Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Third-Party Market Analysis Released

Source: Armstong & Associates, Inc. (research firm)

Introduction of press release, "U.S. and Global Third-Party Logistics Market Analysis Is Released":
"2009 wasn't a pretty year for third-party logistics (3PL) providers. In lock step with the global economic nose dive, domestic revenues for the 3PL market sank. Hardest hit was the International Transportation Management (ITM) segment with gross revenue (turnover) falling 23.7% as total U.S. import and export ocean TEUs (trailer equivalent units) dropped 12.3% (1). Airfreight metric tons dropped similarly with reductions at JFK and the Chicago airports exceeding 20%. As prices dove in the face of soft demand, net revenues (gross margins) shrank by 18.9%. Expeditors International, the largest U.S. freight forwarder, saw gross revenue decrease 27% and net revenue decrease 14%. The good news is that first quarter 2010 results have included double digit improvements in ITM and other 3PL market segments as the economy steadily recovers.

Overall, U.S. 3PL market gross revenues decreased 16% in 2009 dropping to $107.1 billion. Dedicated Contract Carriage (DCC) fell 16%. Domestic Transportation Management (DTM) was down 15.1% in gross revenue and 11.4% in net revenue. Value-Added Warehousing and Distribution (VAWD) suffered with only single digit reductions."



To finish reading the PR NewsWire release, please visit the following page.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Article from Trains.com on Rail Traffic

One of the editors of Trains Magazines (online site is www.trains.com ), recently published an article on the state of Rail Traffic and economic conditions that are directly related. After Mexican rail traffic fell last year.. and even the U.S. with its state of economy, we are seeing Canadian rail traffic bring in higher volumes and become the dominate carriers.
With some positive outlooks are on the rise, let's hope that we can tune up our people and locomotives to be ready for the rise in demand!


Rail traffic bounces back (and stays back)

"The economists who officially date the start and finish of recessions know when The Big One began. That would be December 2007, when the previous economic expansion topped out. But the group, called the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, says it’s still too soon to declare that recession over. While they dither, I’ve got news: The nation’s railroads are back in business, big time.

Latest data, covering the week ending Saturday, April 10, again confirms a strong up-trend that began seven weeks ago, when the number of originated carloads started topping 375,000 consistently. The improvement in carload freight follows that of intermodal units, which began improving last November. This data, reported by ASI/Transwatch, is collected by the Association of American Railroads.

What I did, to smooth out the numbers and reduce anomalies, was compare the averages for the past four weeks with averages for the same four weeks in 2009. Here’s the percentage improvement versus the past year for the seven North American Class 1 railroads and Mexico’s two biggest carriers:

EAST
CSX 2.5%
Norfolk Southern 17.5%

WEST
BNSF Railway 12.2%
Kansas City Southern 14.8%
Union Pacific 14.1%

CANADA
Canadian National 21.9%
Canadian Pacific 23.9%

MEXICO
Ferrocarril Mexicano 33.4%
KCS de Mexico 24.7%

The Mexican economy truly tanked in 2009, which explains why Ferrocarril Mexicano and Kansas City Southern de Mexico made such gains this year. I asked railroad consultant and TRAINS author Roy Blanchard why the two Canadian-based railroads scored such big traffic pickups. Roy’s explanation: “From the financial press, I sense that the Canadian government is doing a much better job of running their country than the U.S. government is. Banks are stronger and so is the Canadian economy. That’s what I ascribe it to.” In the eastern U.S., CSX simply has not revived its business volume to the extent that rival Norfolk Southern has. NS and Union Pacific were hurt last year by the collapse of automobile sales, but benefited from the revival of that industry in 2010; they are the dominant carriers of new cars in the east and west, respectively.

Short line traffic trends are not collected by AAR. But RMI's RailConnect index of short line traffic for the week of April 10 was up 20.6 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, the two biggest short line conglomerates both reported higher carloads for March, compared with a year earlier; Genesee & Wyoming's loadings rose 6.9 percent and RailAmerica's 8.7 percent.

All of these improvements point to the possibility of a faster rebound for the economy in general and railroads in particular than had generally been expected. Instead of an L-shaped recovery, in other words, we may see one that more strongly resembles a V. Such was the tone of a front-page analysis April 15 in the Wall Street Journal, which pulled together a number of favorable economic indicators, including a nice rise in retail sales and signs of a strong first-quarter performance by the financial sector. Granted, financial companies are not railroad customers. But the stunning setbacks of banking and securities businesses in 2008 fed the fires of the recession and cut off credit to borrowers everywhere. Better times for financial companies auger well for their customers.

It’s important to note that while volumes are up sharply from a year ago, they remain well below the same four weeks of 2008, before the recession really began to take hold. This table compares the four weeks through April 10, 2010, to the same weeks of 2008 and notes the declines:

EAST
CSX -19.1%
Norfolk Southern -14.7%

WEST
BNSF Railway -8.8%
Kansas City Southern -11.3%
Union Pacific -13.1%

CANADA
Canadian National -10.2%
Canadian Pacific -6.9%

MEXICO
Ferrocarril Mexicano 7.2%
KCS de Mexico -14.8%

That’s correct, Ferrocarril Mexicano is already in positive territory versus 2008. Among the Class 1s, Canadian Pacific and BNSF Railway have the least ground to make up, and the two eastern railroad the most.

