Brad Cunningham

#usps PSLW INCREASES APPROVED. As predicted the change was approved although various organizations filed to have it stopped. The PRC was not 100% convinced on USPS analysis of the market share and numbers they presented and the effect to the market but moved to approve anyway. I believe that USPS is moving to have shipper negotiate directly oz based Ground Advantage NSA’s. It will be interesting to see how carriers provide new services to fill any gaps in the market. July 9 the PRC filed order #7260 -Order Acknowledging Price Adjustments for Parcel Select The ordering paragraphs include: The Commission acknowledges the proposed price changes to be consistent with applicable law.

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Three logistics companies in the San Diego were found to be paying Mexican nationals extremely low wages, as low as $2.77 per hour, according to an investigation. The Department of Labor has ordered fines and back wages to be paid by the companies. #logistics #yahoo #yahoofinance #ecommercenews #logisticsindustry #supplychain

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Want to cut freight, supply chain transport costs? Consider consolidating LTL shipments to truckload carriers. Old Dominion and Saia are feeling the pain of this trend. TFI's CEO recently said the TL market is the worst in 30 years. Shippers who are looking to lock in rates before prices rebound may want to act now. https://lnkd.in/giaxuuXa #freight #supplychain #costcutting #transportation #freightrates #trucking #shippers

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Number of the Day 781,594 Combined loaded container imports into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in April, in 20-foot equivalent units, 18.9% ahead of the same month last year and up 14.6% from March to the highest level since last September.

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If you're a brand that ships into distributors like: UNFI, KeHE, Coremark, Meijer, McLane, H-E-B, etc. you've got a few national LTL options (Old Dominion, Estes, ABF or FFE [on the temp controlled side]) and maybe a few regional options. The main reason for this boils down to the fact that most grocery warehouses are after hours receivers, which most LTL carriers don't/can't support (at least w/ out high tariffs). From there, there're three ways to navigate pricing: carrier direct rates, blanket rates from a 3PL, or CSP (customer specific pricing) from a 3PL. The alternatives are truckload moves (multipoint or direct) into these facilities. While there are 1000X more options, there isn't always price parity, especially if volumes are low. While it might seem that the choice is one or the other: LTL v. Truckload, the real solution is actually a combination of the two. There are times where it is more service and cost effective to run individualized LTL pickups and deliveries and times where it is more service and cost effective to run truckloads. So why do most brands elect for one vs. the other? In my experience it comes down to simplicity in routing, pricing, and booking. My suggested plan is as follows: 1. Establish a cadence with buyers by which POs are submitted, approved, shipped, and delivered. Most brands run weekly or biweekly replens as this is what most distributors will look for as well. 2. Establish a working timeline to review, route, price, and book shipments to ensure OTD/OTIF. Ex: Receive/aggregate POs Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday of week 1, route + price Thursday of week 1, send load tender Friday of week 1 for pickup early week 2, deliver inside of 2 week window. 3. Ensure both LTL and TL carriers understand the necessary OTP/OTD requirements. If moving truckload shipments, ensure appointment times align with time in transit, as well as service hours (10 on/10 off). 4. Ensure both LTL and TL carriers understand the POD requirements as well as expectations around lumper payments (where applicable). Make sure the PODs are proper! No use reducing cost if you can't get paid by the distributor due to improper POD documentation. While this may look like overkill, taking these precautions are necessary stop gaps to promote a smooth supply chain from pickup to final delivery. Contact us👉 sales@linkt.io

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https://lnkd.in/gRmRsEcg The article mentions that there may be an end to the good times for shippers as well as there's a solid demand for shipping capacity. #freightwaves

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Our Government agencies involved with Global Trade have robust processes to support, educate, and increase international commerce. It's disturbing to learn about bad actors blatantly not following our regulations in either import or export global business transactions and ignoring compliance requirements. Regulatory compliance is not going away anytime soon. #exportviolations #exportcompliance #audits #freightforwarding

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Many of you know I’ve long argued that FreightWaves Contract Load Acceptance Volume (CLAV.USA) metric is not a good representation of for-hire truckload freight volumes in the USA. The recent article Craig Fuller published (https://lnkd.in/gpa4CexE) lends support for my concerns. I want to draw attention to this quote: “Contracted load accepted volumes, another SONAR index measuring contracted load demand, tell us that the market has grown since January 2023. As of April 15, 2024, year-over-year contracted volumes are up 9%.” Here are two facts that raise serious validity concerns (in my professional academic opinion) that make me believe CLAV isn’t nationally representative: [1]: It doesn’t align with Q1 public truckload carrier financial results. When you look at the chart provided in the article, CLAV has been up throughout 2024 relative to 2023. Yet, you have carriers like JB Hunt hauling fewer loads (-6.8% YoY for dedicated and -5.2% for truckload) in Q1 2024 than Q1 2023. That decline can’t represent JBH turning down that much contractual business due to low rates from contractual customers. [2]: Other indexes such as Cass Shipments and For-Hire Trucking Ton-Miles aren’t showing strong YoY gains; they are showing the opposite in YoY declines of 2-4%. The trucking ton-mile index is nationally representative because it is constructed from the Commodity Flow Survey and various government data sources. Implication: while I really like FreightWaves’ Outbound Tender Rejection Index (OTRI.USA), which I believe is a good indicator of the current balance of supply and demand in the truckload sector, too many other data points result in me concluding that the underlying tender volume data are not representative of truckload freight demand. For anyone who wants to argue differently, ask yourself this: are you or most of the other carriers/brokers you know seeing 9% year-over-year increases in truckload freight volumes? JBH and Knight-Swift certainly aren’t. #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #freight #trucking #truckload #logistics

