DC Velocity - May 2014

16 DC VELOCITY MAY 2014 www.dcvelocity.com
newsworthy
U.S. Bank, one of the nation’s larg-
est providers of automated freight
audit and payment services, said it
has begun offering extended payment
terms to shippers without changing
the existing time frame for paying
motor carriers.

Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank, which receives funds from shippers from which it pays their carriers, said it is the first provider to give shippers more time to pay their freight bills without delaying payment to carriers. Under the new program, shippers can defer payments for up to 90 days, while carriers will still get paid under their normal terms. U.S. Bank has allowed shippers to pay to contracted terms, which are normally 30 days, while it usually pays carriers in less than four days from the time its invoice is approved. The new process is expected to be “invisible” to the carriers, U.S.

Bank said in a statement.

Rick Erickson, U.S. Bank’s global director of freight payment solutions, said large shippers pushed hard for the program and have subsequently embraced it more than their small to mid-sized brethren have. Erickson told DC VELOCITY at the NASSTRAC conference in mid-April that big companies are aggressively seeking to extend payment terms across all aspects of their enterprise as a way of better managing their working capital.

Transportation, which is a cash-inten-sive business, “has been an untouched area” for these efforts, Erickson said. He added that the program could work just as effectively for smaller shippers.

U.S. Bank collects a small fee for its services under the new program. The bank’s main objective in launching it is to solidify its relationships with both sides, Erickson said.

—M.S.

U.S. Bank to extend payment terms to shippers

Ceva Logistics has opened a foreign trade zone (FTZ) warehouse operation in Miami that has been approved by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. … Eastern Connection, a regional parcel carrier serving the East Coast, recently relocated its corporate headquarters to Cumberland, R.I. The new

30,000-square-foot facility includes
administrative office space, three
loading docks, a dispatch center,
and a sorting facility. … UPS has
added three healthcare-dedicated facilities in Mexico to serve high-
growth medical device and pharmaceutical consumption markets
throughout Latin America. … California Natural Products, a manu-
facturer of more than 400 foods and beverages, has opened a new
18,000-square-foot warehouse designed and built by the auto-
mated warehouse solutions provider Power Automation Systems.
… ProTrans has opened a consolidation center in Kansas City that
offers 114,000 square feet of warehouse space and 20 dock doors.
Additionally, Pro Trans is moving its Laredo, Texas, operations to a
new facility with nearly 222,000 square feet of warehouse space
and 100 dock doors. … Regal Logistics has doubled its footprint
in Los Angeles with a newly purchased 210,000-square-foot distri-
bution center.
ground breakers
tool only for FMCSA to gauge a carrier’s safety fitness, and that
shippers and brokers are not in the business of determining which
carriers are safe to operate and which are not.

FMCSA is expected to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in late May or early June to modify CSA by expanding the data sets used to produce an overall safety rating for a carrier. Currently, the agency uses on-site compliance reviews to develop an overall safety rating. It is proposing to use data from roadside inspections, crashes, investigations, and violation history to produce what it calls a “safety fitness determination” for a carrier.

Voltmann said the bill should have a Democratic co-sponsor upon its introduction and that companion legislation will be introduced in the Senate soon after.

TIA has scheduled a Washington “fly-in” June 17 and 18, when members will descend on Capitol Hill to discuss this and other issues with elected representatives and their staffs. Voltmann told the group at the NASSTRAC gathering that shippers and brokers should gird for a tough battle as they confront well-connected and well-financed plaintiffs’ lawyers who have exploited a new channel of revenue and show no signs of backing off.