Commentary

The logistics industry should prepare itself for more lawsuits such as Miller v. C.H. Robinson, and for plaintiff’s attorneys to look for the deepest pockets possible — potentially including cargo owners — to satisfy judgements.

The COVID-19 pandemic, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, and issues surrounding China’s claim to the Taiwan Strait have brought the need for resilient and durable supply chains into sharp focus.

California needs to embrace and advance a future that strives to achieve environmental and community goals, but also preserves the job and economic contributions provided by ports in the state, the head of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association says.

After years of “trade and customs” functions being largely considered an afterthought in supply chain decisions, a shift is afoot that would correct that.

A classification system that considers the full requirements and costs of service providers, and is constantly being adapted to new realities, is the best system available, writes the vice president of classification for the National Motor Freight Traffic Association.

While a few carriers such as ABF Freight and FedEx Freight have rolled out dimensional pricing, and others have expressed the desire to do so, they have largely overlooked the reasons for shippers’ reluctance to switch to dimensional rates.

Nobody has been willing to admit that the only question about recent supply chain failures was when — not if — they were going to occur, writes Theodore Prince.

The objective of OSRA-22 was never to address freight rates, but rather to provide the FMC with additional tools to better identify, prevent, and hold ocean carriers accountable for unfair or deceptive practices and behaviors, writes the executive director of the National Industrial Transportation League.

Paul Revere’s midnight ride to warn the colonial militia of the impending British military action was facilitated by the sexton of Boston’s North Church using a lantern signal —one if the enemy approached by land, two lights if it came by sea. These days, we would need three lanterns to indicate trouble coming from both land and sea.

Predictably, OSRA-22 overpromised and is at risk of under-delivering. Changes need to be made to mitigate the law’s unintended consequences.

Visibility aggregators face obsolescence as data standards increase the availability and usefulness of visibility data — unless they work now to deliver standalone functional value before the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and freight management systems in the operating layer co-opt their capabilities and value.

The railroad industry’s previously inexhaustible supply of goodwill is rapidly dwindling as a recent avalanche of adverse publicity brings to the surface a long-standing undercurrent of discontent with the rail industry.

Many motor carriers perform street turns when they can, but there’s never been a way to perform them at scale.

Why do logistics companies use the few hundred years of experience from their boards of directors, the first line of management, and a few above-average employees, and leave the many thousand years of experience of the rest of the workforce out of the picture?

For many, the National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC) system for pricing has long outlived its need and value.

Constructive feedback, rather than personal attacks, help improve "State of Logistics."

Expanding visibility technology enables shippers to use data about the actual performance of their networks to negotiate rates and capacity with advanced awareness of whether what carriers and forwarders are offering will be profitable.

The broader question is if a permanent expansion of the FMC’s regulatory authority is warranted in response to a short-term concern during unprecedented time.

LTL capacity will continue to be tight and rates will keep rising in 2022, but shippers can minimize the impact of this challenging market by modifying their shipping practices to be more carrier-friendly.

Disruption seen in the durable goods supply chain has devastated capacity and equipment supplies in the north–south trades in perishables, leaving growers with no vessel space and late-arriving cold chain perishables decaying on the docks.

Because freight moves through local, national, continental, and international networks, the federal government must take leadership in solving some of the current supply chain conundrums.

In today’s brittle supply chain, shippers must be able to plan for unexpected changes, shift resources, and communicate revised timelines at a moment’s notice.

Parcel providers are missing out by not recognizing that consumers will pay for customized delivery to suit the unique attributes of the products and their lifestyles.

The only time transportation focuses the public’s attention is when something goes wrong. We have been betrayed by leaders – public and private – who avoided tough decisions necessary for long-term sufficiency in favor of short-term results.

The Container Excess Dwell Fees certainly don’t pass the scrutiny of the FMC’s incentive principle contained in its interpretive rules for demurrage and detention.