Consultants

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

     The advisory and research company Drewry said shippers should expect reliability levels to fall as rates rise, if recent research is an indicator.    “When rates have been good for carriers, reliability has been below par, while the two best on-time results have occurred in periods when prices have been on the floor,” Drewry Supply Chain Advisors said in its February Logistics Executive Briefing. “While the historical results do leave plenty of room for improvement, it is c...

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

     Government logistics services provider LMI will establish a southeast region office via its recent acquisiton of Belzon Inc., a government consultancy in Huntsville, Ala.    LMI, which focuses on defense and intelligence, health care, homeland security, energy and environment, and civil government work, said the purchase was finalized, but did not disclose financial terms.    Belzon has done work in logistics planning, readiness management, program ...

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

   London-based advisory and research company Drewry said Tuesday it has opened a new office in Shanghai.    “Through this new site, Drewry is now better placed to serve key clients, while also using local market knowledge to support international clients,” the company said. “Drewry is no stranger to the Chinese market, having built long-established relationships over the past decade and completed numerous assignments for leading organisations, while also jointly organising the annual...

Monday, February 20, 2012

   Georgia officials are eyeing a bankrupt paper mill on the St. Mary's River in Camden County as a possible site for a third port, according to two local newspapers.    Camden County Development Authority Executive Director David Keating recommended to lawmakers that the state buy the 720-acre site of the defunct mill for $12 million and turn it into a port, the Morris News Service reported Thursday. He also presented his plan to Gov. Nathan Deal and the Georgia Ports Authority,...

Friday, February 17, 2012

     A study by Pike Research, a market research and consulting firm, found that intelligent transportation systems (ITS) will continue to see increased investment worldwide despite tightening purse strings.    Pike estimates global investments in smart transport technology will reach $13.1 billion from 2011 through 2017.    ITS, also called smart transportation systems, includes electric vehicles, vehicles with advanced telematics systems, new and ...

Friday, February 17, 2012

   The Johannesburg, South Africa-based Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) and Imperial Logistics, a logistics services provider, have launched a Supply Chain and Logistics Program to provide teaching and research in the fields of logistics, supply chain management, and transportation management.    The goal of the program is to raise awareness of supply chain management systems for firms in the Southern and greater Africa regions, and also create supply chain ...

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

   Leavitt Partners and Park City Group have paired to create a joint solution to improve supply chain visibility for food and drug safety.    The partnership will leverage Park City’s product "synchronization" technology that maintains inventories, tracks product movement, and is used to settle financial transactions among buyers.    Leavitt Partners, a health care and food safety consulting firm, said the firms will start with a database of seller and b...

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

     Direct liner carrier service competition has a significant impact on the spread between high and low rate levels, according to research from SeaIntel Maritime Analysis.    “We have investigated the difference in freight rates across 130 individual port-port trades from Asia to the U.S. East and West coasts,” the Copenhagen-based analyst said in this week’s issue of its weekly newsletter SeaIntel Sunday Spotlight . “We then matched this rate difference against the competitiv...

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

   Parsons Binckerhoff has appointed Phillip Girandola to director of ports and marine in the U.S. Northeast.     New York-based Parsons Brinckerhoff is a global infrastructure consulting, planning, engineering and program/construction management firm.    Girandola has more than 27 years of experience as an engineering consultant and construction contractor in marine and heavy civil projects.

Friday, February 10, 2012

     Asia-to-Europe container volume rose 3.3 percent in 2011, according to figures released this week by Container Trade Statistics, which compiles self-reported volumes from the major lines on trades to and from Europe.    Volume reached 13.9 million TEUs in the year, up from 13.5 million in 2010. That included a 0.8 percent rise year-on-year in December to 1.2 million TEUs, but a 0.5 percent drop in the fourth quarter to 3.4 million TEUs.    Europe-to-Asia volume ro...

Friday, February 10, 2012

     According to new research from analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of active remote container tracking units used on intermodal shipping containers reached 77,000 in the last quarter of 2011.    Berg Insight predicts a compound annual growth rate of 66.9 percent, projecting that 1 million trackers will be in use by 2016. This growth would see the penetration rate of tracking systems in the total container population rise from 0.4 percent in 2011 to 3.6 percent in 2016. &n...

Friday, February 10, 2012

     The Defense Trade Advisory Group (DTAG), a private-sector panel that provides advice to the federal government on the policy and regulation of U.S. defense trade, is now accepting membership applications for the upcoming 2012-2014 term.    “Membership on this panel presents an exciting opportunity to participate in the administration’s Export Control Reform Initiative, seeking to better align the export control process with emerging global security challenges,” the State De...

