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<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">China has agreed to allow Mongolia, its long-estranged neighbor, to use the Port of Tianjin as a tra</div>

China has agreed to allow Mongolia, its long-estranged neighbor, to use the Port of Tianjin as a tra

<div class="phx-topic">China has agreed to allow Mongolia, its long-estranged neighbor, to use the Port of Tianjin as a trade link to the rest of the world.The two sides signed an agreement Monday that also will permit the transport of goods through China to the port, the official People's Daily said Thursday.Tianjin is 869 miles southeast of landlocked Mongolia's capital, Ulan Bator.Mongolia, the size of Western Europe with a population of 3 million, lies between China and the Soviet Union.Diplomats said the agreement was crucial to Mongolia's economy, which is in tatters after its longtime communist patron Moscow withdrew supplies of gasoline late last year.Until now nearly all of Mongolia's trade has been with the Soviet Union.Last year Mongolia began opening to the outside world, viewing trade with China and the West as its best hope for developing its economy.</div>

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CHINA WILL ALLOW MONGOLIA TO USE TIANJIN PORT FOR TRADE

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Ports these days know there's more to capturing steamship lines than marine facilities alone.</div>

Ports these days know there's more to capturing steamship lines than marine facilities alone.

<div class="phx-topic">Ports these days know there's more to capturing steamship lines than marine facilities alone.To that end, Massport officials are working their road and rail access to support the marine side of their business better.While improvements are on the blackboard for the Massachusetts Port Authority's two major container yards, there also are programs in full swing that will improve the port's highway and road structure leading to those yards.One of the cornerstone projects in the intermodal sector of the port is the new access road to Conley Terminal that is in the planning stage. This major road improvement program is part of a $3.1 billion state-federal roadway rehabilitation project called the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project.Improving waterfront access is one of the top priorities for the port, said Anne Aylward, maritime director at the Port of Boston. She said waterfront facilities are plagued by a lack of railroad access and clogged traffic conditions."You can have the best terminals in the world, but if you can't get to them" they won't do you any good, said Ms. Aylward.In addition to some major road improvements, the maritime director for the port said Boston's rail link is also expanding, as is evidenced by the inauguration last month of double-stack train service to and from the West Coast by CSX/Sea-Land Intermodal.CSL Intermodal initiated thrice weekly service inbound from the West Coast and Chicago, and once a week service outbound to Chicago and the West Coast. The Boston area terminus for this service is Worcester, Mass."I think the new intermodal service in the Worcester area is an idea whose time has come," said Paul F. Fitzpatrick, president of W.N. Proctor Co., a Boston freight forwarder."To have the doublestacks come into Worcester is going to save importers thousands of dollars annually," the freight forwarder continued. "They are going to get to their goods faster because they don't have to go through congestion to get the cargo."Other intermodal and shipping executives around the Boston area also expressed optimism about these new intermodal connections that New England has now gained."I think it will help importers and exporters," said Norman Tasgal, president of Patterson, Wylde Co., a ship agent. "In terms of both cost and service time, I think it will be a factor."Robert M. Calder, executive director of the Boston Shipping Association, said he thinks the port expansion and the recent intermodal developments should be good for Boston: "If we can maintain or improve the tonnage we have now, and (boost) this developing intermodalism, then we will be alright," said Mr. Calder.</div>

North American ports

BOSTON PORT UPGRADING ROAD LINKS

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Officials in northeastern Tianjin are planning to import lighting and other equipment to develop the</div>

Officials in northeastern Tianjin are planning to import lighting and other equipment to develop the

<div class="phx-topic">Officials in northeastern Tianjin are planning to import lighting and other equipment to develop the inland port.International Tendering Co. will invite bids for lighting and power distribution equipment for the so-called pier project. No time frame is given.The company is under the supervision of government-owned China National Technical Import &amp; Export Corp. An important gateway to China's western hinterland, Tianjin is 28 miles from the Bohai Sea and 80 miles from Beijing. China's first and largest modern container terminal is located there, with capacity for 18 million tons of cargo a year.Three months ago Tianjin began to build bonded warehouses. Construction is under way on four with total floor space of 215,000 square feet, as well as a 21,000-square-foot stacking yard for transshipment, storage, customs handling, distribution and packaging. That project is a US$9 million joint venture with a Hong Kong unit of Royal Nedlloyd Group NV of Holland. Shanghai is the only other harbor in China to have bonded warehouses.Tianjin, China's fourth-largest port, is also using a World Bank loan to erect 11 berths for vessels up to 10,000 deadweight tons. The port now has 39 berths, 24 of which can accommodate 10,000-dwt. ships.</div>

CHINA PLANS TO UPGRADE THE PORT OF TIANJIN

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">International Longshoremen's Association leaders from Maine to Texas gather today in Tampa, Fla., for meetings that the union's new president, John Bowers, calls the most important ones in ILA history."</div>

International Longshoremen's Association leaders from Maine to Texas gather today in Tampa, Fla., for meetings that the union's new president, John Bowers, calls the most important ones in ILA history."

