Shipping & Ports the Supply Chain Problems

SpaceNut · 2021-10-29 17:09:22

One way out of this is buy American if you can even find a product but the reality is It’s time for Americans to buy less stuff

kbd512 · 2021-10-29 17:49:44

SpaceNut,

Try telling a woman that she needs to quit buying so much useless crap. If you survive, let me know how that went.

SpaceNut · 2021-10-29 18:37:51

That means we have fixed half of the population from that over buying...

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-11-05 16:36:00

California Is the Supply Chain’s Weakest Link

https://www.wsj.com/articles/california … 1636056049

Biden lauds port czar Porcari — despite US supply chain crisis

https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/biden-lau … in-crisis/

I’m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End

https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twen … e0ebac6a91

'This is the new normal. All brought to you by the ‘experts’ running our supply chains.'

SpaceNut · 2021-11-05 18:32:18

Then again we could travel farther than needed to get to a Texan port for China but does that really make sense to do.
Gov. Abbott says Texas ports could aid backlogged U.S. supply chain 40% of all shipping containers brought to the U.S. come through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.

According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the Lone Star State in 2018 ranked second in the nation for total waterborne tonnage handled and five of its ports are ranked in the top 20 U.S. ports by total tonnage. They are:
Port Houston
Port of Beaumont
Port of Corpus Christi
Port of Texas City
Port of Port Arthur

SpaceNut · 2021-11-11 16:53:05

"I'm not waiting to sign a bill to start improving the flow of goods from ships to shelves," Biden said during remarks at the Baltimore port. "Yesterday, I announced the port -- a port plan of action. It lays out concrete steps for my administration to take over the next three months to invest in our ports and to relieve bottlenecks."

SpaceNut · 2021-11-16 22:20:54

With a high demand comes inflation but what if Corporations are using inflation as an excuse to raise prices and make fatter profits — and it's making the problem worse

SpaceNut · 2021-11-18 19:29:06

California lawmakers are calling for Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency for backlogged ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Eight US representatives all Republican, urged Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a State of Emergency for the ports. "Americans rely on the efficient movement of goods through California's ports to feed and clothe their families," the letter said. "And American producers rely on that same goods movement to ship their products to consumers around the world. It is critical that supply chain restrictions created by the State of California be removed to resolve this crisis."
The lawmakers called for Newsom to suspend several regulations for ports, warehouses, and truckers.
The lawmakers' warning comes a day after the largest ports in the US hit another record, as 179 ships were recorded at the Southern California ports. Nearly 120 ships are waiting off the coast to dock and unload. Before the pandemic, the ports never saw a backlog greater than 17 ships.

I think the guard was called up for man power but its other things that will be needed to make even a dent in the high incoming demand

kbd512 · 2021-11-18 20:15:20

SpaceNut,

California's laws are the only things preventing the ships from being unloaded. Their governor can stop this nonsense anytime he so chooses.

SpaceNut · 2021-11-18 20:48:10

You mean this stuff No, shipping backlog at California ports is not caused by California trucking regulations; Increased volume moving through the ports has overwhelmed the supply chain across the board.

California ports resort to $100-per-container fines to get shipping firms to move cargo from clogged-up docks, as a record number of ships wait off the coast

Sounds like a volume of pick up to ability to deliver issue... needing more trucks from the customers that have goods which have come into port...

kbd512 · 2021-11-18 21:39:13

SpaceNut,

California has regulations about working hours. The number of hours you work per day directly affects the number of containers you can transfer.

SpaceNut · 2021-11-19 08:09:04

federal driving laws for truckers cover all interstate working hours.
https://www.dot.ny.gov/divisions/operat … 0sheet.pdf
https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.d … 15_508.pdf
https://www.truckingtruth.com/wiki/topi … ck-drivers
https://www.samsara.com/guides/californ … s-of-2020/
https://cdllife.com/2018/chp-warns-truc … cceptable/

Cargo ship queues have been pushed 150 miles off the coast of Southern California

Cargo ships in California began queuing further out to sea this week.
The new policy is part of a bid to address safety and environmental concerns from the traffic jam.
One expert told Insider this policy is likely to reduce harmful emissions on the coastline.
Cargo ships queues for the nation's largest ports were pushed over 100 miles further out to sea this week, as a part of a bid to improve air quality and safety along the California coast.
Over 100 ships, which have been waiting to dock in Los Angeles and Long Beach for as long as 2 months, will now wait about 150 miles outside of the port, or seven times further away from the coast than previously, according to a new policy from the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, the Pacific Maritime Association, and the Marine Exchange of Southern California.
"Certainly moving those ships farther offshore will have the effect of diluting emissions before they reach the coastline," Michael Kleeman, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of California Davis, told Insider. "This will offset the effects that idling ships could have on air quality."

SpaceNut · 2021-11-22 21:05:12

Poor conditions and low pay for truckers helped fuel supply chain crisis; An inefficient system means truck drivers are forced to wait around until they’re needed, at no cost to the shipping companies.

