Category Archives: Supply Chains

Consolidated Chassis Management Prepares for SACP 3.0 Launch with New Office

Posted on March 9, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Consolidated Chassis Management (CCM), a leading cooperative chassis pool manager, announced it has opened a new, expanded office in Savannah, GA, to accommodate the growing South Atlantic Chassis Pool (SACP) 3.0 team. Launching in October 2023, SACP 3.0 will offer a new chassis provisioning solution that utilizes a single provider pool model.

Chassis pools have made a big difference in the availability of chassis for containers. Pooling chassis is a standard way of covering a varying demand with a lower investment in inventory. If the maintenance is performed to a good standard, the pools will be popular with drivers, because of the standardized agreements for pickup and dropoff.

According to CCM’s CEO Mike Wilson, “SACP 3.0 will revolutionize chassis provisioning in the United States.As we get closer to launch, we are building our teams, expanding our office space and enhancing CIT, our fleet management platform — all to provide the support necessary to ensure SACP 3.0 reaches its full potential.”

With more than 75 sites across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, SACP 3.0 will continue to be the nation’s largest fully interoperable chassis pool. It will increase and upgrade the existing South Atlantic Chassis Pool with new and refurbished intermodal chassis from major regional port and key intermodal inland hubs.

The South Atlantic region has been a productive location for a chassis pool, with the serious expansion of service to these areas by major container shipping lines. Pools have also played a role on the West Coast at Los Angeles/Long Beach.

SACP 3.0 will transition from the current multi-contributor chassis pool to a single provider utility
type pool, and it will offer over 50,000 chassis to truckers, beneficial cargo owners, ocean
carriers and other port users. The pool is being established cooperatively by The Ocean Carrier
Equipment Management Association (OCEMA), Georgia Ports Authority (GPA), Jacksonville
Port Authority (JaxPort), North Carolina State Ports Authority (NC Ports) and Consolidated
Chassis Management LLC (CCM).

“We are committed to ensuring SACP delivers on its promise, so we will continue to build in our
team and make investments that deepen our presence in the Southeast. The new office is not
only larger, but it is also more conveniently located, bringing us closer to GPA as well as other
members of the supply chain community, including steamship lines and BCO’s,” said Mr.
Wilson.

Some years ago the ocean carriers decided to divest themselves of chassis in the US. They claimed to do this because of American laws that made chassis owners responsible for damage from accidents where they were found to participate in the fault. These liability laws were seen as threats to the liner firms. So CCM was created. As you can see, while independent, it’s related to the Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association, which is closely allied to the ocean carriers. It’s a liability shifting scheme.

The fact is, ocean carriers must be able to provide chassis for their customers. In the US, it’s not a good business decision for truckers and trucking firms to own their chassis. Customers have different needs, and the chassis has to be chosen for the specific load. A study showed that with economic conditions in the US, a trucker would need to have 90% confidence that customers would want a chassis, to afford owning it. The fraction is nowhere near that.

So the pools and CCA help fulfill that function. It’s a good strategy, and results in considerable savings. I’m glad to see that it is taking off in the Southland of the US.

Liability is also related to maintenance. If maintenance is high quality, a trucker will pick up a good chassis that is not likely to fail on her route. The trucker must bear the immediate expense of a repair on the route, which delays her cash flow. The pool offers a chance for high-quality maintenance. In California, the pools established near LA/Long Beach were required to hire union mechanics, which may have improved the quality of the maintenance. With the CCA pools there is a specific firm to hold responsible for maintaining the chassis.

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Posted in Logistics, Service Management, Shipping, Supply Chains

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Not enough SAF for air cargo to hit net zero – carriers must find other routes

Posted on February 20, 2023 by | Leave a comment

It’s becoming obvious that there’s no way that enough sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) can be produced to meet the needs of air traffic.

Carriers are already suggesting they will need to play a little use in their path to ‘Net-Zero’ emissions. They plan to take advantage of strategies which allow them to keep emitting but using offsets with technologies that have been declared legitimate to shelter fuel use.

