I have long admired the risk management skills of supply chain managers. The companies involved in maximizing smooth transportation handoffs from one transportation mode to another can overcome threats to the smooth flow of cargo. But there has been severe breakage in the supply chains because of global COVID shutdowns, rising consumer demand, and global economic downturns. These breakages upset even the best-planned risk management strategies and warrant rethinking supply chain dynamics.
Ships waiting offshore in long lines, threatened railroad strikes, a shortage of truck drivers, a lack of trailers for containers at shipping terminals, and too few empty containers for outbound cargo have all made headlines. These headlines accurately reflect the challenges of transporting containerized cargo and shipping bulk cargoes, including soybeans, other grains, and coal.
Ideally, integrated logistics planning and execution result in an optimized, smooth, timely, cost-effective, and profitable handoff of cargo from one mode to the next in the chain. But things can go wrong, even the weather! Recent intense weather events have destroyed transportation infrastructure and operational networks. Sudden torrential rains, multi-regional tornadoes, rapidly spreading fires, and persistent drought are wreaking havoc on communities and their transportation systems.
Weather forecasting tries to adjust to these conditions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information has produced a Weather and Climate Toolkit. This toolkit offers software export data, e.g., maps, images, and movies. To keep up to date, I recommend analysts of supply chain risk management systems look at the tools to see if they might enhance their systems.
Optimizing labor utilization during labor shortages is challenging for operators and labor alike. Another challenge is scheduling labor’s work at the right place and time. Every supply chain operator wants labor to be available when needed, while the workers need to know their schedules in advance to plan their life’s needs around the work. Both operator and labor apparently want the same thing – certainty in scheduling. One union participated in forming an information-sharing system so they could plan labor assignments every week rather than as a daily one.
The Information-sharing systems use a system initially set up at one deepwater coastal port. Port officials created a software data-sharing site I call the “black box.” Each company enters its proprietary modal information on goods movements along the supply chain into the “box” without attribution to its source. The data is updated hourly and even by the minute in some cases. The consolidated data output reports by mode and operations, which are displayed on a website dashboard.
The “black box” data offers logistics planners a comprehensive real-time view of the supply chain. The process supports a problem-solving culture rather than a confrontational one in a highly competitive environment.
This consolidated end-to-end view of goods moving along the supply chain offers an early warning system for bottlenecks and disruptions. While this new “black box” is proprietary property, the model can be designed and adapted for other transportation supply chains. Additional ports have developed similar systems to suit their individual operating model.
The US Climate Resilience Toolkit and the “black box” concept generate new means of assessing risk because they are using real-time data. Logistics analysts and planners must constantly respond to clients’ shifting demands while anticipating and mitigating actions that will disrupt their plans. This is the nature of this dynamic, fascinating world of supply chains and movements of goods throughout the United States and worldwide.
Joan B. Yim has been a leader in community-based planning and intermodal transportation for over 40 years. In 1993, President Clinton appointed her …