Ports struggle to right the ship after unprecedented peak season
An inexorable march of containerships arriving from Asia has stressed U.S. ports like never before, resulting in record peak-season cargo volumes. As the surge rolls on into 2022, what does the recovery roadmap look like?
Gary Frantz is a contributing editor for DC Velocity and its sister publication CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly, and a veteran communications executive with more than 30 years of experience in the transportation and logistics industries. He's served as communications director and strategic media relations counselor for companies including XPO Logistics, Con-way, Menlo Logistics, GT Nexus, Circle International Group, and Consolidated Freightways. Gary is currently principal of GNF Communications LLC, a consultancy providing freelance writing, editorial and media strategy services. He's a proud graduate of the Journalism program at California State University–Chico.
After what has seemed like a never-ending peak season, with maritime operators and ports processing record container volumes and managing through unprecedented delays and congestion, there are signs that the historic surge in freight may be starting to moderate. And that’s good news for ports, dray operators, intermodal carriers, and truckers, who have battled to keep products moving through supply chains and onto store shelves with some level of fluidity.
Since mid-2020, consumer spending and surging e-commerce activity have underpinned what by many accounts has been a remarkably quick, strong, and sustained economic recovery. Job creation has reached record levels, while unemployment has dipped below the mid-single digits. And while the emergence of Covid variants and rising inflation remain a concern, they don’t seem to have curtailed consumers’ appetite for goods, with this past peak season setting records for e-commerce sales and marking a strong rebound for retail brick-and-mortar stores.
NOT IN THE CLEAR YET
Yet there are still clouds on the horizon that foreshadow some continued tough sledding ahead as the industry moves through the first half of the new year.
Among those still feeling the pain are drayage truckers on the West Coast. “Cargo is moving, but a lot of it is going on the rail, and we are still drowning in empties,” says Matt Schrap, president of the Long Beach, California-based Harbor Trucking Association, which represents drayage operators serving Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, and the Pacific Northwest ports. Dealing with empty containers “has become the real issue at the end of the day.”
With the sustained surge in cargo, communication and coordination between ship lines, ports, and drayage operators is more challenging than ever, Schrap notes. “We have six different appointment systems across 12 different marine terminals” that drayage truckers have to work with, he says. “Better coordination would be helpful, but every [terminal and ship line] operates so differently it lends itself to inefficiency,” Schrap explains.
Then there are local, regional, and national regulatory pressures, and the emergence of digital brokerage platforms, all of which are impacting the driver experience, their profitability, and truck capacity. “It’s an expensive profession that’s only going to get more so,” Schrap says. “The old joke is [the way] to make a small fortune in trucking is to start with a large one.”
HOPE ON THE HORIZON
Nevertheless, Mario Cordero, executive director at the Port of Long Beach, cites improvements in throughput and shorter wait times for boxes to be unloaded and moved out of the port. In early December, the San Pedro Bay had 67 container vessels at anchor, “less than the 86 we had two weeks ago,” Cordero noted. Cargo has been moving faster out of the terminals, he says, citing a reduction of more than 30% in containers sitting nine days or more. Terminals are running 19 hours a day, striving to get containers and truckers in and out as quickly as possible.
At the Port of Los Angeles, the backlog of containers has dropped to 71,000 from 95,000 in late October, and the numbers continue to improve, noted Gene Seroka, the port’s executive director.
Both Cordero and Seroka say the late-October announcement that the two ports would begin imposing a container dwell fee, essentially a penalty on long-sitting containers, is producing results. Under the temporary penalty program—implementation of which continues to be delayed in response to improving dwell times—ocean carriers could be charged $100 per day for each container left at the terminal for more than nine days while waiting for a truck. The charge for containers awaiting movement by rail comes into play for units sitting on the dock six days or more.
Before the pandemic, the average dwell time for containers awaiting pickup by truck was under four days, with containers headed to trains waiting two days.
Seroka, during an early December press conference, said, “Since we instituted a penalty for long-aging containers, the number of ships at anchor has decreased by more than 40% over a four-week period. We have not collected a nickel of that penalty yet. We put it out there to motivate people, and it has done just that.” In another media interview, the Port of Long Beach’s Cordero said, “I think it’s a fair representation that there’s been progress … [and] vessels at anchor have been diminished.”
