<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Advent eModal, a three-decade landmark provider of fee collection and appointment scheduling at container terminals, has been sold by private equity group Blackstone to air cargo software specialist CargoSprint. </div>

Advent eModal, a three-decade landmark provider of fee collection and appointment scheduling at container terminals, has been sold by private equity group Blackstone to air cargo software specialist CargoSprint.

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<div>CargoSprint, a software company specializing in payments and workflow for the air cargo industry, on Monday announced it has acquired a majority stake in Advent eModal. The stake in the 30-year-old and provider of widely used port appointment scheduling and fee collection tools marries a payment and collection software vendor and expands its portfolio to ocean shipping. The acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed, marries adjacent aspects of the two businesses, CargoSprint CEO Caro Krissman told the Journal of Commerce. “The heart of this is it’s a complementary business that’s similar in size,” he said. “Advent eModal has strong...

CargoSprint, a software company specializing in payments and workflow for the air cargo industry, on Monday announced it has acquired a majority stake in Advent eModal. The stake in the 30-year-old and provider of widely used port appointment scheduling and fee collection tools marries a payment and collection software vendor and expands its portfolio to ocean shipping. The acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed, marries adjacent aspects of the two businesses, CargoSprint CEO Caro Krissman told the Journal of Commerce. “The heart of this is it’s a complementary business that’s similar in size,” he said. “Advent eModal has strong areas that we don’t. We’re a core [accounts payable] platform and they’re a core [accounts receivable] platform. They’re core in ocean and we’re core in air.” Advent eModal is predominantly known in the ocean freight space as a technology provider to container terminals, from appointment scheduling to fee collection to shipment lifecycle management tools. The company facilitates collections of fees for the PierPass program in Southern California as well as demurrage collection for a number of terminals. It also operates the equipment management platform chassis.com, among a host of other producers, some of which are customized to specific terminals or shipping lines. Bridging the services, modes Advent eModal, the result of a merger in 2012 between two competing platforms, is used by more than 85 ports, terminals and liner carriers, as well as 200 container depots globally. The company supports more than 90% of booked container terminal appointments in North America, according to its website. CargoSprint, meanwhile, was founded in 2012 by former CEO Josh Wolf as a digital payment platform to enable the release of air cargo shipments, which had previously been managed through the issuance of paper checks. It is connected to more than 5,000 cargo facilities and several thousand freight forwarders, the company said in a statement. It has since developed a secondary product, called SprintPass, that digitizes the airfreight document management process. CargoSprint’s customers are predominantly ground handlers, while it is used by a growing number of cargo airlines, Krissman said. Krissman was named CEO of CargoSprint in fall as part of a strategic investment from private equity group Lone View Capital. Krissman previously sold his company, INLT, a digital customs broker, to Amazon in 2019. Prior to its acquisition this week, Advent eModal was owned by a combination of the private equity firm Blackstone, through its ownership of the SSA Marine terminal operating unit, and former CEO Parvez Mansuri, who will stay on as chief strategic officer and a board member. Krissman said detaching Advent eModal from the terminal operator under which it sat will help the company grow. “SSA will remain an important relationship,” he said. “They’ll remain a customer. But it’s important for the rest of the market that they are no longer the sole owner. It created a perception in the market they were catering to one operator. And even if that wasn’t true at all, perception can be reality.” As part of both the Advent eModal transaction and the Lone View investment, Krissman has lured a number of industry veterans from Amazon and third-party logistics providers. Dave Casey, senior vice president (SVP) of commercial strategy, and Bill Corcoran, SVP or customer success and product management, will both move from Advent eModal to CargoSprint as well. Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com.

