Logistics, Trade Administration and Supply Chain

This article first appeared in the Business Times on 2 March 2020. Outbound freight rates are skyrocketing on the back of weeks-long labour shortage and disruptions to logistics links that continue to dog operations in China, although there is still international air and ocean capacity, albeit much reduced from before, according to industry players. This is set to catch on in airfreight sectors elsewhere too as the coronavirus spreads through Europe and potentially Latin America and the African subcontinent, warned Raymon Krishnan, president of The Logistics and Supply Chain Management Society. Reduced airfreight capacities have resulted in rates “going through the roof” with rates doubling or tripling for flights leaving China, said Dr Krishnan. “I also just heard that some are paying up to six times the regular rates.” The situation is also worsened by the cancellation of thousands of passenger flights to and from mainland China, resulting in the reduction in belly capacity for ca...

Tell me if you have heard this recently - we are undergoing a major digital transformation! I realize this is not a news bulletin, but one industry that is seeing the greatest impact from the digital revolution is retail. Why? Because digital is having the greatest impact at the consumer level. Retailers have already experienced the impacts of digital transformation. Just think of mobile commerce and e-commerce and how these have changed their businesses. So how can retail supply chains take advantage of these changes? The constantly changing consumer. The biggest driver of disruption in retail supply chain is the consumer. As consumers continue to grow with regard to their influence and ability to dictate how retailers service their needs, supply chains, which are foundational, will have to keep pace. We are going beyond omnicommerce and into ambient commerce. Commerce that is not only always-on but not constrained to a separate practice. Look at efforts by social giants such as F...

By David Dodwell, SCMP Hanjin Sooho may mean nothing to you or I, but for perhaps thousands of Chinese exporters, the name is currently the source of despair, perhaps panic. As many of us talk abstractly about faltering global trade growth, Hanjin Sooho is the hard distressing reality of the challenge facing global trade for many traders here or in China. Hanjin Sooho is under arrest in Shanghai port – one of 20 or more vessels trapped by the collapse in August of South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping, at least 10 of them in China alone. Hanjin was the world’s seventh largest shipping line, and the first shipping collapse in 30 years. As Hanjin fell into bankruptcy, so its ships – and the cargos in them – have been frozen wherever they sat. As one expert shipper noted: “Ships have been seized. Some are staying out of port to avoid being seized. Some are just puttering around, loaded or unloaded.” Industry experts say more than 500,000 containers are trapped on these ships, with cargos on bo...

Transportation usually represents the most important single element in logistics cost for most firms. Freight movement has been observed to absorb between one-third and two-thirds of total logistics costs. Thus, the logistician needs a good understanding of transportation matters. Although a comprehensive discussion of transportation is not possible within the scope of this text, this subject highlights what is essential to the logistician for his or her managerial purpose. The focus is on the facilities and services that make up the transportation system and on the rates [costs] and performance of various transport service that a manager might select. Spefcifically, we wish to examine the characteristics of the transportation service alternatives that lead to optimal performance. It is performance that the user buys from the transportation service. Importance of an Effective Transportation System One needs only to contrast the economies of  developed nation with those of a...

Has the global economy turned the corner? Data presented in Ti's latest   Global Logistics Monitor suggests it might have. Manufacturing activity appears to be picking up throughout Asia, Germany and the US and even demand for airfreight may finally be improving. Still, it is too early to tell, particularly as it is always difficult to compare year-over-year data for the months of January and February because of the lunar Chinese New Year holiday. However, while China's manufacturing activity stumbled a bit for February, as noted by the China Customs Administration, its exports for the first two months of 2013 grew 24%, while imports grew 5%.  The EU, US and the ASEAN countries were China's top trading partners. Exports to the EU increased nearly 3.2%, while exports to the US and the ASEAN countries grew by 14.8% and 22% respectively. Most notably, exports of high-tech products grew 26.2% year-on-year. Even in the midst of Europe's economic squalor, Germany ap...