Sizing Up Project Logistics

All logistics scenarios are not created equal. While every transportation move is crucial for shippers, some pose extraordinary challenges.

These out-of-the-ordinary moves may involve fun projects, like supporting a superstar musician’s national concert tour. They may be required by tragic events, such as serving a war-torn country. Sometimes the challenge is to move oversized, sensitive cargo such as aerospace equipment, or even wild animals.

Whatever the case, logistics providers specializing in project logistics handle the most complex moves with creativity, diligence and, most importantly, passion for their missions.

These stories of impressive moves under intense pressure highlight the ways shippers and providers can work together to get the job done.

Star Power

Shomotion, a trucking company based in Denver, specializes in large-scale music events. During this past year, Shomotion delivered the “skeleton” stages that were built to support the biggest tour to hit popular music in decades: Taylor Swift’s record-setting Eras tour.

The company has worked with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Kenny Chesney, and from Beyonce to Metallica. But Swift’s tour “was the biggest phenomenon I’ve ever seen in about 20 years,” says Michael Scherkenbach, president of Shomotion.

When working on concert tours, the primary challenge for logistics providers is the service level. “There is no margin for error when you service a ticketed event,” Scherkenbach explains. “There is no ‘Sorry, we will be there tomorrow.’ You will never haul another concert again if an artist misses their show.”

That means having 24/7/365 awareness and response should anything go wrong.

“Charter an airplane; tow a tandem tractor-trailer if it breaks down; cross-load on the roadside—we’ve done all of those,” Scherkenbach says.

He recalls the time one of his trucks was taking its mandatory break at an interstate rest area when another truck veered off the highway, jumped a median, and totaled his rig. “I had to send five box trucks to recover the load and move it to the next show,” Scherkenbach says. Yes, it arrived on time and the show went on.

These jobs are different in another way. A major act’s tour can require teams of 25 drivers or more. The drivers, with occasional subs, stay with the tour for weeks and months at a time. “From a security standpoint, the drivers are all vetted and the artist expects that group to stay with them,” Scherkenbach says.

Because of that, “drivers work as a close-knit team or family,” he notes. “They travel with anywhere from 20 to 200 staff members who all move as one entity, as opposed to the traditional driver’s solitary life. Our drivers eat as a group, and with the entire tour crew.”

It’s common for tours to tip their support teams, including drivers, who typically get about $5,000 to $10,000. But Swift gave her drivers $100,000 each, with a handwritten note, as thanks. “That large amount was unbelievable,” Scherkenbach says.

Because it works on such large-scale projects, Shomotion maintains $1 million in cargo insurance coverage, five to 10 times what a typical company carries. Scherkenbach’s core staff of about 30 drivers peaks to 120 or so with sub-hires during the busy seasons.

Scherkenbach began as a driver himself, for John Mayer when Mayer was touring colleges. Though he no longer drives, he still finds it rewarding to see the results of his efforts: “After watching the stage get set up over four or five days, to see the energy of the audience and know you played a small part in something that brings so much joy to people is very satisfying,” he says.

Serving the War Effort

Logistics Plus, a third-party logistics (3PL) provider based in Erie, Pennsylvania, recently delivered $100 million worth of gas pipes to Ukraine. The work was especially important to the company’s chief operating officer Yuriy Ostapyak, a Ukrainian-born American.

The project included offloading ships onto 1,000 trucks to avoid mines in the Black Sea, working unusually quickly because of the risk of missile attacks and navigating the always-changing logistics fogged by the war.

Logistics Plus, with offices in more than 50 countries, including Ukraine, worked with the pipe manufacturer to deliver the infrastructure, a project that took eight months to complete.

“This cause is near and dear to me,” Ostapyak notes. “Other Western companies were pulling out of the Ukrainian market while we were going in. We do the projects others shy away from.”

Initially, the plan was for four breakbulk containerships to unload at Constanta, a port on the Romanian coast of the Black Sea. But the war turned Constanta into one of the busiest ports in the world, and the barges had trouble making it down the drought-drained Danube River. They rerouted to Port Reni, a previously barely used facility that was fast becoming a major port for Ukrainian imports and exports.

Working under daily drone and missile threats and actual attacks—a factory across the road was blown up while they worked—the Logistics Plus crew got the pipes on trucks destined for sites throughout Ukraine. Every pipe reached its destination.

“It took a titanic effort from our entire team,” Ostapyak says. “It required a lot of communication, working with different vendors and the daily and constant air sirens and threats of attacks. We work in other war zones, but this was the largest scale by far.”

Technology plays a big part in guaranteeing project logistics success. With the right technology, “the business intel on delivery schedules is better,” Ostapyak explains.

But he’s quick to add that the most important success factor is the people. A flexible mindset is a must: “Our teams have to be able to make decisions quickly, in split seconds, and not have to run up complex chains of command,” Ostapyak says. “We have to be nimble to address problems as they arise—or  before they arise.”

Space: The Final Frontier

Space exploration is now in the hands of private enterprise, and so is the delivery of components that make commercial space flight possible. Associated Logistics Group, a 3PL based in St. Paul, Minnesota, handles the complexities of the “space” space, which can include cross-border freight.

“One recent aerospace project required sourcing over-dimensional material from all over the United States and Mexico and delivering it to a centralized hub in the United States—an assembly site for the final product,” says Teo Rotstein, the company’s director of transportation. “It was being assembled on a just-in-time basis so shipments were delivered in a precise order and time.”