<div class="phx-topic">International Longshoremen's Association leaders from Maine to Texas gather today in Tampa, Fla., for meetings that the union's new president, John Bowers, calls the most important ones in ILA history." That may be hyperbole, but the sessions in Tampa could give a new direction to the dispute over the ILA's 50-mile rule - an issue that has consumed thousands of hours of lawyers' time over more than 15 years.The issue of the 50-mile rule hit Mr. Bowers like a pie in the face during his first week on the job after he was elected to succeed Thomas W. Gleason as president of the ILA, which represents dockworkers in 36 Atlantic and Gulf ports.Mr. Bowers hadn't even settled into his new office last month when the Federal Maritime Commission said the rule was discriminatory under the 1984 Shipping Act. The commission gave ocean carriers 90 days to remove the rule from their tariffs.The disputed rule, part of the ILA contract, gives the union the right to pack and unpack shipping containers headed to or from points within 50 miles of a port. The rule doesn't cover containers that a non-ILA employer owns and uses his own workers to pack or unpack.Truckers, shippers and others contend they should be able to take advantage of containerization without having to hire high-priced ILA labor. But the union and the management groups that negotiated the rule say it merely preserves traditional longshore work for ILA members.The New York Shipping Association and Carriers Container Council, which have joined the ILA in appealing the FMC decision, are expected to offer an alternative to the 50-mile rule Thursday. If they don't, Mr. Bowers said last week, the ILA will exercise its right to reopen the three-year contract it settled last fall.Mr. Bowers said a reopener is the last thing" he wants. But the 50-mile rule was one of management's chief concessions in exchange for ILA acceptance of automation. And Mr. Bowers indicates that although it hasn't achieved its goal of keeping work on the piers, the union won't abandon it without getting something in return.The ILA president said that if renegotiation is necessary, the union's opening position will be that all containers moving through Atlantic and Gulf ports must be packed and unpacked at the piers by ILA labor - a requirement even Mr. Bowers considers impractical.That doesn't help anybody, really," he said of the threat to pack and unpack all containers at the pier. But it will help my membership until this decision is resolved."Asked what he thinks management should offer to replace the 50-mile rule, Mr. Bowers said:I have ideas, but I think that if we start with stuffing and stripping all containers, we'll be able to bargain something fair to both sides."There has been speculation that there might be some proposal to divert part of the $130 million from the Job Security Program fund if the ILA would drop the 50-mile rule. But Mr. Bowers noted that claims against the JSP exceed the assets of the program, which was set up to insure ILA benefit programs.And he said he would rule out any effort to provide money in place of jobs. I don't want that and I haven't discussed that," he said. It would be out of the question because I have too many members whose pensions and welfare I have to take care of until they retire."Mr. Bowers did throw out the idea of using some of the money in Guaranteed Annual Income funds, which pay dockworkers even if they don't work, to subsidize the difference between the ILA's $17-an-hour base wage and non-ILA container-handling pay. I'm willing to talk," he said.Management hasn't indicated what proposals it will offer this week.Mr. Bowers said the 50-mile rule is vital to the ILA, even if it hasn't brought much work back to the docks. He said the rule has failed in generalbecause many carriers have circumvented the rule, which most agree has been enforced unevenly.The 50-mile rule isn't the only tough issue that Mr. Bowers inherited from Mr. Gleason, who counted the rule as one of his proudest accomplishments of the 24 years he headed the ILA before stepping aside to become president emeritus.Just days before the FMC ruled against the 50-mile rule, an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board ruled against the ILA's subscription agreement, which in effect requires ship lines that use ILA labor in one port to use it in any Atlantic or Gulf port where the lines call.The subscription-agreement case, which involves Crowley Maritime Corp.'s American Transport Line, will be appealed to the full NLRB and the courts. Even if the decision is upheld, its full impact would be delayed.Ship lines that unlike AmTrans have signed the ILA's 1986-89 contract will still be required to use ILA labor until the contract expires.</div>

Longshore labor

50-MILE RULE BACK IN ILA'S SPOTLIGHT

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The arrival here this week of the Nedlloyd Lines vessel Rouen inaugurated the first-ever roll-on rol</div>

The arrival here this week of the Nedlloyd Lines vessel Rouen inaugurated the first-ever roll-on rol

<div class="phx-topic">The arrival here this week of the Nedlloyd Lines vessel Rouen inaugurated the first-ever roll-on roll-off service at the port of Boston.The Rouen, which has a container capacity of 1,200 20-foot equivalent units, is one of four vessels operated by Nedlloyd in its service between U.S. North Atlantic ports and northern Europe. Only two of them, however, will call at Boston.Nedlloyd and Trans Freight Lines have a space chartering agreement whereby the two carriers may book containers on each other's vessels. But under the agreement TFL vessels no longer call at Boston.It's a new opportunity for shippers, and we need to see what the market is, said Lana Razdan, Massachusetts Port Authority spokesman.Kevin Murphy of Johnson Maritime Agency, Nedlloyd's Boston agents, said the three-year-old Rouen will alternate with the Rosario, another 1,200 TEU roll-on ship, whose first call here is set for Sept. 30.Massport has wanted roll-on service for at least 10 years. At one time it was thought that the port agency would build a roll-on ramp at a former Navy facility that ultimately was turned over to the city instead of Massport.As the years passed, and the strong demand for roll-on service to the Mideast declined, officials became concerned that even a used roll-on ramp might be too expensive with a $1 million price tag.Mr. Murphy said, Suddenly we're finding some call for it.Massport built a small ramp at Connolly Terminal to complement the shipboard ramps on the two Nedlloyd vessels. But officials say the size of the market may determine whether Massport dusts off its old dreams of building or buying a special roll-on ramp.</div>

ROLL-ON SERVICE BEGINS AT PORT OF BOSTON

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

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Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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Filling the Supply Chain Education Gap with LTL Education Courses

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