[May 18, 2017] |
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Transportation & Economic Issues Addressed During Transplace's 15th Annual Shipper Symposium
Transplace,
a leading provider of transportation management services and logistics
technology, wrapped up its 15th annual Shipper Symposium in
Austin, TX last week. Former Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration (FMCSA) Annette Sandberg and other leading supply
chain and business visionaries addressed current transportation and
economic issues, including big data analytics, and the regulatory and
safety landscapes within the industry.
"Shippers are continuously looking for ways to navigate the wide range
of challenges impacting their supply chain," said Frank McGuigan,
president and chief operating officer, Transplace. "With this year's
event, we wanted to bring together a diverse group of logistics,
technology and economic experts, including Annette Sandberg, Dr. Alan
Beaulieu, Paul Zikopoulos and Ken Gronbach, to examine the most pressing
global trends and issues impacting their businesses, and share supply
chain strategies and best practices that can drive meaningful change
within their organizations."
Event Highlights
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Transportation Trends and Industry Insights: Sandberg joined
Transplace CEO Tom Sanderson and Sword & Sea Transport Advisors LLC
President Thom Albrecht to discuss transportation trends and the
industry regulatory and safety landscapes within the industry.
According to Albrecht, transportation capacity should begin to tighten
a bit later this year and will continue to be impacted by the growth
of ecommerce - specifically Amazon. He projects that Amazon will
solidify its presence in the food distribution market within the next
three to four years, and drive additional density to the rest of its
network; leading to standard delivery going from two days to next day
and, ultimately, same day. He stated "We'll [likely] see another round
of brick and mortar stores shut down, which will impact the grocery
industry. And online spending, instead of nine percent of retail, will
be 20 percent, and this will have a profound impact upon freight
distributions and patterns."
Additionally, according to
Sandberg, "The regulatory landscape has basically just stopped
completely" - in part due to President Trump's executive order
requiring government agencies to evaluate the financial impact of
regulations before they can go into effect. As a result, Sandberg
believes that many regulations, including those concerning sleep
apnea, heavy vehicle speed limiters, entr-level driver training and
the Carrier Safety Fitness Determination, are not likely to move
forward - at least under the current administration. However, the
electronic logging device (ELD) mandate is final and will go into
effect December 26, 2017.
While many in the industry are
concerned about the impact on driver utilization, Sanderson believes
that the industry will adapt, adding, "It's a little like 2004 with
the rules change and everyone was concerned that we were going to lose
capacity. But the shippers and the receivers got smarter and realized
you can't tie up that driver at the loading dock or unloading dock.
You can't waste the legal hours that are available to drivers. I think
we'll see a response in a similar fashion that pulls that productivity
back."
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Future Tech Trends: Paul Zikopoulos, vice president of big data
analytics for IBM (News - Alert), examined the collection and use of big data for
better decision-making and to meet the growing needs of consumers.
Zikopoulos highlighted that only a percentage of data is used to make
any kind of decision. "We're in this world awash with data - we have
got to move ahead in our data acumen." He explained how data analytics
creates massive disruption because of the "holy trinity" of social,
mobile and cloud, adding, "It's these three things that have come
together that have burst open the opportunity for analytics, yet we're
not even taking advantage of the analytics that we could before these
trends."
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A Good Year Ahead: 2017 Economic Outlook: Economist Alan
Beaulieu examined the current global economy and shared what companies
can expect going forward. According to Beaulieu, the economy has shown
signs of improvement since 2016, and leading indicators show that
total manufacturing is likely to pick up speed. He stated, "You're
going to see more manufacturing, which means you're going to see more
freight."
Even as manufacturing and freight volumes
improve, labor will likely remain a challenge. Trucking companies will
continue to compete for labor against manufacturers, HVAC contractors
and other industries that offer higher wages and do not require
individuals to be away from home for extended periods of time.
Beaulieu added that the only way to do that effectively is to pay
drivers more - and do so as an industry group in order to attract
fresh people to the industry, "instead of just stealing from each
other."
The next Shipper
Symposium will be held in Frisco, TX, May 8-10, 2018.
About Transplace
Transplace is a North American non-asset based logistics services
provider offering manufacturers, retailers, chemical and consumer
packaged goods companies the optimal blend of logistics technology and
transportation management services. The company is the premier provider
of managed transportation, consulting & TMS solutions; and intermodal,
truck brokerage, and cross-border trade services. With operations
centers located throughout North America, Transplace delivers integrated
solutions tailored to meet in-county and cross-border supply chain
needs. The company is recognized among the elite 3PLs for its proven
ability to deliver both rapid return on investment and consistent value
to a customer base ranging from mid-market shippers to Fortune 500
companies.
Follow the company on Twitter (News - Alert), Facebook and the Transplace Industry Blog:
http://blog.transplace.com
http://logisticallyspeakingblog.com
http://twitter.com/transplace
http://www.facebook.com/Transplace
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170518006028/en/
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