Wal-Mart is launching its “On-Time, In-Full” (OTIF) initiative this month, putting the squeeze on shippers and truckers and likely starting an industry-wide push towards tighter delivery windows. OTIF demands that truckload deliveries arrive with 100 percent of the promised cargo, and be delivered on the “must-arrive-by” date 75 percent of the time (95 percent by […]
On July 1, China’s state-owned Cosco Shipping Holdings announced a bid to purchase a controlling share of Orient Overseas (International) Ltd. (OOIL) for a staggering $6.3 billion. Cosco’s acquisition of OOIL marks the latest (and possibly the last) in a wave of carrier consolidation that is reshaping the international shipping industry, which has struggled to […]
Last month, the Journal of Commerce/IHS Markit published a white paper titled Port Productivity: Finding New Efficiencies Through Collaboration, which confirmed what many in the industry already knew: relationships between terminals and carriers are fundamentally broken. The report strongly calls for increased communication between ports and investment in data technologies that could benefit the entire […]
“How do I optimize my freight budget?” This is one of the first questions every business owner asks a logistics professional, and the first step is educating yourself about your specific needs in the current freight environment. All too often, businesses treat their transportation budgets as a chore or an afterthought, but they can be ripe […]
Congress is eyeing changes to the Shipping Act in an effort to support domestic service providers in rate negotiations with carrier alliances. The tugboat industry has led the charge in protesting the alliances’ plan to jointly negotiate for contracts, which they maintain would foster an anti-competitive environment and force them to accept non-compensatory rates for […]
For decades, the majority of Asian Imports have passed through West Coast ports, but that balance seems to be shifting. The East Coast, Gulf Coast, and even Canada are each claiming a larger share of the market, a trend that will likely continue as ports grow to accommodate a new wave of mega carriers. According […]
This year, logistics professionals have noticed a resurgence of interest in intermodal shipping, the practice of moving containers across multiple forms of transport (rail, ship, and/or truck). Intermodal’s popularity subsided somewhat in 2015 and 2016, when excess capacity caused trucking prices to plummet. But as trucking rates rise in 2017, shippers are once again interested […]
The international shipping industry is caught in a dramatic conflict between US legislators and several massive carrier alliances, with the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) and domestic service providers caught in the crossfire. This conflict raises many questions regarding whether these alliances violate US antitrust law, whether the laws themselves need to be updated, and what […]