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Marine terminals

Logistics Technology News

Air cargo payment provider acquires Advent eModal

<div class="phx-topic">CargoSprint, a software company specializing in payments and workflow for the air cargo industry, on Monday announced it has acquired a majority stake in Advent eModal. The stake in the 30-year-old and provider of widely used port appointment scheduling and fee collection tools marries a payment and collection software vendor and expands its portfolio to ocean shipping. The acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed, marries adjacent aspects of the two businesses, CargoSprint CEO Caro Krissman told the Journal of Commerce. “The heart of this is it’s a complementary business that’s similar in size,” he said. “Advent eModal has strong areas that we don’t. We’re a core [accounts payable] platform and they’re a core [accounts receivable] platform. They’re core in ocean and we’re core in air.” Advent eModal is predominantly known in the ocean freight space as a technology provider to container terminals, from appointment scheduling to fee collection to shipment lifecycle management tools. The company facilitates collections of fees for the PierPass program in Southern California as well as demurrage collection for a number of terminals. It also operates the equipment management platform chassis.com, among a host of other producers, some of which are customized to specific terminals or shipping lines. <h3>Bridging the services, modes </h3>Advent eModal, the result of a merger in 2012 between two competing platforms, is used by more than 85 ports, terminals and liner carriers, as well as 200 container depots globally. The company supports more than 90% of booked container terminal appointments in North America, according to its website. CargoSprint, meanwhile, was founded in 2012 by former CEO Josh Wolf as a digital payment platform to enable the release of air cargo shipments, which had previously been managed through the issuance of paper checks. It is connected to more than 5,000 cargo facilities and several thousand freight forwarders, the company said in a statement. It has since developed a secondary product, called SprintPass, that digitizes the airfreight document management process. CargoSprint’s customers are predominantly ground handlers, while it is used by a growing number of cargo airlines, Krissman said. Krissman was named CEO of CargoSprint in fall as part of a strategic investment from private equity group Lone View Capital. Krissman previously sold his company, INLT, a digital customs broker, to Amazon in 2019. Prior to its acquisition this week, Advent eModal was owned by a combination of the private equity firm Blackstone, through its ownership of the SSA Marine terminal operating unit, and former CEO Parvez Mansuri, who will stay on as chief strategic officer and a board member. Krissman said detaching Advent eModal from the terminal operator under which it sat will help the company grow. “SSA will remain an important relationship,” he said. “They’ll remain a customer. But it’s important for the rest of the market that they are no longer the sole owner. It created a perception in the market they were catering to one operator. And even if that wasn’t true at all, perception can be reality.” As part of both the Advent eModal transaction and the Lone View investment, Krissman has lured a number of industry veterans from Amazon and third-party logistics providers. Dave Casey, senior vice president (SVP) of commercial strategy, and Bill Corcoran, SVP or customer success and product management, will both move from Advent eModal to CargoSprint as well. Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com. </div>

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">A lawsuit filed Thursday in US District Court alleges the fourth-largest US freight broker e Worldwide Express engaged in a campaign of retaliation with a former agent.</div>

A lawsuit filed Thursday in US District Court alleges the fourth-largest US freight broker e Worldwide Express engaged in a campaign of retaliation with a former agent.

<div class="phx-topic">Worldwide Express on Friday rejected accusations made in a lawsuit that the fourth-largest US freight broker failed to share profits and poached customers from a former less-than-truckload partner through hacking. The lawsuit, filed by Florida-based Freight Essentials in the US District Court of Texas, alleges that Dallas-based Worldwide Express, and its subsidiary GlobalTranz, engaged in a campaign to steal Freight Essentials’ customers that culminated in GlobalTranz allegedly hacking into Freight Essentials CEO Dylan Admire’s account. “We are aware of this matter, and we will be responding to these baseless accusations in the appropriate forum, which is the legal system,” Alison Smith, vice president of marketing strategy at Worldwide Express, said in an email to the Journal of Commerce Friday. “We will be vigorously defending ourselves against these claims. We have no further comment at this time.” Freight Essentials, according to the lawsuit, acted as a so-called business development company (BDC) for GlobalTranz from January 2020, a partnership in which Freight Essentials would find shipper volume to move through GlobalTranz’s pool of less-than-truckload capacity. The partnership generated more than $60 million in revenue, with the two companies splitting the margin. Over time, Admire discovered that GlobalTranz was allegedly misrepresenting costs, including fuel and insurance fees, to Freight Essentials and other BDCs by 15% to 30%, affecting the amount of margin paid to those BDCs, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit then contends that Worldwide engaged in a systematic campaign to retaliate against Freight Essentials by allegedly poaching some of Freight Essentials’ largest customers, including wooing them with financial incentives to ship directly with Worldwide Express. At one point, a GlobalTranz employee allegedly hacked into Admire’s account to change his password and multi-factor authentication, locking him out of his own system, the lawsuit said. The campaign included Worldwide Express setting up websites designed to look like that of Freight Essentials to divert customers, the lawsuit also alleges. Freight Essentials is seeking an array of punitive and compensatory damages to be decided at trial, along with injunctive relief that would prevent Worldwide from recruiting and using BDCs in gross margin sharing activities. Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com. </div>