Thursday, February 09, 2012

     Drewry, a maritime research firm, said the car carrier industry is "better positioned than most others in the shipping industry, who suffer from large newbuilding orderbooks, to weather a double-dip recession."    Publicizing a new report on the sector, Drewry said "the downturn hurt car-carrying vessels, with capacity utilization falling significantly," but added "operators are now less likely to charter tonnage for long periods, instead placing an emphasis on fu...

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

     A highly critical report  on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, released on Tuesday, described the agency as a "challenged and dysfunctional organization suffering from a lack of consistent leadership, a siloed underlying bureaucracy, poorly coordinated capital planning processes, insufficient cost controls, and a lack of transparent and effective oversight of the World Trade Center (the “WTC”) program that has obscured full awareness of billions of dollars in exposu...

Monday, February 06, 2012

     Container service reliability reached a new high in the final quarter of 2011 with an on-time average of 69 percent across all the trades covered by the maritime consultant Drewry in its latest Schedule Reliability Insight report.    On-time reliability improved by 6 percent over the previous quarter, meaning that schedule reliability has improved for three consecutive quarters. But despite the positive results, the report points out that when the previous record of 68 perc...

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

   The Urban Institute has established a multi-dimensional Infrastructure Initiative designed to inform the public and government officials about the important tradeoffs in developing, operating, maintaining and financing the nation's core systems that support society.    The research effort will examine the fiscal, social and environmental costs and benefits of policy choices at all levels of government related to transportation, electrical, water, sewer, wireless and broadband ...

Friday, January 27, 2012

     Total 2011 container volume at the major U.S. West Coast ports fell by 0.8 percent year-on-year, according to the maritime consultant Dynamar.    Collective volume at Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, and Tacoma dropped to 19.1 million TEUs, compared to 19.2 million TEUs in 2010.    As previously reported by American Shipper , Los Angeles saw volume rise 1.4 percent, while Long Beach volume fell 3.2 percent in 2011, mostly thanks to volume switching ...

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

     Neil Dekker, head of container research for London-based Drewry, said interest in index-linked shipping contracts may grow this year because of continuing volatility in shipping rates and the possibility that rates may spike later this year.    Speaking about the latest edition of Drewry's Container Forecaster publication in a video posted on the company's Website, Dekker said Drewry has heard anecdotally that interest in index-linked contracts is on the rise by shippers an...

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

     The ability to move larger ships through the Panama Canal will reduce the cost of all-water service between the Far East and the eastern part of the United States, but speakers at a conference held last week in Tampa, Fla. were divided on how significant theimpact of the canal will be on cargo routing.    "We are not the fat hog waiting to be cut," said Dean Wise, vice president of network strategy for the BNSF Railway. "We are not going to sit back and see t...

Monday, January 23, 2012

     Some liner carriers may have aided their revenue collection in 2011 through higher currency surcharges, according to research from the maritime analyst SeaIntel.    SeaIntel analyzed the development of currency adjustment factors (CAF) on the Asia-Europe trade and came to two main conclusions.    First, the CAF charged varies significantly across carriers, with the difference increasing drastically over the past three years.    “We are now at a point whe...

Thursday, January 19, 2012

   Roland “Ron” E. Seger, who served as partner and senior vice president of A.T. Kearney, in New York for 19 years before retiring in 2000, died on Jan. 10 after a long illness.    At A.T. Kearny, Seger worked with major clients like General Motors, Unilever, BMG, Bristol Meyers Squibb, BASF Chemical, Philip Morris, and Avon. He held executive positions in sales, marketing and operations at Philip Morris and Chesebrough-Ponds prior to joining A.T. Kearney as a manageme...

Monday, January 16, 2012

     Agility and Transport Intelligence said ithey will launch the second edition of the Agility Emerging Markets Logistics Index, a measure of how change and instability in the last year have affected more than 40 of the world’s emerging markets.    The index will address issues like: Which market became China’s biggest trading partner? Did the Arab Spring impact business and confidence across the Middle East? Which markets does the logistics industry think are the top 10 ...

Monday, January 16, 2012

     Import cargo volume at the United States' major retail container ports should be nearly flat during January, compared with the same month in 2011, but significant year-over-year increases are expected this spring, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released last week by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.    “We’re headed into the slow season for cargo shipments, but forecasts indicate that retailers will be stocking up this spring in ant...