Such technologies concern purchasing carbon credits and developing carbon capture sources. But those do not actually reduce the emissions from air traffic.

I’m interested by what Glen Hughes, the director general of The International Air Cargo Forum (TIACA) said for the article below.

“What’s important is the capacity to monitor a company’s total ESG impact and activities in a manner that fulfils audit requirements and has a direct impact on investment decisions by equity firms and banks.”

Source: Loadstar Article

Clearly this sidesteps serious ESG improvement for the industry and promotes a form of gaming the rules.

Promoting watered-down audit requirements and shaping how investment decisions are made by large investors clearly takes precedence over actually improving emissions. The premise that investment firms and auditors are to determine the world’s response to environmental improvement is patently ridiculous. TIACA is promoting a specious response. A harsh judge could call it a form of greenwashing.

To be fair, I will quote Mr Hughes again, from the same article, citing six questions to answer for supply chain officials:

 “Am I being as environmentally responsible as I can? Am I using recyclable materials? Am I optimising transport? Am I using sustainable energy or compensating for emissions? Am I supporting global prosperity and economic growth? And how can I, my partners and supply chain stakeholders continually improve?”

Source: Loadstar Article

Compensating for emissions is a big loophole. And if you use the loophole, are you being as environmentally responsible as you can be?

Leaving it to investors and politicians to decide does not seem like a wise course.

By Alex Whiteman 20/02/2023

Not enough SAF for air cargo to hit net zero – carriers must find other routes – The Loadstar

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Posted in Air, Logistics, Supply Chains, Sustainability

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The worst January for US intermodal for ten years, and no sign of relief

Posted on February 10, 2023 by | Leave a comment

It’s no wonder that US intermodal traffic is declining. Poor service from the railroads has made using any system that involves a transfer an invitation to delays. And shippers can’t afford delays.

Companies offering intermodal container service don’t have enough pull with the railroads in the US to get highly regular service. And now that container rates are dropping fast, shippers won’t pay an excessive amount for the service. So the large rails don’t feel any obligation to serve them well.

Will the major rail lines make any adjustments? My guess is they will be dragged kicking and screaming to provide more reliable service. The fuss they are making over simply making regular deliveries of feed grains to major customers, and the resistance to reciprocal switching, and the labor difficulties they are experiencing show that they don’t feel that customer service is top of their mind.

Why not? Recently I read a book about Charles Lowell, a young man from Massachusetts who fought in the Civil War. Before the war, and after graduating first in his class from Harvard, he worked as an agent in Iowa for a firm building railways west in that state. Each time they completed 25 miles of railway, the firm got a large new swath of land from the US government. The firm had to survey the land, decide on their route through it, and sell the land they didn’t need to fund the next 25 miles. They sold the land to migrants, from the east or from other countries, who were moving west to obtain cheap land for farms and businesses, their piece of the American Dream. There was a lot of graft in these land dealings. But Lowell insisted that his firm sell at a fair price and not engage in special deals with investors speculating on the land. His reason was interesting and farsighted.

Lowell believed that the railroad needed customers, and that was what he was creating by selling them land.

Today’s railroad executives don’t seem to think they need customers.

There are plenty of reasons to use intermodal for container shipment. It reduces emissions. It could be faster. It could require fewer transloads. (Most US truck traffic from ports is transloaded to 53-foot truck chassis before a cross-country trip). And it could be safer, and cheaper, or at least no higher in price, for the shipper. Rail lines could participate in this effort to reduce pollution while making the business profitable for them by operating their lines efficiently to accommodate it. But it does require them to serve their customers, those who want to ship on intermodal.

Too bad rails can’t seem to focus on the advantages it offers and shape their business around it. It would save the hassle of government regulation forcing them to accommodate it.

By Ian Putzger, Americas correspondent 10/02/2023

The worst January for US intermodal for ten years, and no sign of relief – The Loadstar

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Posted in Logistics, Rail, Supply Chains

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