DC Velocity - August 2014

4 DC VELOCITY AUGUST 2014 www.dcvelocity.com inbound

Shippers, want to please the carriers in your life? Then don’t keep them waiting! Ninety-seven percent of the 75 motor carriers surveyed by the third-party logistics service provider Transplace said that drivers’ wait time at docks and terminals is an “important” or “critical” factor in weighing whether a shipper should receive preferential treatment. Looking at it from another angle, 65 percent said in-transit delays were a “major” factor in determining a shipper’s preferential status.

Paying early and often helps, too. Payment terms and average length of time until payment was another key area for many carriers, with 63 percent ranking it as a “major factor” and 36 percent considering it “important but not critical.” Carriers considered 30-day net payment terms to be acceptable; however, paying in less than 30 days would “really differentiate a shipper,” Dallas-based Transplace said in a statement accompanying the survey results.

Shippers that provide driver-friendly facilities, take the time to understand a carrier’s cost issues, and are willing to discuss issues with their carriers and work together to resolve them also scored high on the preference list, Transplace said.

Want to avoid carrier hell?
Don’t make ’em dwell!

In the transportation world, if you want to boost productivity and reduce per-unit costs, the usual approach is to cram more stuff into the same amount of space. How? If you’re a shipper of ocean freight, the new container-loading method developed by Yusen Logistics, a Japanese freight forwarder and third-party logistics service provider (3PL), may do the trick. In July, Yusen launched a service that allows shippers to double-stack items inside ocean containers by means of specialized decks. The decks hang from the roof of the container and divide the interior into upper and lower sections. The configuration will improve loading efficiency and space utilization, and the containers can be customized to meet individual customers’ requirements, Yusen said.

Or if you’re an ocean carrier, you might want to investigate the 4Fold container developed by Holland Container Innovations (HCI), a co-winner of the International Transport Forum’s 2014 Promising Innovation in Transport Award. The container can be folded to a quarter of its height, and four folded containers bundled together take up the same amount of space as a single standard container. Other companies have developed foldable containers, but according to HCI, 4Fold is the first 40-foot high-cube version to pass the International Standards Organization (ISO) certification test.

Stuff it in or fold ’em up

If you want to know how your warehouse operations measure up against those of your peers, you’ll find the information you need in DC Measures 2014, the annual benchmarking study issued by the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC). The study covers 47 operational metrics in seven categories: customer, operational, financial, capacity/quality, employee/safety, perfect order, and cash-to-cash cycles.

Conducted in January, the survey asked the more than 600 participants to share their actual performance data from 2013. The data are reviewed across five demographic areas: type of industry, type of operation, type of customer, business strategy, and company size. The report also examines developing trends and includes case studies highlighting how two companies used their benchmarking data to improve performance.

WERC offers customized comparative reports, including information specific to industry, customer type, and business strategy. In addition, several of the performance metrics identified in the DC Measures reports have been embedded in the Visual Metrics executive dashboard tool offered by software developer Tecsys.

Produced with support from Kronos and Kenco, the research was conducted by professors Karl Manrodt of Georgia Southern University and Donnie Williams of Georgia College & State University, and Joseph Tillman of TSquared Logistics.