Shippers may not be enjoying the turbulent times they've been thrust into, but they're learning to deal with them. After nearly 25 years of calling the shots in what basically amounted to a buyer's market for trucking service, they're having to adjust to a new reality. In recent months, industry consolidation and a severe driver shortage have conspired to limit, if not shrink, truck capacity nationwide. As a result, shippers report that it's not only getting tougher to find a truck, but if they do find one, it's costing them a lot more to hire it.
How much more does it cost? Freight rates rose by an average of 7.5 percent last year, according to a recent survey conducted by DC VELOCITY and the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC). And it appears that few have been left untouched by the trend. Nearly nine out of 10 of the respondents reported that their rates had risen; only about 13 percent said that they had been able to hold freight rates in check.
The outlook for 2005 isn't materially better. Although it appears that the rate of growth may be slackening a bit, freight rates continue to climb. On average, those polled expect that rates will rise by just under 7.0 percent this year.
But there's more to rising trucking costs than just higher rates. Carriers are also taking the opportunity to impose added fees, like chargeback penalties on shippers that fail to meet requirements and accessorial fees for added services. Four out of nine shippers who responded to the survey reported an increase in the chargebacks they paid. And nearly 60 percent said that accessorial billings by carriers had gone up—typically by double-digit amounts.
Defensive maneuvers
Cost issues aside, the most immediate problem for shippers these days remains finding a truck. Desperate to keep goods from piling up on their shipping docks, they're doing whatever it takes to secure service, even if it sometimes means reserving capacity they don't end up using. For example, a respondent who works for a large manufacturer (respondents were guaranteed anonymity) said he had even paid deadhead miles during peak periods in order to guarantee he'd have trucks available when he needed them. A manager for a third-party logistics service provider reported that he'd been able to secure service by guaranteeing carriers a backhaul in the destination city.
Shippers are also learning to lower their expectations. "Yes, we accepted lower service in exchange for rate and capacity," wrote one manager for a large manufacturer. That, of course, has strategic implications for shippers' operations as well. A full 43 percent of those polled said they had increased inventory as a hedge against reduced service levels.
And in a reversal of a longtime trend, shippers that once consolidated their business with a few core carriers are now actively seeking new haulers. Some 74 percent said they had added carriers in an effort to keep goods moving out of their DCs, and 61 percent said they had made some changes in the carriers they used. But that strategy appears to carry some risks. One shipper wrote, "Some of the new carriers did not live up to their [commitments] and increased service failures."
Shippers, however, are doing more than just re-evaluating carriers. Many have also made changes in their own operations as they try to keep costs in check. Under pressure from carriers (who themselves are grappling with a driver shortage, skyrocketing fuel and insurance costs, and driver hours-of-service regulations), some have taken steps to improve turn times at their DCs. One mid-sized manufacturer boasts of cutting turn times on live loads from three hours to 1.5 hours. Of course, those efforts sometimes carry costs of their own. One respondent reported that the pressure to shorten turn times had increased his unloading costs, especially the fees for lumpers. (Lumpers are casual laborers who are hired as needed.)
Still other shippers said they were working to tighten up their forecasting and scheduling to reduce their carriers' costs—and by extension, their own. "We're giving more timely projections of upcoming loads to truckload carriers," said a manager for one mid-sized retailer. More than half have changed their shipping schedules, 45 percent have extended their hours, 37 percent have increased the use of drop-and-hook operations, and 30 percent have added drop-and-hook operations.
A few are even enlisting their suppliers and consignees in their cost-cutting efforts. A mid-sized retailer described shifting some value-added services to vendors in an attempt to expedite the flow of goods through his own DC. A manager for a large manufacturer said he was actively working with customers to improve unloading times.
The study made at least one thing clear: no one's immune from the capacity crunch. The squeeze has affected shippers of all sizes. Forty-two percent of the more than 500 shippers who responded to the survey described their businesses as mid-sized, while another 33 percent said they worked for large companies. In total, the respondents operated more than 400 million square feet of warehouse space.
Editor's note: Clifford Lynch, principal of consultancy C.F. Lynch & Associates and a DC VELOCITY columnist, is preparing a detailed report on the study. Watch for those study results in an upcoming issue of DC VELOCITY.
The number of container ships waiting outside U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports has swelled from just three vessels on Sunday to 54 on Thursday as a dockworker strike has swiftly halted bustling container traffic at some of the nation’s business facilities, according to analysis by Everstream Analytics.
As of Thursday morning, the two ports with the biggest traffic jams are Savannah (15 ships) and New York (14), followed by single-digit numbers at Mobile, Charleston, Houston, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Baltimore, and Miami, Everstream said.
The impact of that clogged flow of goods will depend on how long the strike lasts, analysts with Moody’s said. The firm’s Moody’s Analytics division estimates the strike will cause a daily hit to the U.S. economy of at least $500 million in the coming days. But that impact will jump to $2 billion per day if the strike persists for several weeks.
The immediate cost of the strike can be seen in rising surcharges and rerouting delays, which can be absorbed by most enterprise-scale companies but hit small and medium-sized businesses particularly hard, a report from Container xChange says.
“The timing of this strike is especially challenging as we are in our traditional peak season. While many pulled forward shipments earlier this year to mitigate risks, stockpiled inventories will only cushion businesses for so long. If the strike continues for an extended period, we could see significant strain on container availability and shipping schedules,” Christian Roeloffs, cofounder and CEO of Container xChange, said in a release.
“For small and medium-sized container traders, this could result in skyrocketing logistics costs and delays, making it harder to secure containers. The longer the disruption lasts, the more difficult it will be for these businesses to keep pace with market demands,” Roeloffs said.
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
As the hours tick down toward a “seemingly imminent” strike by East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, experts are warning that the impacts of that move would mushroom well-beyond the actual strike locations, causing prevalent shipping delays, container ship congestion, port congestion on West coast ports, and stranded freight.
However, a strike now seems “nearly unavoidable,” as no bargaining sessions are scheduled prior to the September 30 contract expiration between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) in their negotiations over wages and automation, according to the transportation law firm Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary.
The facilities affected would include some 45,000 port workers at 36 locations, including high-volume U.S. ports from Boston, New York / New Jersey, and Norfolk, to Savannah and Charleston, and down to New Orleans and Houston. With such widespread geography, a strike would likely lead to congestion from diverted traffic, as well as knock-on effects include the potential risk of increased freight rates and costly charges such as demurrage, detention, per diem, and dwell time fees on containers that may be slowed due to the congestion, according to an analysis by another transportation and logistics sector law firm, Benesch.
The weight of those combined blows means that many companies are already planning ways to minimize damage and recover quickly from the event. According to Scopelitis’ advice, mitigation measures could include: preparing for congestion on West coast ports, taking advantage of intermodal ground transportation where possible, looking for alternatives including air transport when necessary for urgent delivery, delaying shipping from East and Gulf coast ports until after the strike, and budgeting for increased freight and container fees.
Additional advice on softening the blow of a potential coastwide strike came from John Donigian, senior director of supply chain strategy at Moody’s. In a statement, he named six supply chain strategies for companies to consider: expedite certain shipments, reallocate existing inventory strategically, lock in alternative capacity with trucking and rail providers , communicate transparently with stakeholders to set realistic expectations for delivery timelines, shift sourcing to regional suppliers if possible, and utilize drop shipping to maintain sales.