TPM 2016

To Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL Group, logistics isn’t simply a business. It’s also a change agent that has increased global prosperity significantly in recent decades as trade agreements pulled down market barriers and helped reshape not just trade lanes, but also economies and even societies.

The 16th Annual TPM Conference in Long Beach generated industry headlines and insights available nowhere else. While those on the ground at the event got the early scoop, we have you covered with these key takeaways from the diverse array of panels and discussions hosted by our talented and experienced team of editors.

With memories of last year’s West Coast port disruptions still fresh in their minds, a coalition representing 113 local, state and federal trade associations of beneficial cargo owners on Tuesday urged the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Pacific Maritime Association to begin early discussions on a contract extension.

A 14-week program is putting more drayage drivers behind the wheel at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Long Beach City College offers 200 hours of in-the-cab training, and the program is free to the students.

JOC’s annual TPM Conference is one of the premier events for the shipping and transportation industry. Bringing so many different players together across industry segments brings out a variety of perspectives and ideas whose exchange reveals valuable and unexpected insight while sometimes casting issues into a completely new, and unexpected, light.

Whether it’s the growing presence of mega-ships at U.S. ports, the proliferation of mandatory appointment systems at marine terminals or the transfer of carrier-owned chassis to equipment leasing firms, harbor trucking companies are paying a price for decisions made by other members of the transportation supply chain.

During the 16th annual TPM Conference here, executives participating in the Cool Cargoes’ “Refrigerated Roundtable” session revealed that quality service and equipment are paramount to shippers of refrigerated cargo.

The impending shakeup of the membership in three of the four alliances among global container shipping lines will be difficult for beneficial cargo owners over the next year or more, but they may benefit from the changes in the long run, a top Maersk executive said here at the JOC’s 16th annual TPM Conference.

Volatile rates and uncertain services mean shippers and forwarders entering into contracts with carriers are having to ensure an enormous amount of flexibility is built into their negotiations.

The loss of a mega-ship could "rewrite the law of general average," costing more than $1 billion, former container ship captain and maritime risk expert Andrew Kinsey said at the 16th annual TPM Conference. Captain Michael Lloyd warned losses such as the sinking of the MOL Comfort could become more common.

A panel of ocean shipping experts at the 16th Annual TPM Conference gazed in their crystal balls and saw very different outcomes for shipping patterns after the Panama Canal opens its new larger locks to commercial traffic in June.

Chinese industrial overcapacity and a global commodity collapse will contribute to economic growth being stuck in low gear this year at about 2.5 percent, IHS Chief Economist Nariman Behravesh told the 2016 TPM Conference in Long Beach on Monday. He warned trade won't recover this year, and when it does in the next two years, it will not recover to the rates seen in the 1990s and 2000s when the growth was double that.

Weak export growth is a serious impediment to economic growth and prosperity in the U.S. and is hampered more by inadequate infrastructure than by the strong U.S. dollar, delegates were told at the TPM 2016 conference here.

The impending redrawing of alliances perfectly illustrates the risk facing BCOs, which are already dusting off their risk management plans in preparation for another shake up they expect will hit their business from next year, a panel of top shippers told delegates at TPM 2016.

Why is venture capital flooding into the transportation and logistics industry faster than ever before? Because the industry needs it, former venture capitalists and now logistics industry insiders told the 2016 TPM Conference here on Tuesday.

Agricultural exporters are educating longshore workers and terminals operators at West Coast ports on the extent their showdown caused in 2015 and early 2016, a shipper group head said Tuesday here at JOC’s 16th annual TPM Conference.

Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL Group, gave the 16th annual TPM Conference keynote speech to more than 2,000 attendees and outlined how new sources of economic growth aside from the traditional means of population and productivity increases are needed, and how transportation and logistics firms can unleash their potential.

Transportation intermediaries are likely to play an important role in verifying container weights for international shippers and shipping lines, a UPS Supply Chain Solutions executive said at the 16th Annual TPM Conference here Tuesday.

The SOLAS guidelines on container weight verification that will be implemented from July 1 are not mandatory, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Thomas told a packed TPM Conference here Tuesday.

For the first time since the grueling contract negotiations of 2014-15, the presidents of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association said they are willing to raise with their memberships the possibility of extending the existing agreement beyond the July 1, 2019, expiration date in the interests of labor peace.