UPS expands shipping, broker services in U.S.-Mexico cross-border trades
Company broadens truckload offerings, guarantees LTL, TL services if it acts as broker; consolidates power-of-attorney into one document for all Mexican entry points.
Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
UPS Inc. said today it has expanded its transportation and customs brokerage services in the U.S.-Mexican trade, steps that include guaranteeing deliveries of truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments when the company is the importer of record, and broadening its truckload offerings in the cross-border market.
Atlanta-based UPS will also consolidate its power-of-attorney (POA) functions in Mexico, creating one document to cover transactions at all its 27 border entry points. Peggy Gardner, a UPS spokeswoman, said the move would make life easier for customers that ship to multiple locations within Mexico, because in the past they would be required to file a separate document for each delivery point—a time-consuming process.
UPS, which began service to and from Mexico in 1989 with small-package service, has typically acted as the importer of record for those transactions, according to Gardner. In addition, it has always guaranteed small-package deliveries. However, it has generally not held itself out as the importer of record for LTL and truckload transactions. Nor has it guaranteed its nonparcel deliveries, which make up a small part of its transborder shipment mix. UPS added LTL services in the U.S.-Mexico market when it acquired LTL carrier Overnite Transportation Co. for $1.2 billion in 2005. Overnite was offering cross-border services prior to the acquisition.
UPS said it is the only carrier in the market that offers delivery guarantees for LTL and small-package shipments when it also functions as the customs broker.
The expanded truckload offering announced today is partly a result of UPS' $1.8 billion acquisition last year of Chicago-based broker Coyote Logistics LLC, which primarily handles truckload transactions. Previously, UPS offered cross-border truckload services on a customer-specific basis, according to Gardner. UPS now plans to broaden its truckload capabilities, even offering services on a "spot," or noncontract, basis, Gardner said. UPS said in a statement today that customer requests for U.S.-Mexico shipping services have increased 20 percent year-on-year, a span that includes a six-month period prior to the Coyote purchase.
Troy Ryley, managing director, Mexico for Transplace, a large Dallas-based third-party logistics (3PL) provider with extensive Mexican operations, said the key component in the UPS enhancements could be the increased role of Coyote. "Coyote is not yet a big player in Mexico," said Ryley, "UPS gives them a platform to grow off of as they will have access to a larger client base."
Ryley added in an e-mail that UPS has historically struggled at providing transborder non-parcel services because it has "not nailed the integration of customs, distribution, and cross-border synergies."
Miguel Gomez Tapia, an Austin, Texas-based vice president of Mexican LTL carrier Fletes México Carga Express, said UPS is introducing little that the broader market doesn't already have. Instead, today's announcement represents a more intense attempt by UPS to promote its myriad solutions and services, Tapia said. That effort that could generate significant revenue for UPS in what has become a vibrant but persistently challenging market, he said.
The U.S. is Mexico's largest trading partner, while Mexico is the United States' second-largest export market, behind Canada, and its third-largest trading partner. It is estimated that $1.4 billion is exchanged in commercial trade between the U.S. and Mexico each day. As the global economy has struggled, the U.S.-Mexican market has remained strong, stimulated by the frequency of near-shoring by U.S. manufacturers to closer-in end markets, and the potential for growth within Mexico. However, cross-border trade remains complex and cumbersome, though there are efforts by both sides to streamline the process.
In addition, arguably the main cross-border port of entry, Laredo, Texas, is already at 95- to 98-percent capacity, and the available facilities there are not suitable for cross-docking operations, according to Tapia. Capacity constraints in Mexico are becoming a problem, and in a mirror image of what is transpiring in the U.S., bigger companies are struggling to find qualified drivers there, he added.
UPS did some cross-border rebranding as part of its program. UPS Freight LTL was renamed "UPS Standard LTL." UPS Air Freight Consolidated and UPS CrossBorder Connect LTL shipping services were renamed "UPS Worldwide Expedited Ground Freight." UPS Air Freight Direct was renamed "UPS Worldwide Expedited Air Freight" and is a general service offering a delivery guarantee when UPS is the customs broker. And UPS CrossBorder Connect truckload FTL (full truckload) was renamed "UPS Worldwide Expedited Truckload."
The New Hampshire-based cargo terminal orchestration technology vendor Lynxis LLC today said it has acquired Tedivo LLC, a provider of software to visualize and streamline vessel operations at marine terminals.
According to Lynxis, the deal strengthens its digitalization offerings for the global maritime industry, empowering shipping lines and terminal operators to drastically reduce vessel departure delays, mis-stowed containers and unsafe stowage conditions aboard cargo ships.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
More specifically, the move will enable key stakeholders to simplify stowage planning, improve data visualization, and optimize vessel operations to reduce costly delays, Lynxis CEO Larry Cuddy Jr. said in a release.
