Logistics, Trade Administration and Supply Chain

By Malory Davies Companies in both retail and manufacturing are facing increasingly challenging markets. Retailers are having to respond to the growth of online shopping and the need to manage multiple sales channels. Manufacturers are realigning their supply chains to reflect changes in global markets – particularly in the motor industry. For many years this has operated on a global scale, but there are moves by the OEMs to integrate their supply chains more tightly, which are having knock-on effects on their suppliers. Les Brookes, chief executive officer of Oliver Wight EAME, says: “Increasing demand for better, faster, cheaper is with us to stay it seems. And customer loyalty is scant. Anticipating what consumers want is key – ideally before they do. Smart organisations are segmenting their customers, markets and channels, and aligning supply chains accordingly. “Some (but not yet enough) are introducing demand analysts into the sales and marketing teams and building deman...

Honeywell has signed an agreement to buy supply chain and warehouse automation company Intelligrated for $1.5billion. Once approved, Intelligrated will become a part of Honeywell’s automation and control solutions business. “E-commerce continues to grow at an unprecedented rate and customer demands for faster delivery times have created a need for warehouse, logistics and fulfillment solutions that can increase productivity and lower costs for our customers,” said Alex Ismail, president and CEO of Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions. “This acquisition fits with our vision for a connected industrial company and a connected worker.” The purchase is forecast to close by the end of the third quarter, subject to conditions and regulatory review.

To date, pipeline transportation offers a very limited range of services and capabilities. The most economically feasible products to move by pipeline are crude oil and refine petroleum products. However, there are some experimentation with moving solid products suspended in liquid referred to as slurry or containing the solid products in cylinders that in turn move in a liquid within the pipe. If these innovations prove to be economical, pipeline service could be greatly expanded. Early experience with coal suspended in liquid has not been favourable because pipes have eroded. Product movement by pipeline is very slow, only about three to four miles per hour. This slowness is tempered by the fact that products move 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This makes the effective speed much greater when compared with other modes. Pipelines capacity is high, considering that a 3 mph flow in a 12 inch diameter pipe can move 89,000 gallons per hour. Concerning transit time, pipeline service...

Water transportation service is limited in scope for several reasons. Domestic water service is confined to the inland waterway system, which requires shippers to be located on the waterways or to use another transportation mode in combination with the water. In addition, water service on the average is slower than rail. Availability or dependability of water service are greatly influenced by the weather. Movement on the waterways during the winter is impossible and floods and droughts may also interrupt service at other times as well. There is tremendous capacity available in water carriers with barge tows up to 40,000 tons and there are individual barges with standardized dimensions of 26 by 175 feet and 35 by 195 feet. Capability and handling are being increased as barged carrying ships are being developed and such improvements as satellite navigation with radar, refined depth finders and auto piloting mean  around the clock service. Water services are provided in all leg...

Air transportation is being considered by increasing numbers of shippers for regular service, even though air freight rates exceed those of trucking by more than two times and those of rail by more than 16 times. The appeal for air transportation is its unmatched origin to destination speed, especially over long distances. Air service dependability and availability can be rated as good under normal operating conditions. Delivery time variability is low in absolute magnitude, even though air service is quite sensitive to mechanical breakdown, whether conditions and traffic congestions. Variability when compare with average delivery times, can rank air as one of the least reliable modes. The capability of air has been greatly constrained by the physical dimensions of the cargo space in the aircraft and the aircraft's lifting capacity. This is becoming less of a constraint, however, as larger aircraft are put into service. For example, jumbo airplanes such as Boeing 747 and L...

Trucking moves freight with smaller average shipment size than rail. More than half of the shipments by truck are less than 10,000 pounds or LTL volume. The inherent advantages of trucking are its door-to-door [DTD] service, involving no loading or unloading between origin and destination as is often true of rail and air modes; its frequency and availability of service and its DTD speed and convenience. Truck and rail services show some distinct differences, even though they compete for many of the same product shipments. First, in addition to the common and private legal classification of carriers, trucking offers services as contract carrier as well. Contract carriers do not hire themselves out to service all shippers as do common carriers. Shippers enter into a contractual agreement to obtain service that better meets their particular needs and requirements without incurring the capital expense and administrative problems associated with private ownership of a trucking fleet. ...

The railroad is a long hauler and slow mover of raw materials [coal,lumber and chemicals] and of low-valued  manufactured products [food, paper and wood products] and prefers to move shipment sizes of at least a full carload. This relatively slow speed and short car distance travelled in a day reflect the fact that the majority of freight car time is spent on loading and unloading operations, moving from one place to another within terminals, classifying and assembling cars into trains or standing idle during seasonal slump in car demand. Rail service exist in two legal forms, common carrier or privately owned. A common carrier sells its transportation service to all shippers and it is guided by the economic and safety regulations of the appropriate government agencies. In contrast, private carriers are shipper owned with the usual intent of serving only the owner. Because of the limited scope of the private carrier's operations, no economic regulations are needed. Nearly all ...