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Good Morning Friends, ⛽ We saw an increase for the first time since early April. The national average now is around $3.73/gallon. 🍉 Watermelons are currently ahead of potatoes to dominate national truckload tonnage in the past 30 days. Watermelon production in FL is up 11% year-over-year. Mexico and Texas are also ahead of last year in production. ✈ A Boeing whistleblower was told to hide faulty parts from the FAA. He claims to have been retaliated against for speaking out on the matter. 🚢 U.S. containers imports are currently their highest since 2022. June is expected to be up 15.2% year-over-year. 🏀 A few days behind on this, but the Celtics are NBA champions. They have passed their rivals, the LA Lakers, for most titles in NBA history. They are also currently the favorites to win next year at +300. Followed by the Nuggets (+750), T-Wolves (+850), Mavs (+900), and Bucks/OKC (+1000). Do you think Boston will repeat? Let's chat about how KCH can provide value to your logistics operations! 📲 (423) 443-0845 📩 Mherring@kchtrans.com #logistics #supplychain #KCHtransportation

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Many of you know I frequently disagree with FreightWaves regarding their continually revisions to their predictions of when the truckload market will turn, and I also challenge that their tender volume data are representative for all of truckload operations. However, one thing I do agree with them about is that the American Trucking Associations continually claims about a systematic shortage of truck drivers are incorrect. That said, this article from today (https://lnkd.in/gt4fmJep) caught my attention. A few thoughts: •FW's isn't pulling punches in stating "the bill [H.R. 3013] is intended to rectify the shortage of truckload drivers — an oft-repeated myth of the ATA, and one for which the organization’s projections are revised frequently — there is no real urgency behind its advancement. •And no punches pulled with, "Based on its results this Congress, the American Trucking Associations’ lobbying efforts make it look less like a Machiavellian operator, pulling strings in the halls of power, and more like another Washington grifter — a shop that raises a lot of money, pays its staff well and takes congresspeople to dinner, but gets little done." Implication: regarding this story, grabs🍿and waits for the ATA to respond. #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #freight #trucking #truckload #transportation

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Headlines about layoffs rightly cause much concern and consternation in the trucking industry (e.g., https://lnkd.in/g9useTDD). However, it is critical to understand that this tells only half the story because a substantial percentage of trucking layoffs occur because a firm loses a key customer account. What that means is that the firm which won the business will often expand (which tends not to be reported). Below I wanted to document just how prevalent such reallocation of jobs is in trucking using population-level data from administrative records for all employer firms in truck transportation via the Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) program. Data from https://lnkd.in/gVr6BbRW for all carriers. Thoughts: •The chart shows three series. The job creation rate is the jobs added by the subset of carriers that expanded or started operations in year t relative to t-1 divided by the average employment across all carriers in years t and t-1. Analogously, the job destruction rate is defined as the jobs lost due to carriers that downsized or exited in year t relative to t-1 divided by the average employment across all carriers in years t and t-1. The Net Rate of Job Change is the difference between the series and represents the percent change in employment for a given year. Data cover 1978 – 2021, with each data point representing change for that year relative to the prior year (e.g., 1978’s data point compares March 1978 data with March 1977 data). •What I want to emphasize: even when the net rate of job change is relatively low (e.g., 4.3% for March 2019 vs March 2018), this hides that there is a much higher rate of jobs being reallocated across carriers. For example, that 4.3% March 2019 figure hides a 14.9% job creation rate and a 10.6% job destruction rate. •Consequently, what economists call excessive job reallocation in 2019 was 21.2%, which represents the sum of job creation and destruction rates (14.9 + 10.6) less the absolute value of the net change in jobs (4.3), ergo 25.5 – 4.3 = 21.2. That is a lot of reshuffling of jobs across firms. Implication: Trucking jobs are reshuffled across carriers all the time. Focusing only on layoffs misses that firms which win new contracts are likely to expand. #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #freight #trucking #truckload #logistics #transportation

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𝐎𝐚𝐤𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝’𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 The Port of Oakland’s April container volume showed a 17% increase in full TEUs for the first four months of 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year. Full exports also increased 6.9% in April 2024. Port operators managed 67,566 TEUs this April, in contrast to 63,193 TEUs in April 2023. Greater schedule reliability for vessels is bringing back agricultural shippers that rely on predictable ship departures, according to a statement. Meanwhile, empty imports dropped 0.4% transiting 16,357 TEUs in April 2024, while empty exports jumped 18.7%, handling 29,375 TEUs in April 2024.

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Less Than Truckload (LTL) is becoming a smart choice for businesses, offering access to specialized services, cost savings, and reduced environmental impact, along with flexibility and advanced tracking. Discover the power of LTL in optimizing your supply chain and boosting profitability in our latest blog. #SupplyChainOptimization  #Logistics #LTL

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