Arriving ships to Southern California are allowed to hold at anchor inside a designated 40-mile zone, waiting for a berth to open. In mid-November, local authorities established a new Safety and Air Quality Area (SAQA) that extends 150 miles to the west of the ports and 50 miles to the north and south.
Data compiled by the Marine Exchange of Southern California showed some 44 containerships waiting within the 40-mile zone in early December. Other estimates calculated using Marine Exchange data put the number of containerships waiting outside the SAQA at 50.
Another action taken by the ports in a bid to reduce the container backlog was going to 24/7 container pickup and delivery operations. While in concept it seemed a good idea, in practice not so much. With port operations already running 19 hours a day, “we have had very few takers to date,” said Seroka. “We’ve had some hurdles to overcome. It’s an effort to get this entire orchestra of supply chain players … on the same calendar.”
All of the issues faced by ports—surging cargo volumes, congestion, equipment shortages, delays—are not new, notes Cordero. They’ve just been supercharged by the pandemic and the rapid economic recovery. Cordero cites one clear lesson: “We all understand how [vulnerable] the supply chain was to an unforeseen event.”
SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM
Lawrence Gross, founder and president of Gross Transportation Consulting and a 40-year veteran of the industry, agrees that the economy’s remarkably fast and strong recovery from the pandemic caught everyone by surprise. “We’ve never [before] woken the economy up from a medically induced coma,” he says, comparing this recovery to the years it took the economy to recover after the dot-com bust and then the 2007 housing crash and recession. This time, “things came back fast and hard.” And for maritime operators dealing with a sustained, unprecedented surge in cargo, “once you fall behind, it becomes exponentially harder to catch up. You need more resources just to stay even.”
He also cites the role of the containership lines. “Ocean carriers’ only concern is port to port,” Gross says. “They had zero concern with what happens after they unload the container from the ship. They went from blank [canceled] sailings to extra loaders and dumped all this extra volume into the system.”
Now, with empty containers clogging up the ports, “ocean carriers are not evacuating them [quickly enough] because they are not willing to suboptimize their operations to help solve the problem,” Gross says. Then there is today’s market where ocean carriers, after years of losses, are reporting all-time record profits. “To put it bluntly, I’m not sure the ocean carriers have been incented to change their practices at all,” Gross notes.
BUSINESS AS USUAL
What sometimes gets lost in the accounts of port logjams is that it’s not a universal affliction. For some U.S. ports, it’s been business as usual. “We are thankfully not having the types of problems that they are experiencing on the West Coast and the South Atlantic,” says Beth Rooney, deputy port director for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. “When it comes to ships at anchor, we have been seeing onesies and twosies [of ships waiting for a berth]. Year to date, the amount of time ships have waited at anchor is less than a day and a half.”
As for why the relatively short wait times, she says the facility is seeing the benefits of years of strategic expansion and the extra capacity that has given the port authority. “We are seeing about a 21% to 22% increase in cargo year over year, closely aligned with what other gateway ports are seeing,” she notes. “Capacity in the terminals has been [sufficient] to keep the ship traffic flowing,” Rooney says.
Nonetheless, the local port community has faced its share of logistics challenges. Like many ports dealing with surging inbound cargoes and record empties, availability of chassis, or “wheels,” to move containers in and out of the port remains tight. Street dwell times, or the days a container on a chassis sits somewhere outside the port and is not available to pick up the next import, are running 15 to 20 days, well above the normal five- to six-day average, Rooney notes. Inside the port, the normal four days a container would sit on port property has grown to as much as eight days.
In conversations with shippers, Rooney is finding that street dwell time is rising simply because warehouses are full. “They don’t have the capacity to turn the container. Their store shelves are empty, but they cannot fit another spatula into the warehouse,” which, Rooney says, is indicative of issues with available domestic trucking resources—the link in the chain that moves goods from warehouses to stores or e-commerce fulfillment centers.
As for the new year, Rooney doesn’t expect volumes to moderate anytime soon. “Ocean carriers are seeing strong bookings well past the Chinese New Year and well into the second half of 2022. Shippers are saying the same things. They continue to order earlier than they normally would, are ordering more, or both,” Rooney says.
