June 2016

Ever-changing regulations are making it risky for U.S. companies engaged in cross-border trade endeavors, experts say. However, savvy shippers are paying better attention to the details and are finding solutions that save time, money and frustration.

The briefly considered merger of the Norfolk Southern (NS) and Canadian Pacific (CP) railroads is illustrative of the changes rail shippers should be watching for in both intermodal and bulk rail services.

Over the last few years, Logistics Management (LM) has championed the concept of evolving shipper/carrier/service provider collaboration—the idea that breaking down the walls of communication and creating transparency among all partners in a logistics network will yield process improvements and new efficiencies throughout the entire supply chain.

With the complex economic and global trade environment pushing rates higher and capacity tighter, shippers and their procurement teams are under pressure to nail down the right suppliers and transportation partners—while squeezing as much value as possible out of their transportation network.

In the wildly unstable ocean cargo carrier arena, three major consortia are fighting for market share, with some players simply hanging on for survival. Meanwhile, shippers may expect deployment shifts as a consequence of the Panama Canal expansion.

With no end in sight to the e-commerce explosion, warehouse and DC operators will continue their push to automate. However, the current proliferation of technology is making the right solution choice more difficult than ever.

By enabling collaboration and optimization across previously siloed functions, supply chain software convergence helps shippers better leverage their IT investments across the enterprise. Here’s how the concept has evolved—and the vendors that have jumped into the game.

In a masterpiece of collaboration, Birdsong discovers an intermodal route to China in an innovative solution that melds rail, port and ocean carrier partners to handle unexpectedly large export needs.

Following last year’s merger and acquisition frenzy, the speed of technology implementation by the new “mega 3PLs” will need to keep pace with the evolving challenges of omni-channel fulfillment. Those providers that meet shipper needs will remain dominant.