by Matt Miller Jan 30, 2017
Stretching garment sourcing
The shift in garment production to “frontier” manufacturing is stretching garment sourcing in ways few would have imagined a decade ago. China is being forced to move up the value chain, under siege from garment apparel manufacturers in countries like Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. For logistic providers, this requires a global re-stitching of supply chains.
Backloading forest products opens up new possibilities for lumber logistics
Green Cargo AB, Sweden’s freight rail company has a new idea. It has been backloading a few trail cars that carry new vehicles to car dealers in the north of the country with sawn lumber headed south to the Port of Malmö. While the volume is still small, the backhaul transport opens up a wealth of possibilities for lumber logistics around the world.
The auto industry is critical for the Port of Charleston in ways both obvious and not
With a mammoth BMW manufacturing plant 200 miles inland, the Port of Charleston exported about 270,000 cars last year. That doesn’t include a growing number of semi-knocked down and completely knocked down vehicles that are stuffed into containers and exported for assembly elsewhere in the developing world. In addition, Charleston handled tens of thousands of containers packed with auto parts.
The fine tuning of auto logistics
For cars manufacturing, the North American region is becoming ever more integrated, boosted by near-sourcing and propelled by ever-growing demands for faster and leaner production. Manufacturers in the US, Canada and Mexico make thousands of separate car parts, stuffing containers that zip across the countries, linking parts manufacturers with car assemblers and each other.
Fluff pulp niche growing against the grain
The “fluff pulp” sector of the forest products is running against the grain, with anticipated growth averages forecast to be in the range of 3.6%-3.7% against less than 2% for other pulps products. This potential return has the paper giants angling for market share.
US wind power boom
US onshore wind generation is booming with tax equipment incentives instrumental in ‘land banking’ wind power projects. With so much capacity being installed on land, can an offshore wind power boom be far behind?
Port competition in Southern China heats up
Port competition in Southern China for a share of the liner shipping business is fierce. Hong Kong and other south China ports compete not only among themselves, but also with northern rivals like Shanghai and Ningbo. Now with terminal overcapacity and a softening Chinese economy, that competition is destined to heat up even more.
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