Matsushita touched on another way the supply chain issues cost truckers — the price of trucks has increased significantly. He said that prices were already higher this year than they were before the pandemic but that they have shot up in the last three months, spiking by as much as 20 percent: A base-level new truck with just a day cab now costs well over $100,000, and a sleeper cab truck can cost almost $200,000. Used trucks have also recently increased in value by $40,000 to $60,000. The dramatic price increases fall on the drivers who lease or buy the vehicles, further adding to the strain of the job.

kbd512 · 2021-11-22 22:42:27

SpaceNut,

The most serious issue they're having is related to drayage truck drivers, not driving hours for interstate trucking, although that has also become an issue due to COVID as a result of California not allowing the drayage truck drivers to work. Your Post #38 is the actual reason why there's a shortage of drayage truck drivers out in California. The amount of money they pay truck drivers would leave drayage truck drivers in poverty if they had to live somewhere in the City of Los Angeles or in the City of Long Beach. Post #37 has very little to do with why the ships aren't being unloaded. It could have something to do with why freight doesn't make it to its destination in a timely manner AFTER it's hit the docks, but the major malfunction is in unloading the ships.

SpaceNut · 2021-11-24 10:15:43

Ships in Chinese waters are disappearing from industry tracking systems, creating yet another headache for the global supply chain. China's growing isolation from the rest of the world — along with a deepening mistrust of foreign influence — may be to blame.

Usually, shipping data companies are able to track ships worldwide because they are fitted with an Automatic Identification System, or AIS, transceiver.
This system allows ships to send information — such as position, speed, course and name — to stations that are based along coastlines using high-frequency radio. If a ship is out of range of those stations, the information can be exchanged via satellite.

State secrets on what is where?

SpaceNut · 2021-11-24 10:21:45

Kbd512 I have never heard of the term "drayage truck drivers" but just looked it up

Drayage is the transport of goods over a short distance in the shipping and logistics industries. Drayage is often part of a longer overall move, such as from a ship to a warehouse. Some research defines it specifically as "a truck pickup from or delivery to a seaport, border point, inland port, or intermodal terminal with both the trip origin and destination in the same urban area". Port drayage is the term used when describing short hauls from ports and other areas to nearby locations.

Similar to the postal service system that sends the mail to a larger processing facility. Where its redirected at that next point which is the larger one along that path.

That means the cargo container is processed later once getting to the distribution location. This is a push out system from the docks.

If we do not have enough docks then make more of them in other locations.

kbd512 · 2021-11-24 17:59:29

SpaceNut,

Welcome to global logistics. Glad to have you here.

There are currently not enough drayage trucks and drivers in the Port of Los Angeles and the Port Long Beach to unload all the container ships that have been sitting at anchor for weeks to months due to the COVID lockdowns, in order to move the cargo containers off the docks.

Cargo very rarely gets loaded onto a single truck, directly on the dock, and then delivered to its final destination. The cargo containers are taken off the ships, loaded onto drayage trucks, driven to warehouse locations around LA and Long Beach where the containers are unloaded, and then the cargo is delivered to other inland hub warehouse hubs after individual trucks have been filled to capacity. Some of the cargo travels by rail and is directly unloaded, more or less, but most of it is loaded onto a series of trucks run by the major shipping services (UPS, DHL, etc) or their contractors or private concerns that contract with their own delivery drivers or services.

That's what I meant about your comments regarding how federal laws contributed, or didn't, to cargo moving off the docks. The current logistics problem originates with the State of California shutting down their ports for lengthy periods of time. The solution is hiring more truck drivers to move cargo off the docks, 24/7, until the backlog is cleared. Those same drivers can then switch jobs, which is very common for truck drivers to do, and then move the cargo along to its final destination. The current problem has to be resolved before the latter problem becomes an issue.

SpaceNut · 2021-11-24 19:43:03

I would say that the ports are being treated like a security zone and that is one of the reasons for less drivers as they can not pass the checks to be a active driver on the port property.

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-24 20:06:22

For SpaceNut re #43

That actually makes sense, due to the vulnerability of ports to truck bombs.

However, you are the first person to have pointed out that particular risk.

Do you have a link to explore the possibility further? It is highly likely that security planners would NOT want discussion of this risk set, so it may be difficult to find a source.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-11-24 20:13:19

It makes sense to put command under the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and that means a level of security...

kbd512 · 2021-11-24 21:29:12

SpaceNut,

The risk to US ports comes from foreigners smuggling in dangerous devices, primarily chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Security was marginally increased after 9/11. This includes a background check. To pass a background check, you have to be an American citizen. Many of the drayage truck drivers were illegal aliens prior to 9/11.

