I wish to share with our North American contacts this article from Supply Chain 24/7 which indicates a substantial loss in trucking productivity due to the HOS regulation. Although the article makes no mention of whether the new regulation has had any impact on driver fatigue, it does send a clear warning to all warehousing operations: rates will go up and you need to get your house in order.
Interesting statistic regarding shipper/carrier collaboration; although 66 percent of shippers indicated trying to obtain efficiencies through collaboration efforts with their carriers, only 4% realized high levels of success.
The article suggests one of the solutions is increased intermodal shipping. Intermodal, while a legitimate option, has not been able to respond to the ever-increasing service levels imposed on the transportation industry. The solution, in my opinion, is incomplete unless one takes a careful look at the process by which a warehouse manages their live and drop loads.
Carriers have done much to improve their efficiencies in order to prevent rates from rising. Conversely warehouse operations have not done their share to optimize their usage of transportation resources. We fully expect that warehouses will need to revaluate their dock scheduling and yard management processes if they want to seriously talk about shipper-carrier collaboration.
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