Suppose you have critical parts being shipped internationally to your factory, or a major piece of machinery that is absolutely essential to your production schedule. How do you avoid surprises about the timing of your delivery that could shut you down—and cost you a whole lot of money?
Supply chain visibility – which allows you a line of sight into the location and disposition of your freight – is an important aspect of selecting your shipper. And because medium-sized industrial businesses typically focus on their production, many of them do not have the in-house logistics resources to maintain constant contact with their shipments.
The ICAT team fills that gap. It follows a process that begins before a shipment is picked up, beginning with visual inspections at the point of origin and ending with the same at delivery.
ICAT agents, who form a network across the globe, check each shipment before it leaves a plant or warehouse to ensure that it is complete and damage-free. Agents include photographs with their reports and pass them along to clients in a timely way – sometimes daily.
Has the freight been properly packed and crated? If heat-treated wood is needed for the crates, has that been used? Is the documentation complete? Is the shipment described accurately? Are there any obstacles that might delay the delivery schedule?
“We even go so far, when need be, to make sure that screws have been used to put the crates together, rather than nails, which can loosen during shipment,” says Neil Clavano International Operations.
ICAT makes sure there are agents at the seaports or airports where freight is loaded. And the goods are met, followed and re-inspected from the ports of destination to delivery. This may sound like overkill unless you’ve missed a deadline because your freight arrived damaged, late, or not at all.
It means that clients can plan ahead, re-align their production schedules when necessary and concentrate on what they do best. As a result, well executed supply chain visibility saves time and money.
Every global company learns that to be successful they must effectively plan, control and manage the freight that is essential to their business.
“Let the engineers be engineers, the designers be designers—and let us handle logistics,” says Clavano. “We know every step along the way where a shipment is because that’s what we do best.”
We’re your custom shipping resource. Solutions to our customers’ most challenging issues are derived from decades of success in global logistics. https://www.icatlogisticsdtw.com/