The impact of COVID-19 has been felt all along the supply chain. For ocean shipping and import operations, this impact continues to be severe, with ramifications expected to be felt well into 2021. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at one of those ramifications – port congestion at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – and get you up to speed on what’s happening at the Ports and what, if anything, you can do about it.
When importing containers from Asia and other overseas markets, many companies limit their container weights to meet U.S. road weight limits. This is often a mistake as shipping overweight containers can offer you very significant ocean cost savings. In this article, we will examine the benefits of overweight container shipping – and how a 3PL located near your chosen port can help you realize them.
When you’re importing products into the U.S., there’s a lot that needs to happen before your items hit store shelves or a customer’s doorstep. And it often starts with port logistics services such as those provided by a third-party logistics (3PL) company. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at those services and the options you have for getting your goods quickly from port to consumer.
In our last blog post, we examined some of the characteristics you should look for in a refrigerated truck carrier – specifically one that specializes in candy and snack products. In this article, we’ll drill down a step further and discuss what you need to look for in refrigerated LTL carriers, particularly those that operate on the West Coast. While most of these characteristics are the same across the country, there are a few West-Coast-specific items to keep an eye on.
Candy companies and other food and beverage companies need to move products to retailers ever faster, while remaining compliant with stringent food industry regulations. You can keep pace with these demands by installing effective logistics providers throughout your supply chain. In this article, we’ll examine one set of those providers – refrigerated truck carriers – and help you identify the right one for your business.
If you’ve been following operations at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in recent years, the trend looks something like this: the Ports continually break new volume records, truck turn times remain high, and officials vow to speed things up. The calls for speed reached a fever pitch in Q1 of this year as freight piled up at the Ports in the wake of U.S.-China tariff announcements. Fortunately for shippers, enhancements are in place to speed container drayage in Los Angeles and Long Beach now and in the future.
With the state supreme court’s Dynamex decision, followed by its Senate Bill 1402 (SB 1402), California’s position on the hiring of independent owner-operators by drayage carriers is now firmly established. In short, the state asserts that many of these contractors are not independent after all – and those that claim to be acting as employees of the hiring companies have solid legal ground to sue for wages and benefits.
Many beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) have seen the writing on the wall and are protecting themselves from possible legal and financial penalties by turning away from drayage carriers who engage contractors. Others are not yet reacting, while still others may not even be aware of recent legal precedents. In this article, we’ll get you up to speed on these developments and help you determine whether your prospective carrier’s drivers in California are actually considered to be on that carrier’s payroll or are sub-contractors.
Drayage is technically just another transportation service. A driver picks up a load and then delivers it.
With port drayage, however, this simple process becomes much more complex. Navigating seaport terminals is a tricky business on a good day and can become extremely difficult as rules change from terminal-to-terminal, or even hour-to-hour. To navigate the ports effectively – and avoid wasting time and money – shippers need to ensure the drayage carriers they work with have a roster of experienced drayage drivers.
If your company produces or markets food and beverage products, the safety and integrity of those products mean everything to your business. It’s ill-advised then to entrust key components of your supply chain to just any 3PL. With product safety and integrity in mind, we examined 5 things to look for in a food warehousing provider in our previous blog post. In this article, we’re going to move things out of the warehouse, onto the loading dock and into the trailer as we examine 5 things you should be looking for in a food-grade carrier.
Carriers are having a rough go of it as of late. The truck driver shortage has left them scrambling to find new drivers to fill seats vacated by those retiring, leaving the industry, or switching jobs. There just aren’t enough new drivers to fill the void.
In most parts of the country, carriers can augment their company driver force with independent truck drivers (“owner-operators”) to fill in service gaps. When it comes to logistics in California, however, this has become difficult due to regulations and landmark court decisions that alter the way drivers are classified in the state. In this article, we’ll examine some of these and explain why the ramifications ultimately affect shippers just as much as carriers.