One fact Rooney says has become crystal clear over the past year: the value of the truck driver, and the challenges drivers face in running a successful business. She believes ports and maritime operators need to be much more supportive, communicative, and collaborative.
“The truck driver and the experience that driver has while in the port is a very important piece of the equation that we may not have been as focused on in the past as we needed to be,” Rooney says. “Providing a good experience for that trucker entering and exiting the port is going to be critical to retaining those we have and attracting more to the profession—especially when you consider the volumes we expect in the future.”
Progress in generative AI (GenAI) is poised to impact business procurement processes through advancements in three areas—agentic reasoning, multimodality, and AI agents—according to Gartner Inc.
Those functions will redefine how procurement operates and significantly impact the agendas of chief procurement officers (CPOs). And 72% of procurement leaders are already prioritizing the integration of GenAI into their strategies, thus highlighting the recognition of its potential to drive significant improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, Gartner found in a survey conducted in July, 2024, with 258 global respondents.
Gartner defined the new functions as follows:
Agentic reasoning in GenAI allows for advanced decision-making processes that mimic human-like cognition. This capability will enable procurement functions to leverage GenAI to analyze complex scenarios and make informed decisions with greater accuracy and speed.
Multimodality refers to the ability of GenAI to process and integrate multiple forms of data, such as text, images, and audio. This will make GenAI more intuitively consumable to users and enhance procurement's ability to gather and analyze diverse information sources, leading to more comprehensive insights and better-informed strategies.
AI agents are autonomous systems that can perform tasks and make decisions on behalf of human operators. In procurement, these agents will automate procurement tasks and activities, freeing up human resources to focus on strategic initiatives, complex problem-solving and edge cases.
As CPOs look to maximize the value of GenAI in procurement, the study recommended three starting points: double down on data governance, develop and incorporate privacy standards into contracts, and increase procurement thresholds.
“These advancements will usher procurement into an era where the distance between ideas, insights, and actions will shorten rapidly,” Ryan Polk, senior director analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Procurement leaders who build their foundation now through a focus on data quality, privacy and risk management have the potential to reap new levels of productivity and strategic value from the technology."
Businesses are cautiously optimistic as peak holiday shipping season draws near, with many anticipating year-over-year sales increases as they continue to battle challenging supply chain conditions.
That’s according to the DHL 2024 Peak Season Shipping Survey, released today by express shipping service provider DHL Express U.S. The company surveyed small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to gauge their holiday business outlook compared to last year and found that a mix of optimism and “strategic caution” prevail ahead of this year’s peak.
Nearly half (48%) of the SMEs surveyed said they expect higher holiday sales compared to 2023, while 44% said they expect sales to remain on par with last year, and just 8% said they foresee a decline. Respondents said the main challenges to hitting those goals are supply chain problems (35%), inflation and fluctuating consumer demand (34%), staffing (16%), and inventory challenges (14%).
But respondents said they have strategies in place to tackle those issues. Many said they began preparing for holiday season earlier this year—with 45% saying they started planning in Q2 or earlier, up from 39% last year. Other strategies include expanding into international markets (35%) and leveraging holiday discounts (32%).
Sixty percent of respondents said they will prioritize personalized customer service as a way to enhance customer interactions and loyalty this year. Still others said they will invest in enhanced web and mobile experiences (23%) and eco-friendly practices (13%) to draw customers this holiday season.
That challenge is one of the reasons that fewer shoppers overall are satisfied with their shopping experiences lately, Lincolnshire, Illinois-based Zebra said in its “17th Annual Global Shopper Study.”th Annual Global Shopper Study.” While 85% of shoppers last year were satisfied with both the in-store and online experiences, only 81% in 2024 are satisfied with the in-store experience and just 79% with online shopping.
In response, most retailers (78%) say they are investing in technology tools that can help both frontline workers and those watching operations from behind the scenes to minimize theft and loss, Zebra said.
Just 38% of retailers currently use AI-based prescriptive analytics for loss prevention, but a much larger 50% say they plan to use it in the next 1-3 years. That was followed by self-checkout cameras and sensors (45%), computer vision (46%), and RFID tags and readers (42%) that are planned for use within the next three years, specifically for loss prevention.