Friday, January 13, 2012

   Arigo, a Massachusetts-based provider of trade management technology, and Tompkins International, a supply chain consulting and implementation firm, have formed a partnership to provide a unified global trade management (GTM) application.    “True global trade management, today, requires new operation strategies and a full integration of organizations, processes, and technologies throughout the end-to-end supply chain,” said Bill Ren, chief executive officer of Arigo. “We...

Thursday, January 12, 2012

   Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sánchez will lead the U.S. Commerce Department’s first-ever ports and maritime technology industry trade mission to India, Feb. 20-24.     Representatives from U.S. firms that provide cargo handling equipment, port security, and maritime technology equipment will visit Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai. The companies include AECOM, The Beckett Group, Capacity, ContainerTrac, DSC Dredge, Ellicot Dredges, Great Lakes...

Thursday, January 05, 2012

     The recent spate of multi-alliance partnerships on the Asia-Europe trade threatens to drag down rates, the maritime analyst Dynamar said this week.    “The G6 danger is in six companies selling the same product,” Dynamar said in a report examining the impact of the Grand and New World alliances joining on the Asia-Europe trade. “This will unavoidably pull the price down, whatever the (good) intentions.    “Apart from price, new competition elements may still arise...

Thursday, January 05, 2012

     Transportation analysts at HSBC have cut their shipment flow forecasts in the face of a weakening global economy.    “The outlook for volumes remains weak. Growth, industrial production and exports from China are likely to remain weak this year, and this will dampen demand for freight. We now forecast that containers, airfreight box and parcel volumes will contract in 2012,” the bank said in a research report published Wednesday.    HSBC said i...

Thursday, January 05, 2012

     London-based Drewry Maritime Research estimates the container industry lost as much as $5.2 billion in 2011, despite a projected global container growth of 6.5 percent last year. This year it is predicting overall growth of just 5.4 percent.    Drewry said the latest quarterly edition of its Container Forecaster publication predicts 2012 "will be another challenging year for liner operators. With question marks over the strength of global demand, delivery of big ships ...

Thursday, January 05, 2012

     Being hit by counterfeit medicines, patent violations, security issues, and improper handling of medicines, the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) is beginning a campaign to develop supply chain visibility best practices for that industry. The main goal for the USP is to ensure that medicines can be traced back to their original manufacturer and ensure they arrive at their intended destination without tampering or damage, all while verifying that they are not adulterated or cou...

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

     Cambridge Systematics has promoted two existing staff members to head up its Transportation Modeling Group.    Kimon Proussaloglou was named executive vice president and will lead the group, while John Evans will be the group's operations manager.    Proussaloglou has been a principal at Cambridge Systematics and specializes in market research, statistical analysis and modeling, and survey design with more than 20 years of experience. The firm ...

Monday, December 19, 2011

     Shippers on the Asia-Europe trade lane can expect to see “perpetual overcapacity” out to 2015 unless liner carriers make “significant changes,” according to the Copenhagen-based maritime consultant SeaIntel.    SeaIntel analyzed supply and demand data to forecast three years out and said the outlook is very clear: “Something has got to give.”    “The currently announced capacity (service) reductions will only match the expected seasonal downturn in the market,” Se...

Friday, December 16, 2011

   Containerized cargo exports from the U.S. will continue to grow more quickly in the next four years than imports, bringing the nation's trade more into balance, said Mathijs Slangen, maritime advisor for the investment banking firm Seabury Group.    Slangen, who made his remarks Thursday during an American Shipper webinar , said by 2015, his firm expects exports will account for about 43 percent of U.S. containerized TEU volumes, "quite a massive increase" from the 30 percent they...

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

   The Belgian port of Antwerp said it’s working with the Ivory Coast port of San Pedro during the next several years to develop a master plan for expanding cargo handling operations and facilities.     San Pedro, the largest cocoa exporting port in the world, has 2,000 hectares of vacant land that will be put into use in stages in the near future. Port of Antwerp International (PAI), the international subsidiary of Antwerp Port Authority, will assist San Pedro with planning this...

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

     Duquesne University’s Small Business Development Center has entered an agreement with the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s City-State Partners program to assist small exporters in western Pennsylvania.    Duquesne's SBDC is one of only three in the state to partner with the Ex-Im Bank. The SBDC offers no-cost, confidential consulting services and training workshops for small businesses and those who are thinking of starting a business in the region to encourage exporting.   &...

Thursday, November 17, 2011

   The supply chain practice group of commercial real estate services provider Cassidy Turley and supply chain consulting firm Tompkins Associates said Wednesday they have tied up a partnership to provide their clients “holistic” network design, inventory, distribution, transportation and real estate services.    “Because the global industry landscape demands that supply chain and commercial real estate industries overlap, the timing of our partnership is ideal,” said Jim Tompkins, ch...

