“How is the Trump Administration’s America First policy going to impact my supply chain?” That’s a question our clients have been trying to answer since last year when, during the campaign for president, Donald Trump discussed his aim to renegotiate and overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He vowed to begin levying additional duties and tariffs on goods from foreign countries. This past April, the…
Oversize, Overweight and Right up our Alley The ICAT Logistics DTW team recently put a particularly large package onto a truck traveling from Detroit to Norfolk, Virginia where it was loaded by crane onto a flat rack and then onto a ship to begin the 10,300 nautical mile trip through the Panama Canal and ultimately to Shanghai, China. Our team called it “The Beast to the East.” How big was it? The package was 30 feet long, 8.5 feet wide and 10 feet high. It weighed 42 tons. Certainly large, but not in a class of its own from ICAT’s…
Brazil to Detroit: Right on Time How do you get from Bahia, Brazil, to Detroit? If you’re moving nine crates of vehicle side panels that weigh three tons, as ICAT Logistics DTW did in August, the answer is: Very carefully. That’s because moving such heavy material 6,000 miles isn’t only about getting the right trucks and airplanes. It’s about planning. In Brazil, and wherever ICAT ships industrial materials around the world, the company maintains a close working relationship with the agents who follow their…
No Need for Big Headaches with Oversize Shipments An oversize freight load doesn’t have to cause oversize problems – as long as you have the right shipping partner. That was good news for a Michigan manufacturer whose experience shipping four-ton dynamometers to international ports had been so poorly handled by a previous shipping company, the freight was arriving in parcels and on different ships. That caused confusion, missed deadlines and unhappy customers. “There is a lot of detailed logistical planning that goes into shipments…
Don’t Wait till the Last Minute to Plan for America First “How is the Trump Administration’s America First policy going to impact my supply chain?” That’s a question our clients have been trying to answer since last year when, during the campaign for president, Donald Trump discussed his aim to renegotiate and overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He vowed to begin levying additional duties and tariffs on goods from foreign countries. This past April, the…
Thinking Inside the Box Before looking “outside the box” for new ways to make your logistics or supply chain operations more effective, you may want to look first at how your team is handling what’s inside the box – as well as what’s on the side of the box and in the paperwork that accompanies it. Because when it comes to industrial freight shipping, it’s the little things like efficient and safe packing and loading of containers, clear labeling, and accurate documentation that go a…
Control Supply Chain Costs by Asking the Right Questions When the going gets tough in the supply chain, the tough cut costs. But, where to begin? Purchasing, warehousing, sourcing, production, customer fulfillment, logistics, shipping, packaging, transportation — there are so many targets to choose from. Yet, by demeaning any one of them in a rash budget slash you may risk hurting your bottom line rather than improving it. Each link in the chain is essential and important. Instead of taking a slash and burn approach, a strategy of continuous improvement…
