Due to ongoing supply chain disruption, the logistics industry should expect capacity constraints to continue, driven by superheated demand. However, stakeholders should not settle on this situation as a new normal but leverage it to spur the innovation and resiliency that will make supply chains stronger and more capable of handling future surges.
Indeed, shippers looking for short-term resolution to congestion at ports, inland transportation networks, and other points in the supply chain may find those fixes inadvertently trigger even more disruption.
Instead, the system overload, particularly in certain trans-Pacific supply chains, has begun to spur interest in nearshoring production and supply chains in Latin America and the Caribbean, closer to US networks and using less congested ports like Jacksonville, Florida, as entry points.
The breakdowns in supply chains also must be addressed with new ways of thinking and planning, using technology and predictive analytics to better allocate resources. Carriers and ports have seen the positive results of using technology to better manage container and truck flow at terminals. By improving data exchange and analytics, all stakeholders can help cargo flow more smoothly by efficiently deploying assets and using business intelligence platforms and predictive analytics to improve our collective approach to solving problems by being three steps ahead of possible congestion.
None of this will happen without more partnerships, however, as customers increasingly expect supply chain service providers to be more than asset operators. Carriers will succeed by leading partnerships that provide shippers with solutions for the long term.