Weber Logistics - West Coast and California Logistics Blog - Reasons for drayage truck driver shortage and how the right 3PL can help

From the article:

The current driver shortage affects every mode of trucking, port drayage included. What you may not realize, however, is that this shortage of drayage drivers is not new – it didn’t begin with COVID-19 or even in the years leading up to the pandemic. In this article, we’ll examine the reasons for the truck driver shortage among drayage drivers and tell you why your transportation provider’s culture is key to sourcing the capacity you need.
Why is there a shortage of drayage drivers?
The short answer to this question lies in supply and demand. There are simply more products that need to be drayed than there are port drivers to dray them. Some of the reasons for this are similar to reasons for the driver shortage in general, while others are more specific to drayage drivers.
1. Reduced reliance on undocumented workers.
After the 9/11 tragedy, however, security measures were tightened, and drivers were required to have a Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) in order to access the nation’s ports.
2. Environmental regulations priced out independent contractors.
Smaller, independent truck drivers who owned their tractors would traditionally contract their services to larger shippers and carriers. Over time, states like California began issuing environmental regulations (e.g., the state’s Truck and Bus Rule) that meant that only newer, reduced-emissions trucks could register with the state’s DMV. Many independent contractors relied on older, environmentally-unfriendly equipment and could not afford the newer trucks or the Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) needed to comply with the new environmental rules. The result was that many of these independent contractors left the business altogether.
3. California Supreme Court decision increased the risk of hiring contractors.
For many years, state labor groups such as the Teamsters have argued that “independent” drivers – especially drayage drivers – should be deemed employees of the carriers they work for instead of independent contractors. The issue came to a head in April 2018 with the California Supreme Court’s Decision in the Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles The Court ruled that – in class action cases involving classification – workers should be presumed to be employees. State Senate Bill 1402 (or SB 1402) then established the creation of a public list of carriers who have misclassification-related judgments against them. Shippers who do business with a carrier on this list will be held jointly liable for wages and/or damages the carrier owes to its drivers. All of this has made hiring independent contractors a risky proposition and has caused many shippers to turn away from them, thereby reducing their driver pools.
4. The trucking industry faces general labor challenges.
A primary cause of the driver shortage is that older drivers are retiring and there aren’t enough younger drivers to replace them.
5. The impact of COVID-19 has affected drayage drivers.

The security rules have been in place for many years, yet there was no issue with the number of drayage truck drivers.

The State of California made the use of independent contractors a financial liability for both the carrier and the shipper. Individual truck drivers who own their own truck, typically an older model vehicle that's still drivable, even though it probably doesn't meet the latest emissions standards, simply found work elsewhere. That probably means that they left California with their truck and won't return.

Trucking isn't attractive to potential new drivers, either. Many types of contract work require you to own your own rig, and California won't allow older model rigs that truckers have paid off or can affordably purchase, so that's that. The average age of a truck driver is 46. The average age of a new truck driver is 35. So, why 35? Well, a new truck costs around $100K to $150K. Basically, it's the price of a small house. We were around 30 years of age before we saved up enough money for a bank to sign a loan over to us for $100K to buy a house. The sole perk of drayage driving is going home to see your family at the end of the day. Most jobs allow you to do that and most jobs also pay better by the time you're 35.

We don't have a shortage of drayage drivers here in Texas and we have the same security restrictions as all other ports. What we don't have are court rulings that declare independent contractors to be employees, and Texas is a "right to work" state. We don't have the environmental regulations that remove independent contractors / individual truck drivers from the payrolls of carriers, either.

SpaceNut · 2021-11-24 21:43:29

https://container-news.com/top-10-the-b … ed-states/
July 18, 2021

this says that we are broken long after its gotten here and is on the way to the consumer.

Hundreds of FedEx packages were discovered discarded in a ravine Wednesday in Blount County, Alabama, some 40 miles northeast of Birmingham, according to the local sheriff's office.

SpaceNut · 2021-11-26 12:21:51

I went on board the largest container ship to ever use an East Coast port and found a visual representation of American spending during the pandemic

60 slides

SpaceNut · 2021-11-26 19:49:37

What is coming from what nations rating for the last 2 years for what side of the us they are delivered to

rank 2021    rank 2020
west east    west       east

1 China    - 1 China    -
2 -    European Union    2 Mexico Mexico
3 -    Euro Area    3 Canada Canada
4 Mexico Mexico    4 Japan -
5 Canada Canada    5 -    Germany
6 -    Germany    6 Vietnam -
7 Japan    7 South Korea -
8 South Korea    8 - Switzerland
9 Vietnam    9 - Ireland
10 Taiwan    10 India
11 -    Ireland    11    -    Italy
12 India    - 12    - United Kingdom
13 -    Switzerland    13 Malaysia
14 -    United Kingdom    14    -    France
15 -    Italy    15 Thailand -
16 Malaysia -    16 Singapore -
17 -    France    17    - Netherlands
18 Thailand - 18 -    Brazil
19 - Netherlands    19    - Belgium
20 - Brazil    20 Indonesia -

kbd512 · 2021-11-26 22:49:55

SpaceNut,

When I see headlines like this:

We chartered a boat with a logistics expert to look at port congestion up close and saw how American greed is leading to shortages and empty shelves

I generally stop reading, because everything that follows is one individual's opinion of tens of millions of other people he or she has never met and knows absolutely nothing about. It's hyperbolic nonsense intended to foment conflict where none previously existed.

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