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

   Management Dynamics, a developer of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for the shipping industry, said it has changed its name to Amber Road.     “Derived from the ancient trading route of the same name, Amber Road evokes images of trade throughout history and more accurately embodies the nature of the company’s business,” the East Rutherford, N.J.-based firm said.     The name change comes during a year of rapid expansion, marked by a 40 perce...

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

   Ocean Intelligence, a Singapore-based marine credit analysis company, has appointed John Phillips to manager director.     Phillips, a 24-year maritime industry veteran, will also become a member of the Petromedia Group board and will be based in Singapore.     He comes to Ocean Intelligence from his own consulting company, Awyr Las Pte Ltd, which will continue to be run autonomously. Phillips was also global credit manager for marine fuels supplier Ch...

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Sappio    Business advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) has appointed Robert Sappio to managing director.     Prior to joining A&M, Sappio spent nearly 30 years with APL, most recently serving as senior vice president in charge of trade and marketing activities for the liner carrier in transpacific, transatlantic and Latin American regions.     "His breadth and depth of industry experience in shipping, transport and retail make him an invalua...

Friday, November 11, 2011

   Containership operators are ordering ever larger vessels in the face of a weak freight and time charter market due to a desire to control the effect of rising bunker costs, said U.K. ship broker Braemar Seascope.    The ship ordering activity “may appear to be counter-intuitive,” Braemar said in a release Thursday. In fact, it reinforces a trend that is at least five years old. Containership operators cannot control freight rates, especially in a post-liner conference competitive e...

Thursday, November 10, 2011

   Container service reliability improved for the second quarter in a row during the third quarter of 2011, according to Drewry Maritime Research’s latest Schedule Reliability Insight report.    The proportion of 3,281 ships arriving on time (defined as either arriving at port on the advertised ETA or a day earlier) at selected ports in the third quarter of 2011 rose by 8 percent points compared to the previous quarter, to 63 percent.    Maersk Line retained its position as...

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

   Vessel operating costs are expected to rise by 3.8 percent in 2011 and by another 3.7 percent in 2012, according to a new survey by international accountant and shipping consultant Moore Stephens.    The survey, based on responses from key players in the international shipping industry, predominantly shipowners and managers in Europe and Asia, identified lube expenditure and crew costs as the categories most likely to produce the highest levels of increase.    Crew wages,...

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

   The information service Alphaliner says in its most recent newsletter that containership deliveries will total 1.28 million TEU this year.    It said as of mid October 154 ships with 1 million TEU capacity had been delivered.    Alphaliner said “non-deliveries” due to cancellations, deferrals and slippage amounted to 8.5 percent which it said was much lower than the 45 percent that some forecasters had projected.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

   The  Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway navigation system supports more than 225,000 jobs and generates billions of dollars in income and revenues annually in both the United States and Canada, according to a study released today.    The study, “The Economic Impacts of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System 2010,” was commissioned by the maritime industry and government agencies from both countries.  It was peer reviewed by both U.S. and Canadian economists.  &...

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

   Parsons Brinckerhoff, a global infrastructure consulting firm, has appointed Joseph Bryan as a principal consultant in its Boston office.    Bryan, a 30-year industry veteran, will lead the firm’s freight and logistics service area in the Americas, focusing on freight transportation and logistics policy, planning and management.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

  The number of jobs generated by activity in the Port of New York and New Jersey grew to 279,200 in 2010, 9,210 more than in 2008, according to a study released Monday. That total includes both 170,770 direct jobs as well as indirect jobs from associated economic activity.   "The good news for today is that despite turbulent economic times that we have all been through from 2008 to the end of 2010, jobs associated with the port business rose nearly 3.5 percent," said Joseph C. Curto, president...

Monday, October 17, 2011

   Crowley Maritime Corp. has named Nelly Yunta vice president of U.S. imports, customs brokerage and consulting, for Customized Brokers.    Customized Brokers is Crowley's customs brokerage company in Miami, where Yunta is based. She reports to Crowley's Steve Collar, senior vice president and general manager of logistics.    Yunta joined Crowley in 1988 as a senior coordinator in the Miami traffic department. She was named regional sales manager in 1998 and general manage...

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

   The Containerization & Intermodal Institute (CII) will present the 2011 Connie Award to Robert Kenneth (Ken) Johns, former president of Sea-Land Service, for his significant influence on containerization in worldwide trade and transportation.    Johns served as Sea-Land's president and chief operating officer from 1979-87. Under his leadership, Sea-Land prospered as one of the world's largest, most innovative and successful transportation companies.     Following...