Worldwide Express on Friday rejected accusations made in a lawsuit that the fourth-largest US freight broker failed to share profits and poached customers from a former less-than-truckload partner through hacking. The lawsuit, filed by Florida-based Freight Essentials in the US District Court of Texas, alleges that Dallas-based Worldwide Express, and its subsidiary GlobalTranz, engaged in a campaign to steal Freight Essentials’ customers that culminated in GlobalTranz allegedly hacking into Freight Essentials CEO Dylan Admire’s account. “We are aware of this matter, and we will be responding to these baseless accusations in the appropriate forum, which is the legal system,” Alison Smith, vice president of marketing strategy at Worldwide Express, said in an email to the Journal of Commerce Friday. “We will be vigorously defending ourselves against these claims. We have no further comment at this time.” Freight Essentials, according to the lawsuit, acted as a so-called business development company (BDC) for GlobalTranz from January 2020, a partnership in which Freight Essentials would find shipper volume to move through GlobalTranz’s pool of less-than-truckload capacity. The partnership generated more than $60 million in revenue, with the two companies splitting the margin. Over time, Admire discovered that GlobalTranz was allegedly misrepresenting costs, including fuel and insurance fees, to Freight Essentials and other BDCs by 15% to 30%, affecting the amount of margin paid to those BDCs, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit then contends that Worldwide engaged in a systematic campaign to retaliate against Freight Essentials by allegedly poaching some of Freight Essentials’ largest customers, including wooing them with financial incentives to ship directly with Worldwide Express. At one point, a GlobalTranz employee allegedly hacked into Admire’s account to change his password and multi-factor authentication, locking him out of his own system, the lawsuit said. The campaign included Worldwide Express setting up websites designed to look like that of Freight Essentials to divert customers, the lawsuit also alleges. Freight Essentials is seeking an array of punitive and compensatory damages to be decided at trial, along with injunctive relief that would prevent Worldwide from recruiting and using BDCs in gross margin sharing activities. Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com.

Truck brokers

Worldwide Express rejects lawsuit claims of customer theft, hacking

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">A 30% increase in the total value of transportation and logistics acquisitions over the last six months signals a stronger market for M&amp;A emerging in 2025, PwC says in a market report.</div>

A 30% increase in the total value of transportation and logistics acquisitions over the last six months signals a stronger market for M&A emerging in 2025, PwC says in a market report.

<div class="phx-topic">Lower capital costs and shifting supply chain demands are setting the stage for a rebound in US logistics and transportation mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;A), auditing and advisory firm PwC said Friday. The total combined value of logistics and transportation M&amp;A rose 30% in the six months ending Nov. 15 from the previous six months, climbing to $51.5 billion, PwC said in a new market report. That brought the total value of US logistics M&amp;A in the first 11 months of 2024 to $91 billion. In the six months that ended May 15, the total M&amp;A value was $39.5 billion. The increase in deal value is likely a sign of improving investor confidence, with more companies anticipating higher profits amid supply and demand adjustments, said PwC. “The [US] transportation and logistics sector is witnessing an uptick in dealmaking spurred by favorable economic conditions and investor confidence,” the report said. “The trucking and railroad sectors will warrant close attention,” said PwC. The firm expects more consolidation among small trucking firms after <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/prolonged-us-freight-recession-to-drag-into-2025-transportation-executives-5818486">nearly three years of low rates</a>. Railroads, PwC said, may look for ways “to expand their ecosystem” through strategic alliances and acquisitions to better compete with trucking companies. With the US Federal Reserve’s cuts to the federal funds rate and the incoming Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, “M&amp;A activity is set to rebound,” said PwC. “Strategic participants” rather than outside investors are driving deals, according to the report, as companies acquire direct competitors or expand into new services. Examples include third-party logistics provider RXO’s $1.025 billion <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/rxo-purchase-of-coyote-logistics-highlights-us-brokerage-market-pressures-5192296">purchase of Coyote Logistics</a> and Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings’ <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/interest-in-us-ltl-ma-activity-seen-rising-as-2025-approaches-5772881">less-than-truckload (LTL) acquisitions</a>. Global freight forwarder <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/value-of-schenker-takeover-will-manifest-in-expanding-services-dsv-ceo-5778478">DSV’s $15.9 billion acquisition</a> of Germany’s DB Schenker in September shows the same principle on an international scale. Among smaller logistics and transportation companies, acquisition activity has barely ebbed, with unrelenting pressure to expand in a tough market prompting deals. “If you’re not growing, you’re sinking,” Mike Moran, president of Moran Transportation, said in November after acquiring <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/smaller-us-ltl-carriers-increasingly-merging-in-sink-or-swim-market-5783875">competing midwestern LTL carrier</a> RMX Freight Systems. Heading into 2025, logistics and transportation companies have “a large amount of dry powder,” PwC said, referring to capital those companies can spend on acquisitions. They’ll be more likely to use that “powder” as freight rates and profits stabilize, PwC said. Contact William B. Cassidy at <a href="mailto:bill.cassidy@spglobal.com">bill.cassidy@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

