2015 I-NUF Conference

Posted on October 25, 2015 by | Leave a comment

I spent an enjoyable three days at this conference on Urban Freight held in Long Beach, CA.

Source: 2015 I-NUF Overview | METRANS Transportation Center

My colleague Dr Chris Clott (SUNY Maritime) and I presented a paper on supply chain integration at the Chicago freight bottleneck.  Our discussion offered a method of discovering main supply chain corridors to and from the area, discussed some of the attempts to reduce congestion in the light of supply chain integration, and concluded that ports such as LA/Long Beach or New York may need to consider implementing long range corridor integration rather than focusing on improvements inside their region boundaries.

We’ve included some Pareto charts exemplifying our search for important corridors linking Chicago. Truck traffic is super-dominant in terms of dollar value over every other mode.  So why isn’t supply chain integration in the Chicago mega region looking hard at alleviating truck congestion?

Pareto ToCHI Domestic Multi Pareto ToCHI Domestic Rail Pareto ToCHI Domestic Truck

 

 

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Posted in Logistics, Ports, Strategy, Supply Chains

The Rise of the Supply Chain Advocate

Posted on October 22, 2015 by | Leave a comment

An interesting article about the need for supply chain advocates.  These folks help participants see how they fit into supply chains and how they can change operations to make things work better for everyone.

http://supplychainmit.com/2015/10/20/the-rise-of-the-supply-chain-advocate/

At the end though,  all the participants must feel satisfied that they are gaining from participation. This is a knotty allocation problem and admits no easy solution. For instance it is unlikely that any pricing system can fairly divide the costs or benefits.  

And if participants don’t play, the supply chain does not get the full benefit.  That dilutes the power of the integration, and costs more.  So there is a premium on keeping everyone on board.

The advocate can play a key role in keeping the coalition together.  She can make sure fact based information is shared and consistently present the reasons for sticking together.  It’s a negotiation process that goes on forever. The mediator can keep it going.

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Parallel Rail

Posted on October 16, 2015 by | Leave a comment

 

Warren Buffett sees the rail link to Chicago as a big deal. He wants to take trucks off the road!

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At the end of this year, Warren Buffett’s solution to dwindling coal traffic will be almost complete.

Source: Warren Buffett’s Parallel Rail to Compete With Trucks | Social Post | The ELITE League

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Posted in Logistics, Ports, Rail, Strategy, Supply Chains, Trucking