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

   Drewry Maritime Research’s East-West Freight Rate index has lost 41 percent of its value since it peaked in July 2010, the London-based analyst said Tuesday.    The index provides a weighted average of rates across key Asia-Europe, transpacific and transatlantic trade routes. Prior to the current slump, the index had more than doubled through the preceding year from May 2009’s all-time low. Drewry’s Intra-Asia Freight Rate Index has lost 18 percent of its value since March.  &...

Monday, October 03, 2011

   The Paris-based consulting and outsourcing company Capgemini has partnered with Oakland-based supply chain software-as-a-service developer GT Nexus, the companies said last week.    The agreement calls on the companies to jointly market what they call “supply chain orchestration.” Essentially, the two companies will collaboratively sell supply chain applications across North America and Europe, enabled by GT Nexus’ technology platform.    “This is a unique combination of ...

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

  North Carolina has scheduled two public meetings this week and next as part of its effort to develop a maritime strategy for the state.   The study was initiated this spring by Gov. Bev Perdue’s Logistics Task Force, and is designed to "take a fresh look at North Carolina’s maritime assets and the needs for improvement to ensure that our state remains competitive in the future."   The task force is assisted by consultants AECOM and URS. According to a Web site, the goals ...

Friday, September 23, 2011

  The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Board of Commissioners has hired Landrum & Brown Inc. of Cincinnati to perform an airport system capacity planning study.   The project is to identify and evaluate options for dealing with forecasted future demand at the port authority’s five airports: John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International, Stewart International, LaGuardia and Teterboro.   The consultants will identify specific improvements needed to a...

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

   Rating agency Standard and Poors said Tuesday it has revised its outlook on German containership operator Hapag-Lloyd to negative from stable.    At the same time, it affirmed the BB- long-term issuer credit rating and the B issue rating on the 480 million-euro senior unsecured notes due 2015 and the $250 million senior unsecured notes due 2017 issued by Hapag-Lloyd AG.    "The outlook revision reflects Hapag-Lloyd's significantly lower profitability in the first half of...

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

  The Port of Houston on Monday awarded a contract to BMO Capital Markets for financial advisory services in connection with the possible sale or lease of its Woodhouse Terminal.    Bill Hensel, a spokesman for the port, said the port is looking at possible alternative uses for the 100-acre terminal, which is located on the Houston Ship Channel near the Sims Bayou juncture, a short distance from the Turning Basin Terminal. The terminal has been used to handle breakbulk cargo.    ...

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

   The Transportation Marketing and Sales Association, a networking and education group, has expanded its Connections Events this year to include three locations.    The events will be held on:    • Oct. 4 in Jacksonville, Fla.    • Oct. 20 in Fayetteville, Ark., and in Los Angeles.    During these events, attendees will be able to learn from the industry’s leading sales, marketing and communications professionals, the association said.    At th...

Monday, September 19, 2011

   Ratings agency Moody’s has downgraded Japanese liners carriers MOL and NYK Line due to a weak freight market and overcapacity in its business segments.    Moody’s has not changed its ratings on the two lines, but has downgraded them from stable to negative.    The carriers’ “dry bulkers and tanker segments face the additional challenge of weak charterage conditions for non-long-term contracts,” the agency said. “The liner business is also weak due to oversupply, especial...

Friday, September 16, 2011

   The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Australia’s Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism have reached a memorandum of understanding to continue research and development of clean, sustainable alternative aviation fuels.    “Air travel is global and we need international partners to develop these innovative new fuels,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. “Our ultimate goal is to work with all of the Asia-Pacific nations to achieve a sustainable, independent en...

Friday, September 16, 2011

  U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) awarded a $593,954 grant to PT Kereta Api Indonesia (PT KAI), Indonesia’s state-owned railroad, to develop a strategic plan and system recommendations for upgrading its rail signaling and telecommunications systems.    The grant will fund a technical assistance program that includes a review of existing rail transport corridors, recommendations for systems upgrades, and training workshops for capacity building for PT KAI rail operators and manage...

Thursday, September 15, 2011

   Two former U.S. Customs commissioners, now out of government and free to speak their minds, unloaded on Congress for making their jobs more complicated by forcing the Department of Homeland Security to implement ineffective security measures. Bersin    But Alan Bersin, the current commissioner, said the way to prevent politicians from overreacting to perceived threats at the border is to address security gaps and other problems before they rise to a critical level.    Th...