Looking at commodity groups, the biggest declines between 2008 and 2010 are forest products (down 30 percent) and motor vehicles (down 26 percent). With housing starts still anemic, the near-term outlook for forest products doesn’t appear good. The smallest declines are intermodal (down 8 percent) and, in a tie, food products, grains, and chemicals/petroleum (each down 7 percent).

Going forward, the operating challenge for railroads will be bringing the people and locomotive and freight car fleets back to service in tune with rising demand. It’s not easy, either. At least one Class I railroad, slow to delve into its lines of stored locomotives, was recently reported chronically short of serviceable power for its trains." — Fred W. Frailey

Published Apr 15 2010, 03:46 PM

Monday, March 29, 2010

Import Logistics

Quick Facts on Import Logistics

- Operate daily on the New York and New Jersey Piers to the Philadelphia Port and beyond
- Strip, stuff and transload pier containers
- Member of the Uniform Intermodal Interchange Agreement (UIIA)

- Direct Import and Exports


For competitive rates or contact information, please visit our Import Logistics page by clicking on the link.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

8 Ways to Boost Supply Chain Agility

The survivors of economic slumps have almost always been better able to change course more quickly than their peers. They benefit from more responsive and agile supply chains, allowing them to quickly cut back on manufacturing operations, close plants, sell assets, and reduce inventory in the pipeline. Here are eight proven practices to help you increase supply chain flexibility and reduce risk.

By Pierre Mercier, Harold Sirkin, and Jennifer Bratton -- Supply Chain Management Review, 1/1/2010

As the recent global recession deepened, some industries saw sales decline by 40 percent or more. Cash-strapped companies struggled with order cancellations, inventory pile-ups and underused assets. The business headlines showed that many organizations were unable to survive those pressures.

Yet many have survived, and are on course to do well as the global economy picks up. The survivors were almost always better able to change course more quickly than their more sluggish peers, minimize losses and generate much-needed cash. On the whole, they benefited from more responsive, more agile supply chains, allowing them to quickly cut back on manufacturing shifts, change batch sizes, stop and start entire production lines, close plants, sell assets, and sharply reduce inventory coming through the pipeline.

Although global recessions are rare, uncertainty and unpredictability are facts of life in today's business environment. Nobody can truly predict the future, no matter how complex or accurate a company's forecasting model is. And as supply chains become longer—reaching into low-cost countries for sourcing or manufacturing—it becomes increasingly clear that greater flexibility and the ability to react rapidly to changing market conditions are at least as important as forecasting skills when it comes to optimizing end-to-end operations.

These days, the prices of fuel and other commodities can shift overnight, customers demand increasing speed and customization, and port and road congestion add unwelcome variables to the supply chain. Other variability is self-inflicted—the result of needless complexity in products, portfolios and processes. This blend of complexity and unpredictability exacts a high cost. That's why it's critical for companies to create an agile, flexible supply chain that can react quickly to changes in conditions or demand and minimize the negative impact of uncertainty.

But flexibility often comes at an additional cost. Business leaders must wrestle with a range of strategic trade-offs: Should I build one massive manufacturing plant to optimize scale, or diversify my risk by staying closer to the customer and producing in multiple locations? Should I keep more warehouses in my network to make sure I can deliver products to my customers profitably even if diesel prices hit $10 per gallon? How much buffer inventory should I keep on hand?

Flexibility will be more critical in some areas than in others—when profit margins are high, for instance, or to gain access to strategic markets or customer accounts, or where unpredictability imposes particularly high costs. So it's important to know why you're making the decisions you're making, and to make them strategically and mindfully.

This article brings together eight proven practices for increasing flexibility and reducing risk. Although some of the themes are well understood by experienced supply chain professionals, it's likely that those leaders will not previously have been able to review or share all of the themes in an easily accessible form—a kind of “flexibility checklist,” if you will.

To view the article, click here.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Vote for The Quality Warehouse!

Vote now!

From Inbound Logistics' 3PL Excellence Survey page:

“Each year, in its July issue, Inbound Logistics publishes the most definitive resource on third-party logistics and the outsourced logistics market. If you are already a subscriber, you know that we ask our readers which third-party logistics companies provide excellent service, and publish the results. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can get a list of this year's Excellence Survey winners, as well as the Top 100 third-party companies in the world, by checking the box below.

We're now conducting next year's 3PL Excellence Survey. The results will be presented in the July 2010 3PL issue. Give us your input and we'll express our appreciation by entering you in a drawing for a free 18-carat gold Parker pen, which includes a coupon for free engraving."

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For more info regarding Quality Warehouse and our New Jersey warehouse space and NJ local transportation, visit our site!