Lower capital costs and shifting supply chain demands are setting the stage for a rebound in US logistics and transportation mergers and acquisitions (M&A), auditing and advisory firm PwC said Friday. The total combined value of logistics and transportation M&A rose 30% in the six months ending Nov. 15 from the previous six months, climbing to $51.5 billion, PwC said in a new market report. That brought the total value of US logistics M&A in the first 11 months of 2024 to $91 billion. In the six months that ended May 15, the total M&A value was $39.5 billion. The increase in deal value is likely a sign of improving investor confidence, with more companies anticipating higher profits amid supply and demand adjustments, said PwC. “The [US] transportation and logistics sector is witnessing an uptick in dealmaking spurred by favorable economic conditions and investor confidence,” the report said. “The trucking and railroad sectors will warrant close attention,” said PwC. The firm expects more consolidation among small trucking firms after nearly three years of low rates . Railroads, PwC said, may look for ways “to expand their ecosystem” through strategic alliances and acquisitions to better compete with trucking companies. With the US Federal Reserve’s cuts to the federal funds rate and the incoming Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, “M&A activity is set to rebound,” said PwC. “Strategic participants” rather than outside investors are driving deals, according to the report, as companies acquire direct competitors or expand into new services. Examples include third-party logistics provider RXO’s $1.025 billion purchase of Coyote Logistics and Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings’ less-than-truckload (LTL) acquisitions . Global freight forwarder DSV’s $15.9 billion acquisition of Germany’s DB Schenker in September shows the same principle on an international scale. Among smaller logistics and transportation companies, acquisition activity has barely ebbed, with unrelenting pressure to expand in a tough market prompting deals. “If you’re not growing, you’re sinking,” Mike Moran, president of Moran Transportation, said in November after acquiring competing midwestern LTL carrier RMX Freight Systems. Heading into 2025, logistics and transportation companies have “a large amount of dry powder,” PwC said, referring to capital those companies can spend on acquisitions. They’ll be more likely to use that “powder” as freight rates and profits stabilize, PwC said. Contact William B. Cassidy at bill.cassidy@spglobal.com .

Trucking News

Rail News

Truckload

Surface

Transportation M&A activity seen ready to rebound as value of deals rises

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The union’s hardline stance against the further encroachment of automation at US ports received a big boost with the incoming administration saying maritime employers should look to labor to increase capacity and efficiency. </div>

The union’s hardline stance against the further encroachment of automation at US ports received a big boost with the incoming administration saying maritime employers should look to labor to increase capacity and efficiency.

