Monthly Archives: August 2013

Zhengzhou-to-Europe Rail Freight Debuts

Posted on August 9, 2013 by just2bruce | Leave a comment

The Journal of Commerce reports that a new freight train service to Europe from China is available. The service will take about 18 days to reach Hamburg, shorter than a sea voyage. Container by rail is only slightly more costly than container by ocean shipping, and has a smaller environmental footprint, measured in carbon or particulate. At sea the pollution is discharged in no jurisdiction, whereas rail discharges where people might live.In the vast expanses of western Asia, the effects will not be politically harmful. So this line could indeed be competitive.

There will be 14 trains a year, or about one each month, so it won’t be the frequency of liner shipping.

Zhengzhou-to-Europe Rail Freight Debuts | JOC.

http://www.deutschebahn.com/en/hidden_rss/pi_rss/4261464/20130802_zhengzhou_train.html

http://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/1285721/train-cuts-time-europe-freight-deliveries

Shipping containers, ports and supply chain risk

Posted on August 8, 2013 by just2bruce | Leave a comment

An interesting story and comment from Martin Lariviere at Kellogg school. The container certainly increased the potential for efficiency by standardizing the process batch in the supply chain. As Martin points out, ports and other carriers are hung up on high utilization of their expensive capital facilities, and this limits the flexibility required for risk reduction. Problem is, who will pay for an expensive facility which will be idle a lot as a buffer for risk.

The Operations Room

A few months ago we had a post about how shipping containers have impacted supply chains and global trade. Today we have a longer piece from Nautilus on the history of shipping containers as well as some current trends in global shipping (The Box That Built the Modern World, Jul 25). I have three take aways from reading the article. First, everyone should read The Box by Marc Levinson because (a) it’s a good book and (b) it seems that no one can write about containerized shipping without more-or-less admitting that Mr. Levinson saved them a lot of effort in researching the topic.