Articles
Transportation
Trends—October 2014
UPS, Christmas 2014: ‘Fixed It!’ After the 2013 peak holiday season, e-commerce shoppers took to the phones and social media to tell e-tailers, and, ultimately express transportation companies, how they ruined Christmas. As it turns out, Santa actually drives a big brown truck, and he failed to get a substantial number of gifts under the […]
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Understanding Capacity Constraints
The trucking industry faces capacity constraints, but there are solutions available to help shippers minimize the impact.
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Shippers Get Creative With Multimodal Solutions
Q: What are some imaginative ways that different transport modes can work together to create new choices for shippers? A: In today’s global marketplace, shippers often need solutions that go beyond U.S. borders and involve multiple modes to move goods from the point of origin to the final destination. Rail transportation is a critical link […]
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Star Search: Discovering the Best Site for Your Business
Finding the right site for your new manufacturing plant or distribution facility isn’t an overnight sensation. You have to pay your dues by investigating infrastructure, quality of life issues, utilities and taxes, and more. These locations deliver the goods.
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Memphis: America’s Multimodal City
Connecting global supply chains through river, highway, rail, and air transport, Memphis gives businesses the ultimate logistics advantage.
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The Spot Market – And How Not to Use It
Many shippers don’t realize that they are sabotaging themselves in the spot freight market. It is standard rationale that competitive bidding achieves a lower price. However, our application of that principle distorts Adam Smith’s law of supply and demand by creating a false demand “bubble” that results in higher prices and less profit for shippers. […]
Read MoreNegotiating Rail Freight Rates
The best way to improve railroad contract negotiations is to understand the market and the opportunities to increase competition for your traffic. Jay Roman, president of Escalation Consultants Inc., Gaithersburg, Md., offers the following advice for reducing rail freight rates. 1. Shake off the rail monopoly power syndrome. Shippers sometimes hesitate to try to reduce […]
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Are You Ready for the Capacity Crisis? Oh, It’s Here
Funny thing, predictions. We gravitate toward them, some of us armed with a dollop of healthy skepticism. But when respected analyst John Larkin announced in 2010 that the trucking industry was facing the "mother of all capacity shortages," people listened. We haven’t quite reached the "mother" level yet, but the evidence says it’s not far […]
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Transportation Modeling: Is There Ever an Average Day?
Most large shippers spend a great deal of time and money collecting, analyzing, and maintaining the data used to drive daily transportation planning and execution. When codified and integrated into the shipper’s transportation system, this data becomes the organization’s transportation policy. This policy is comprised of lanes, modes, rates, service levels, capacity, and a multitude […]
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By the Numbers: Tracking Carrier Performance
How well is your trucking company working for you? Metrics offer insight into carrier performance and benchmarks for improvement goals.
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Freight Audit and Payment Services: Stacking Up Savings
Analyzing shipment data can reveal trouble spots and identify opportunities to cut costs. Freight audit and payment services provide the supply chain analytics and expertise to give shippers an edge.
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A National Standard for Hiring ‘Safe’ Motor Carriers
Q: Is there confusion over what constitutes a safe carrier when screening and contracting for shipments? A: Most definitely. Unfortunately, the courts are deciding safety standards for carriers, and their opinions vary widely from state to state. This puts contractors—shippers, brokers, forwarders, and receivers—in an awkward position, particularly when something goes wrong, such as a […]
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Panama: Leveraging Opportunities Beyond the Canal
It’s not only shipping lines, railroads, logistics service providers, and multinational firms that want to know to what extent the Panama Canal expansion project will affect business. Every company will be affected plenty, and must be prepared to modify existing distribution operations to reflect the changing world. Why will the Panama Canal expansion have such […]
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Market Research: 3PL Perspectives 2014
Inbound Logistics’ 10th annual research report looks under the hood of the 3PL sector to see what makes the market tick.
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LTL Leaders Make Tracks for the Web
Less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers are parking on freight portals to offer extra capacity to small shippers surfing for low-cost transportation.
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Forecasting the Unexpected: Home Improvement Retailers and Emergency Response
During the calm before the storm, home improvement stores stock up on the products consumers will need to repair damage and rebuild after an extreme weather event.
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Supplier Compliance: Ask the Experts
Need to gain control of inbound transportation? Then get on the same page as your suppliers. Inbound Logistics picks the brains of seven industry experts for their advice.
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Fueling the Oil and Gas Supply Chain
New possibilities and partnerships get energy companies pumped.
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U.S.-Canada Trade: Getting a Line on Cross-Border Shipments
To efficiently move goods across the U.S.-Canada border, shippers and logistics providers must adapt to regulatory, geographic, and currency challenges.
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Partners and Process Management: Freight Business From the Inside Out
Q: What is the key to managing freight spend in today’s supply chain? A: Efficiency at every level of the supply chain is of the utmost importance in controlling costs. Carriers and shippers alike need to formulate their strategies based on key performance indicators (KPIs). Making routine a simple action such as generating useful reports […]
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