<div class="phx-topic">President-elect Donald Trump has waded into contract negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and maritime employers, saying he supports the union’s stance against further port automation. However, ocean carriers and ports urged the incoming administration to also consider the broader implications of his stance for US businesses and consumers dependent on ports. Trump late Thursday posted a statement on Truth Social saying that investment in automation at US ports is not worth the “distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American workers, in this case, our longshoremen.” He added that terminal operators and ocean carriers looking at such investments should instead “spend it on the great men and women on our docks” instead of “machinery, which is expensive and will constantly have to be replaced.” Trump’s statement came after a two-hour meeting he had this week with ILA President Harold Daggett and Executive Vice President Dennis Daggett, <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/ila-looking-for-local-ports-to-bring-in-more-union-foremen-5244993">the second such meeting</a> Trump has had with union leadership. Harold Daggett met with then-candidate Trump in November 2023.Trump’s statement echoed many of the points the ILA has raised during its negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) for a new six-year contract covering East and Gulf coast ports. Trump noted that ocean carriers “have made a fortune in the US,” with the ILA recently releasing an estimate that the USMX’s top container lines made $385 billion in net profit between 2020 and 2023. “For the great privilege of accessing our markets, these foreign companies should hire our incredible American workers,” Trump’s statement said. <h3>ILA ‘grateful’ for Trump support</h3>Harold Daggett said in his own statement that he was “grateful to President Donald Trump for his courageous support for American ILA longshore workers.” He added that Trump’s position on automation should help remove the current sticking point that has stalled talks for a new master contract.“I hope this strong support from President Trump will encourage USMX to remove any language of automated or semi-automated equipment in their proposals moving forward, and we can get a new master contract without any disruptions,” Daggett said.After agreeing to <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/despite-tentative-wage-deal-usmx-and-ila-have-bumpy-road-ahead-on-other-key-issues-5743997">a contract extension that expires Jan. 15</a>, the ILA halted further negotiations with the USMX due to what the union said was the employers’ insistence on retaining current contract language permitting semi-automation at ports, as long both sides agree. Now, however, the ILA wants to remove that provision entirely. The union has cited <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/ila-targets-rail-mounted-gantry-cranes-amid-impasse-in-port-labor-talks-5874742">rail-mounted gantry cranes</a>, which allow a remote operator to move containers, as an example of semi-automation that reduces demand for longshore workers. The USMX responded in a statement late Thursday that technology investments are needed to “improve worker safety, boost port efficiency, increase port capacity, and strengthen our supply chains.” It added that efficient ports are important to the broader economy and are not just a concern of ocean carriers and longshore workers. “It’s clear President-elect Trump, USMX, and the ILA all share the goal of protecting and adding good-paying American jobs at our ports,” the USMX said in a statement, “But this contract goes beyond our ports — it is about supporting American consumers and giving American businesses access to the global marketplace — from farmers, to manufacturers, to small businesses, and innovative start-ups looking for new markets to sell their products.” Contact Michael Angell at <a href="mailto:michael.angell@spglobal.com">michael.angell@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

President-elect Donald Trump has waded into contract negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and maritime employers, saying he supports the union’s stance against further port automation. However, ocean carriers and ports urged the incoming administration to also consider the broader implications of his stance for US businesses and consumers dependent on ports. Trump late Thursday posted a statement on Truth Social saying that investment in automation at US ports is not worth the “distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American workers, in this case, our longshoremen.” He added that terminal operators and ocean carriers looking at such investments should instead “spend it on the great men and women on our docks” instead of “machinery, which is expensive and will constantly have to be replaced.” Trump’s statement came after a two-hour meeting he had this week with ILA President Harold Daggett and Executive Vice President Dennis Daggett, the second such meeting Trump has had with union leadership. Harold Daggett met with then-candidate Trump in November 2023. Trump’s statement echoed many of the points the ILA has raised during its negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) for a new six-year contract covering East and Gulf coast ports. Trump noted that ocean carriers “have made a fortune in the US,” with the ILA recently releasing an estimate that the USMX’s top container lines made $385 billion in net profit between 2020 and 2023. “For the great privilege of accessing our markets, these foreign companies should hire our incredible American workers,” Trump’s statement said. ILA ‘grateful’ for Trump support Harold Daggett said in his own statement that he was “grateful to President Donald Trump for his courageous support for American ILA longshore workers.” He added that Trump’s position on automation should help remove the current sticking point that has stalled talks for a new master contract. “I hope this strong support from President Trump will encourage USMX to remove any language of automated or semi-automated equipment in their proposals moving forward, and we can get a new master contract without any disruptions,” Daggett said. After agreeing to a contract extension that expires Jan. 15 , the ILA halted further negotiations with the USMX due to what the union said was the employers’ insistence on retaining current contract language permitting semi-automation at ports, as long both sides agree. Now, however, the ILA wants to remove that provision entirely. The union has cited rail-mounted gantry cranes , which allow a remote operator to move containers, as an example of semi-automation that reduces demand for longshore workers. The USMX responded in a statement late Thursday that technology investments are needed to “improve worker safety, boost port efficiency, increase port capacity, and strengthen our supply chains.” It added that efficient ports are important to the broader economy and are not just a concern of ocean carriers and longshore workers. “It’s clear President-elect Trump, USMX, and the ILA all share the goal of protecting and adding good-paying American jobs at our ports,” the USMX said in a statement, “But this contract goes beyond our ports — it is about supporting American consumers and giving American businesses access to the global marketplace — from farmers, to manufacturers, to small businesses, and innovative start-ups looking for new markets to sell their products.” Contact Michael Angell at michael.angell@spglobal.com .

