Oversupply has been a major worry in the shipping industry since the last major recession, but recent developments threaten to make it an even greater cause for concern. Most significantly, excess capacity associated with the rise of mega-ships has created a global shipping environment in which consolidation has increased.
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E-commerce is revolutionizing how companies move inventory at such an incredible rate that even leading innovators are having a tough time meeting consumer expectations.
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To plan for the future, it’s important to keep up with technological trends and their implications for your industry. The rise of self-driving vehicles presents both an opportunity and challenge for logistics, and electric vehicles are beginning to become a viable alternative to trucks that run on fossil fuels and are closely related to the rise of automation. These technologies are often hyped as imminent replacements to existing way of doing things, but are they really the future?
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All’s quiet up at the North Pole right now. Elsewhere, however, changing traffic congestion patterns are forcing logistics experts to think long and hard about their holiday fulfillment strategies.
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In today’s fast-paced, volatile cargo shipping environment, port drayage is a key element in ensuring an effective and reliable supply chain. Accordingly, it’s vital to have a port drayage partner who you can trust to get the job done while keeping up with the changes in the industry. If there is a breakdown in performance, it can become a key pain point for logistics professionals, and most of these customers will quickly consider alternative options. You can’t afford to lose ground to competitors due to a choke point in your supply chain.
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Santa isn’t the only one who needs to make a list and check it twice when the holidays come around.
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Effective supply chain management responds quickly to the shifting market landscape, and leverages technological capabilities to improve efficiency and provide better service. New technology provides an opportunity to gain greater insight into the flow of goods. At the same time, customers’ growing expectations are putting pressure on legacy systems across the industry. Being ahead of the curve technologically can help meet these ambitious expectations through faster delivery, real-time transparency, and lower costs.
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Consumer applications for Internet of Things (IoT) technologies seem to get most of the media attention, but the real potential of connected devices and sensors is on the business side. Enterprise deployments of IoT technology have grown by over 300 percent in recent years, and supply chain management is one area where the benefits of these systems cannot be overstated.
By collecting large quantities of useful data, IoT devices allow third party logistics providers to leverage this information to improve their performance. IoT analytics can lead to more efficient routing, more precise inventory management, and greater visibility for business partners and customers. They help to improve the quality of logistics services while lowering costs.
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Over the past decade, the pace of innovation in logistics has continued to increase. Starting with the launch of their Prime service in 2005, Amazon has been a major disruptor of established logistic operations and customer expectations for timely fulfillment. As consumers have come to expect two-day or faster shipping, the entire supply chain has had to change to accommodate this new standard. This has led to changes in warehousing and inventory management, as well as new technological developments like predictive analytics and improved inventory tracking. Many analysts expect even more significant evolutions in the next decade.
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As a result of the tremendous growth in eCommerce, increasing customer expectations, and greater dependence on advanced inventory management technology, the nature of the supply chain continues to evolve. The role of interstate carriers is one area affected by this process. Traditional methods of warehousing and the transportation of goods will be increasingly supplanted by a more diffused system involving a larger role for less-than-truckload (LTL) services and a greater focus on regional warehouses that can directly serve consumers. These trends are moving even faster than many analysts predicted, and the industry could see revolutionary change by the middle of the next decade. By understanding the evolution of their role, interstate carriers can help ensure they effectively adapt to this new environment.
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