Tag Archives: supply chains

After container ships sped up, why did they just tap on the brakes?

Posted on November 8, 2021 by | Leave a comment

This article has great graphs of vessel speed over the last months. It’s easy to see when ships are speeding up and slowing down. The speeds correlate with the spot price of shipping.

Speeding up causes more fuel to be burned, which adds to expenses. It also generates more pollution. Slowing down has been a tactic over past years to reduce pollution generated by ships.

But the long waiting time in ports these days has thrown calculations out of kilter. Now ships need to speed up to keep to their schedules.

Greg Miller, Senior Editor Sunday, November 7, 2021

After container ships sped up, why did they just tap on the brakes?

Leave a comment

Posted in Logistics, Shipping, Sustainability

Tagged , , , ,

Shippers Find New Supply-Chain Hurdles at Alternate Ports

Posted on October 26, 2021 by | Leave a comment

This article shows that it isn’t so easy to divert containers from LA/LongBeach to other ports. The smaller ports don’t have the infrastructure to handle the added containers efficiently. They may not even be able to get drivers to move the incoming containers. And how will they handle empties? Ship them to LA/Long Beach? It’s a complete mess for shippers and forwarders.

The article details some of the techniques people are trying. Each has its own set of problems to wrestle with.

By Paul Berger Oct. 24, 2021 8:00 am ET

Shippers Find New Supply-Chain Hurdles at Alternate Ports – WSJ

Leave a comment

Posted in Logistics, Ports, Shipping, Supply Chains

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Shadow inflation: Shipping costs are up way more than you think

Posted on October 23, 2021 by | 3 comments

This article gives lots of measures of factors contributing to supply chain cost. There are good graphs indicating the changes.

But these are contributing hidden costs to products, and those costs will be borne by consumers of the final products. That’s inflation.

It may be the first time that inflation is influenced by marine supply chain problems since the incessant wars on the seas in the 17th and 18th century. And in those days, frequent shooting wars guaranteed recessions; it was leisure goods like tea that had inflated prices. World Wars I and II also caused inflation, and shortages, but these were only partly caused by pillaging of marine traffic on the high seas. In most cases price controls were put into effect to resist inflation for ordinary people; and the extra goods were needed for the soldiers. We don’t have those now.

Somehow in the US and EU we need to find people to do the hard jobs in the supply chain to keep goods moving— warehouse jobs and driving jobs.

Greg Miller, Senior Editor Friday, October 22, 2021

Shadow inflation: Shipping costs are up way more than you think

3 Comments

Posted in Logistics, Supply Chains

Tagged , , , , , , ,