Container Shipping News

Longshore labor

ILA plays new Trump card in automation standoff with USMX

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The wind energy sector provides a key source of project and breakbulk cargo, but US policy shifts could dampen future activity given that President-elect Donald Trump has been a vocal opponent of offshore wind.</div>

The wind energy sector provides a key source of project and breakbulk cargo, but US policy shifts could dampen future activity given that President-elect Donald Trump has been a vocal opponent of offshore wind.

<div class="phx-topic">With the US offshore wind industry at a crossroads ahead of a second Trump term, manufacturers and developers in the sector are having to choose whether to forge ahead or pull back on projects and technologies.The wind energy sector provides a key source of project and breakbulk cargo, and US policy shifts could dictate future cargo activity. President-elect Donald Trump has been a vocal opponent of offshore wind.In one recent sign of progress, floating offshore wind startup Aikido Technologies hailed the completion of a prototype of its fold-up, floating offshore wind platform in less than 40 working hours as a “new standard” for the industry, according to a Nov. 26 statement from the company. Based in San Francisco, Aikido was established in 2022 using seed money from an investment venture backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos.Harvey, Louisiana-based Chet Morrison Contractors constructed the 100-killowatt (kW), quarter-scale Aikido One platform at Mississippi’s Port Pascagoula along the Gulf of Mexico, where Aikido is testing the structure.“One of the major advantages of this platform is that the most labor-intensive assemblies can be done on a relatively small footprint,” Morrison project manager Billy LeBoeuf told the Journal of Commerce.Touted as the largest floating wind platform in the US, the compact, semi-submersible structure was designed to help solve production challenges and port space limitations, according to the statement.The US Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that about two-thirds of the country’s offshore wind potential lies in ocean waters that are too deep for turbine platforms to be secured to the sea floor. But the buildout of the US floating offshore wind segment would require constructing new, specialized port facilities and vessels to accommodate the jumbo-size components that make up floating turbine platforms.“The main thing that makes this platform unique is the modular design,” LeBoeuf said, adding that the platform consists of 13 major components that can be completed offsite. “Once these components are delivered to the final assembly area, no additional welding is required.”Because of the platform’s compact configuration, traditional barges and smaller port areas can be used for assembling, transporting and loading the entire platform or its components, according to Aikido. <h3>New York wind farm plans on hold</h3>As some offshore wind developers are moving forward with their US plans, at least one company is pulling back following Trump’s election to a second term.Reports surfaced in late November that French energy giant TotalEnergies halted the development of a wind project off the coast of New York State.Speaking at an energy industry conference in London, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said on Nov. 26 that he decided to put the company’s Attentive Energy wind farm project on pause following Trump’s election, according to reports by Bloomberg and Reuters.TotalEnergies secured a federal lease for the project in February 2022 with plans to develop an 84,332-acre wind farm with the potential to generate 3,000 MW of energy for nearly 1 million homes by the end of the decade. The project is in the early stages of permitting with the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). Trump has pledged to halt offshore wind development “on day one” of taking office on Jan. 20. But offshore wind development liaison Toussaint Williams told the Journal of Commerce that even if action to slow the industry takes place at the federal level, the real power could remain with US governors whose states have projects under development or could otherwise advance the industry.On the East Coast, multiple projects are already under construction, with some 50% to 70% complete, Toussaint said. “Those projects are so far along that it’s really in the hands of the states now to set up workforce development initiatives, to double down on investments, and to create regional partnerships to help move those projects forward,” he said.Toussaint, who highlighted the role of US governors in his Plugged Into US Offshore Wind newsletter, categorized state leaders into three groups — supporters, pragmatists and skeptics of offshore wind. Among states with the potential to develop offshore wind, Toussaint said the lion’s share of governors fall into one of the first two categories.Given that assessment — and the fact that developers laid much of the groundwork for US offshore wind during the previous Trump administration — Toussaint said he is “cautiously optimistic, but leaning more toward the optimistic side” about the industry’s future domestically. “Trump will be in office for four years. Climate change isn’t going anywhere,” he said. “Let’s see what the results will be.”Contact Autumn Guisti at <a href="mailto:autumn@autumnguisti.com">autumn@autumnguisti.com</a>.</div>

