check this handy list of Logistics and Supply Chain events calender from Forbes.
The battle against cargo theft is becoming increasingly hi-tech :
SC-integrity’s current product lineup includes SC-tracker and SC-intransit, according to duNann.
SC-tracker consists of small, portable devices enabled with cellular-assisted GPS.
“[The devices] can be hidden inside buildings, or placed covertly in [shipping] cartons,” according to the CEO.
Through its SC-intransit service, SC-integrity hosts and manages software for tracking the locations of the devices.
The portable devices use cellular and GPS satellite-based communications to report to SC-integrity about their whereabouts every 30 seconds.
The service also includes an alert function, which provides immediate notification by a choice of phone or e-mail if either a vehicle or a carton within the vehicle moves beyond a stipulated set of boundaries known as the “geofence.”
The new Australian Customs Service chief has a big challenge ahead of him – rescuing the new Integrated Cargo System, which nearly brought the major ports of Australia to a standstill :
Bedding down the disastrous rollout of new cargo management software is set to be the number one priority of new Australian Customs Service (ACS) chief Michael Carmody, who moves across from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to replace the retiring Lionel Woodward from next year.
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The implementation of the new system — which ran AU$200 million over budget — last month caused some major ports in Sydney and Melbourne to grind to a virtual standstill as the freight industry struggled to adjust. The ramifications of the move are still being felt as importers, brokers and forwarders push for compensation and congestion at ports continues.Carmody has experience in top-level responsibility for major technology change with the ATO’s delivery of an AU$400 million-$450 million IT Change Program designed to boost internal efficiencies and client interaction with the office.
Costello said Carmody’s experience at the ATO would serve him well at Customs.
“Customs was looking for somebody who could bring fresh vigour,” he said. “Mr Carmody brought a very new approach to the tax office, particularly moving it into electronic lodgement and IT systems.
Good luck !
India will be pushing for an open skies agreement over South Asia, in an effort to increase economic integration .
You don’t say ! : “Eliminating anti-trust exemptions for ocean liner shipping conferences will likely result in increased competition and lower average freight rates, concludes an independent study commissioned by the European Commission.” What a novel idea !
In further support for my minority opinion that container freight rates will rise in the future, as opposed to going down, Neptune Lines and 11 other container lines are expecting costs to rise by 7% due to higher fuel costs and increased demand pressures, particularly from Asia :
Neptune Orient Lines Ltd. and 11 of the largest shipping companies plying the Pacific Ocean said costs of moving cargo to the U.S. in 2006 will rise 7 percent on higher fuel prices, which may spur them to raise freight rates.
The cost of transporting containers by trucks and railways will increase as much as 25 percent, the 12-line Transpacific Stabilization Agreement, whose members ship about 70 percent of trans-Pacific trade, said in a statement today.
Neptune Orient, Evergreen Marine Corp. and other Asian shipping companies are struggling with rising costs from higher fuel prices and port fees, amid increased demand for freight to the U.S. and Europe. Concern of a surplus of vessels may limit shipping lines in raising freight rates in 2006 for the fifth year. About 80 percent of the world’s trade is carried by sea.
“Cargo growth from Asia has placed intense service and cost pressures on container lines during the past year,” the group’s Executive Director Albert Pierce said in the statement. Shipping lines have added vessels, diversified routes and improved load planning in Asia to increase cargo to U.S. ports, Pierce said.
Demand for cargo across the U.S. and Europe will grow between 10 percent and 12 percent this year to about 5.8 million 40-foot containers, the group has said.
Read the whole thing.
No surprise here : US Airways is still losing money.
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