German third party logistics provider (3PL) Arvato has agreed to acquire ATC Computer Transport & Logistics, an Irish company that provides specialized transport, logistics, and technical services for hyperscale data center operators, high-tech freight forwarders, and original equipment manufacturers, the company said today.
The acquisition aims to unlock new opportunities in the rapidly expanding data center services market by combining the complementary strengths of both companies.
According to Arvato, the merger will create a comprehensive portfolio of solutions for the entire data center lifecycle. ATC Computer Transport & Logistics brings a robust European network covering the major data center hubs, while Arvato expands this through its extensive global footprint.
The new funding brings Amazon's total investment in Anthropic to $8 billion, while maintaining the e-commerce giant’s position as a minority investor, according to Anthropic. The partnership was launched in 2023, when Amazon invested its first $4 billion round in the firm.
Anthropic’s “Claude” family of AI assistant models is available on AWS’s Amazon Bedrock, which is a cloud-based managed service that lets companies build specialized generative AI applications by choosing from an array of foundation models (FMs) developed by AI providers like AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Meta, Mistral AI, Stability AI, and Amazon itself.
According to Amazon, tens of thousands of customers, from startups to enterprises and government institutions, are currently running their generative AI workloads using Anthropic’s models in the AWS cloud. Those GenAI tools are powering tasks such as customer service chatbots, coding assistants, translation applications, drug discovery, engineering design, and complex business processes.
"The response from AWS customers who are developing generative AI applications powered by Anthropic in Amazon Bedrock has been remarkable," Matt Garman, AWS CEO, said in a release. "By continuing to deploy Anthropic models in Amazon Bedrock and collaborating with Anthropic on the development of our custom Trainium chips, we’ll keep pushing the boundaries of what customers can achieve with generative AI technologies. We’ve been impressed by Anthropic’s pace of innovation and commitment to responsible development of generative AI, and look forward to deepening our collaboration."
The Dutch ship building company Concordia Damen has worked with four partner firms to build two specialized vessels that will serve the offshore wind industry by transporting large, and ever growing, wind turbine components, the company said today.
The first ship, Rotra Horizon, launched yesterday at Jiangsu Zhenjiang Shipyard, and its sister ship, Rotra Futura, is expected to be delivered to client Amasus in 2025. The project involved a five-way collaboration between Concordia Damen and Amasus, deugro Danmark, Siemens Gamesa, and DEKC Maritime.
The design of the 550-foot Rotra Futura and Rotra Horizon builds on the previous vessels Rotra Mare and Rotra Vente, which were also developed by Concordia Damen, and have been operating since 2016. However, the new vessels are equipped for the latest generation of wind turbine components, which are becoming larger and heavier. They can handle that increased load with a Roll-On/Roll-Off (RO/RO) design, specialized ramps, and three Liebherr cranes, allowing turbine blades to be stowed in three tiers, providing greater flexibility in loading methods and cargo configurations.
“For the Rotra Futura and Rotra Horizon, we, along with our partners, have focused extensively on energy savings and an environmentally friendly design,” Concordia Damen Managing Director Chris Kornet said in a release. “The aerodynamic and hydro-optimized hull design, combined with a special low-resistance coating, contributes to lower fuel consumption. Furthermore, the vessels are equipped with an advanced Wärtsilä main engine, which consumes 15 percent less fuel and has a smaller CO₂ emission footprint than current standards.”
A growing number of organizations are identifying ways to use GenAI to streamline their operations and accelerate innovation, using that new automation and efficiency to cut costs, carry out tasks faster and more accurately, and foster the creation of new products and services for additional revenue streams. That was the conclusion from ISG’s “2024 ISG Provider Lens global Generative AI Services” report.
The most rapid development of enterprise GenAI projects today is happening on text-based applications, primarily due to relatively simple interfaces, rapid ROI, and broad usefulness. Companies have been especially aggressive in implementing chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs), which can provide personalized assistance, customer support, and automated communication on a massive scale, ISG said.
However, most organizations have yet to tap GenAI’s potential for applications based on images, audio, video and data, the report says. Multimodal GenAI is still evolving toward mainstream adoption, but use cases are rapidly emerging, and with ongoing advances in neural networks and deep learning, they are expected to become highly integrated and sophisticated soon.
Future GenAI projects will also be more customized, as the sector sees a major shift from fine-tuning of LLMs to smaller models that serve specific industries, such as healthcare, finance, and manufacturing, ISG says. Enterprises and service providers increasingly recognize that customized, domain-specific AI models offer significant advantages in terms of cost, scalability, and performance. Customized GenAI can also deliver on demands like the need for privacy and security, specialization of tasks, and integration of AI into existing operations.