With the US offshore wind industry at a crossroads ahead of a second Trump term, manufacturers and developers in the sector are having to choose whether to forge ahead or pull back on projects and technologies. The wind energy sector provides a key source of project and breakbulk cargo, and US policy shifts could dictate future cargo activity. President-elect Donald Trump has been a vocal opponent of offshore wind. In one recent sign of progress, floating offshore wind startup Aikido Technologies hailed the completion of a prototype of its fold-up, floating offshore wind platform in less than 40 working hours as a “new standard” for the industry, according to a Nov. 26 statement from the company. Based in San Francisco, Aikido was established in 2022 using seed money from an investment venture backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos. Harvey, Louisiana-based Chet Morrison Contractors constructed the 100-killowatt (kW), quarter-scale Aikido One platform at Mississippi’s Port Pascagoula along the Gulf of Mexico, where Aikido is testing the structure. “One of the major advantages of this platform is that the most labor-intensive assemblies can be done on a relatively small footprint,” Morrison project manager Billy LeBoeuf told the Journal of Commerce. Touted as the largest floating wind platform in the US, the compact, semi-submersible structure was designed to help solve production challenges and port space limitations, according to the statement. The US Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that about two-thirds of the country’s offshore wind potential lies in ocean waters that are too deep for turbine platforms to be secured to the sea floor. But the buildout of the US floating offshore wind segment would require constructing new, specialized port facilities and vessels to accommodate the jumbo-size components that make up floating turbine platforms. “The main thing that makes this platform unique is the modular design,” LeBoeuf said, adding that the platform consists of 13 major components that can be completed offsite. “Once these components are delivered to the final assembly area, no additional welding is required.” Because of the platform’s compact configuration, traditional barges and smaller port areas can be used for assembling, transporting and loading the entire platform or its components, according to Aikido. New York wind farm plans on hold As some offshore wind developers are moving forward with their US plans, at least one company is pulling back following Trump’s election to a second term. Reports surfaced in late November that French energy giant TotalEnergies halted the development of a wind project off the coast of New York State. Speaking at an energy industry conference in London, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said on Nov. 26 that he decided to put the company’s Attentive Energy wind farm project on pause following Trump’s election, according to reports by Bloomberg and Reuters. TotalEnergies secured a federal lease for the project in February 2022 with plans to develop an 84,332-acre wind farm with the potential to generate 3,000 MW of energy for nearly 1 million homes by the end of the decade. The project is in the early stages of permitting with the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). Trump has pledged to halt offshore wind development “on day one” of taking office on Jan. 20. But offshore wind development liaison Toussaint Williams told the Journal of Commerce that even if action to slow the industry takes place at the federal level, the real power could remain with US governors whose states have projects under development or could otherwise advance the industry. On the East Coast, multiple projects are already under construction, with some 50% to 70% complete, Toussaint said. “Those projects are so far along that it’s really in the hands of the states now to set up workforce development initiatives, to double down on investments, and to create regional partnerships to help move those projects forward,” he said. Toussaint, who highlighted the role of US governors in his Plugged Into US Offshore Wind newsletter, categorized state leaders into three groups — supporters, pragmatists and skeptics of offshore wind. Among states with the potential to develop offshore wind, Toussaint said the lion’s share of governors fall into one of the first two categories. Given that assessment — and the fact that developers laid much of the groundwork for US offshore wind during the previous Trump administration — Toussaint said he is “cautiously optimistic, but leaning more toward the optimistic side” about the industry’s future domestically. “Trump will be in office for four years. Climate change isn’t going anywhere,” he said. “Let’s see what the results will be.” Contact Autumn Guisti at autumn@autumnguisti.com .

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

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Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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