“Making sure shipments arrive on time for these massive projects is critical,” he adds. “Planning ahead and proactive communication is the name of the game. It means getting creative, pivoting quickly, and leveraging technology, carrier networks, and sweat equity.

“This ensures a successful outcome no matter the obstacle,”  Rotstein notes. “Being ‘zero fail’ is very important.”

These massive shipments require coordination of cranes and offloading teams—“that bill by the hour and are not cheap,” he notes—and the project’s deadline depended on zero delays.

“When logistics providers coordinate heavy haul/over-dimensional freight, especially when crossing an international border, there are a lot of variables to take into account for estimated transit time: delays at the border; transloading at a border warehouse; permit purchases in Mexico and the United States; need for site surveys; road restrictions; time of day and day of the week restrictions; weather; and elevation, among others,” Rotstein notes.

Additionally, when transporting high-value shipments across the border, there is always added risk, especially now. Cargo theft on Mexico-U.S. shipments was estimated at about $300 million in 2023. “Purchasing additional insurance, shipping during daylight hours, selecting the safest routes and GPS tracking every step of the way helped us ensure the integrity of our shipments,” Rotstein says.

On another project, manufacturing and border delays caused one of several time-sensitive shipments to be two days behind schedule. “To solve this problem, we ended up replacing our heavy-haul carrier at the border with a team drive at the last minute, and we re-assigned the previous single-driver hauler to a separate shipment that was picked up the following day,” Rotstein says.

“Even though it took an extra few hours past original pickup time to bring the new carrier onsite and start loading, the end result was reducing the final-leg transit time by half and an on-time delivery,” he adds.

Reliable Partnerships

Project logistics in general typically calls for more than one mode of transportation, and sometimes there is a need for temporary third-party warehousing with coordination of inbound, outbound, final mile, and other third-party vendors.

For many shippers, identifying the best location to centralize a project requires a partner capable of comparing various combinations of transport modes and different start and end points to find the optimal site for a temporary project warehouse or assembly location.

“Leveraging a 3PL to source the optimal location can and will save money and help improve efficiencies across the board,” says Rotstein.

For example, he recalls working with a client who was printing and installing graphics for a major national grocery retailer. “The challenge was coordinating all shipments to arrive on the same day as the installers to complete the job as quickly as possible,” Rotstein explains. “The installers were third-party contractors, so any shipment delays would incur additional costs for our client and risk missing the retailer’s contracted deadline.”

By leveraging internal software and pricing tools, Associated Logistics Group created a “heatmap” that identified the optimal warehouse locations to use as a spoke-and-hub system. “Shipments came inbound to the warehouses we sourced via a combination of full truckload, partial truckload, and LTL carriers, which were selected based on their location, price, transit time, and on-time record,” Rotstein explains.

“The shipments were temporarily stored for one to two days, and then we coordinated final-mile delivery to the grocery stores where the installers were flying in from out of state or driving from a previous installation to install the product the same day,” he adds.

All went well—except for one missing batch the client still had at their warehouse. “The installation location was at the opposite end of the country and we needed to find a new transport mode to make the delivery on time,” Rotstein says. “We expedited the final pallets via domestic air freight and accelerated the pickup and delivery process by sourcing local cargo vans.

“These vans picked up the pallets within one hour of the request, delivered them to the airport, and then retrieved them from the airport for final delivery. The shipment arrived on time, meeting the installers as scheduled,” he adds.

Talk to the Animals

Qatar Airways Cargo handles all kinds of cargo, including the wildest of wild animals. A few years ago, the company transported three lions, one lioness, and three cubs to nature reserves in South Africa after they had been living confined in inhumane conditions in Ukraine.

Qatar Airways’ “Rewild the Planet” initiative, a part of the airline’s WeQare sustainability program, is dedicated to transporting wild animals back to their natural environments, at no charge, at the request of wildlife protection organizations.

The lion project began in October 2020, in coordination with Warriors of Wildlife (WOW), a nonprofit organization specializing in the rescue, relocation, and care of abused wildlife. It was so complicated it was delayed until April 2021.

To accomplish the mission, the airline rerouted one of its passenger freighters from another station in Europe to Kiev, where the airline does not have passenger flights, to pick up the lions.

The animals were transported in the belly of the plane, where WOW staff looked after them during the trip. When the passenger aircraft reached Doha, it was parked alongside Qatar Airways Cargo’s live animal facility. There, the animals were fed raw meat and provided water through their cages while waiting about four hours for the next flight.

Ensuring that the process went smoothly took a full team effort—everyone from ramp operators and forklift drivers to the live animal facility team and charter teams that managed the rerouting of the flight.

“This was a big logistical challenge, but it was a great feeling to see the video of the lions when they were released,” says Kirsten de Bruijn, senior vice president, cargo sales and network planning.

More recently, Qatar Airways Cargo opened its state-of-the-art Animal Centre in Doha and relaunched its Next Generation Live product to transport less ferocious animals.

The 5,260-square-meter facility comprises 140 dog kennels, 40 cat kennels, and 24 horse stables distributed in four zones with separate airflows. There are also custom spaces designed for day-old chicks, birds, fish, reptiles, and exotic animals.

The center has airside and landside interfaces with multiple docks, a sophisticated HVAC system for optimal air quality, and the technological capacity to handle up to 47 unit-load device (ULD) positions, with specialized ULD rooms for various operations.

Whatever it Takes

As any shipper moving complex cargo knows, extraordinary challenges often demand specialized expertise. By working with providers dedicated to specialized transportation and project logistics, they gain partners with the ability to navigate and execute these demanding projects, ultimately ensuring the seamless movement of goods, no matter the circumstances.