Tag Archives: supply chains

‘Data sharing is nice, but cooperation is key’ to ending congestion

The speaker, Stefan Pieters of Jan de Rijk, was speaking of the relation between road hauliers and airport stakeholders. I believe most hauliers at ports, warehouses, inland terminals, and any cargo transfer points would be saying the same thing. And so far there has been little effort on this score.

Truckers are the low person on the pole, and are not connected to the facilities they must rely on for service. They have no leverage. So their problems go ignored.

There is a lot of money to be made by coordinating this aspect of the trucking business, if anyone will step up and do it.

And as the interview claims, data takes you only so far. There has to be a willingness to act and change procedures, rather than just send data. Facilities don’t want to recognize that; it requires workers with the power to make decisions on behalf of the cargo owner, and that would erode ‘profits’, meaning costs. You’d have to pay workers more for the ability to make decisions.

It makes a stronger case for end-to-end coordination by the same vendor, such as Amazon or Wal-Mart. But truckers would still often be left out.

By Alex Lennane 13/07/2020

‘Data sharing is nice, but cooperation is key’ to ending congestion, says Jan de Rijk – The Loadstar

Railroad Carloads Plummet

This nice essay from Escalation Consultants, delivered on 5/21/2020, shows very large decreases in rail carloads after mid-March of 2020, approaching 30% for most carriers. Only Union Pacific is down by only 18%.

Another graph shows the differences by commodity.

Only grain and crushed stone are up. Coal and petroleum, the profit centers of the railroads, are way down, by more than 30%.

The article claims that one can take advantage of leverage to obtain favorable prices due to these steep declines in the Coronavirus economy.

I think the article bespeaks some hard times ahead for the big rails.

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Coronavirus delays create Container shortages in Chicago for DDGS

Coronavirus issues, particularly in China, are creating real problems for Dried Distiller Grains (DDGS) shipments. The lack of inbound containers from China means that there are not enough containers to ship DDGS out of the US.

DDGS is a byproduct of ethanol production, and in this part of the Midwest US, there is much ethanol production.  It is some of the most productive corn land in the US.  The DDGS are primarily used as animal feed.  China imports DDGS as feed for pork in the older times. I’m not sure how much they are importing right now due to the tariff fight and the pork disease issue in China. China’s pig production is just recovering from that tragedy a year or so ago.

The article gives an indication of container rates North Asia to West Coast US. They are trending down to attract business. blanked sailings are also a feature of the current environment in container shipping from China.

It’s a mess!

screenshot SandP Global Platts

via Container shortages in Chicago impact DDGS on coronavirus delays | S&P Global Platts