Those strategies could help improve the brick and mortar shopping experience, since 78% of shoppers say it’s annoying when products are locked up or secured within cases. Adding to that frustration is that it’s hard to find an associate while shopping in stores these days, according to 70% of consumers. In response, some just walk out; one in five shoppers has left a store without getting what they needed because a retail associate wasn’t available to help, an increase over the past two years.
The survey also identified additional frustrations faced by retailers and associates:
challenges with offering easy options for click-and-collect or returns, despite high shopper demand for them
the struggle to confirm current inventory and pricing
lingering labor shortages and increasing loss incidents, even as shoppers return to stores
“Many retailers are laying the groundwork to build a modern store experience,” Matt Guiste, Global Retail Technology Strategist, Zebra Technologies, said in a release. “They are investing in mobile and intelligent automation technologies to help inform operational decisions and enable associates to do the things that keep shoppers happy.”
The survey was administered online by Azure Knowledge Corporation and included 4,200 adult shoppers (age 18+), decision-makers, and associates, who replied to questions about the topics of shopper experience, device and technology usage, and delivery and fulfillment in store and online.
Supply chains are poised for accelerated adoption of mobile robots and drones as those technologies mature and companies focus on implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and automation across their logistics operations.
That’s according to data from Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Mobile Robots and Drones, released this week. The report shows that several mobile robotics technologies will mature over the next two to five years, and also identifies breakthrough and rising technologies set to have an impact further out.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle is a graphical depiction of a common pattern that arises with each new technology or innovation through five phases of maturity and adoption. Chief supply chain officers can use the research to find robotic solutions that meet their needs, according to Gartner.
Gartner, Inc.
The mobile robotic technologies set to mature over the next two to five years are: collaborative in-aisle picking robots, light-cargo delivery robots, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for transport, mobile robotic goods-to-person systems, and robotic cube storage systems.
“As organizations look to further improve logistic operations, support automation and augment humans in various jobs, supply chain leaders have turned to mobile robots to support their strategy,” Dwight Klappich, VP analyst and Gartner fellow with the Gartner Supply Chain practice, said in a statement announcing the findings. “Mobile robots are continuing to evolve, becoming more powerful and practical, thus paving the way for continued technology innovation.”
Technologies that are on the rise include autonomous data collection and inspection technologies, which are expected to deliver benefits over the next five to 10 years. These include solutions like indoor-flying drones, which utilize AI-enabled vision or RFID to help with time-consuming inventory management, inspection, and surveillance tasks. The technology can also alleviate safety concerns that arise in warehouses, such as workers counting inventory in hard-to-reach places.
“Automating labor-intensive tasks can provide notable benefits,” Klappich said. “With AI capabilities increasingly embedded in mobile robots and drones, the potential to function unaided and adapt to environments will make it possible to support a growing number of use cases.”
Humanoid robots—which resemble the human body in shape—are among the technologies in the breakthrough stage, meaning that they are expected to have a transformational effect on supply chains, but their mainstream adoption could take 10 years or more.
“For supply chains with high-volume and predictable processes, humanoid robots have the potential to enhance or supplement the supply chain workforce,” Klappich also said. “However, while the pace of innovation is encouraging, the industry is years away from general-purpose humanoid robots being used in more complex retail and industrial environments.”
An eight-year veteran of the Georgia company, Hakala will begin his new role on January 1, when the current CEO, Tero Peltomäki, will retire after a long and noteworthy career, continuing as a member of the board of directors, Cimcorp said.
According to Hakala, automation is an inevitable course in Cimcorp’s core sectors, and the company’s end-to-end capabilities will be crucial for clients’ success. In the past, both the tire and grocery retail industries have automated individual machines and parts of their operations. In recent years, automation has spread throughout the facilities, as companies want to be able to see their entire operation with one look, utilize analytics, optimize processes, and lead with data.
“Cimcorp has always grown by starting small in the new business segments. We’ve created one solution first, and as we’ve gained more knowledge of our clients’ challenges, we have been able to expand,” Hakala said in a release. “In every phase, we aim to bring our experience to the table and even challenge the client’s initial perspective. We are interested in what our client does and how it could be done better and more efficiently.”