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Navigating Port Congestion Challenges at the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach

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Jennie Miller

Over the last few months, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have been overwhelmed by a flood of container imports. As a result, freight entering and exiting the ports has slowed to a crawl as the ports deal with record-breaking volumes and workforce reductions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Due to the enormous volume of imports, the slowdown has caused congestion at terminals and in the surrounding neighborhoods. In this article, we'll look at some of the ramifications - port congestion at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – to bring you up to speed on what's going on at the Ports and what you can do about it if anything.

Port Congestion Challenges—An Overview

Once the expanded Long Beach Container Terminal (LBCT) begins operations later this year, officials at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach say the facility will have adequate terminal capacity to accommodate predicted cargo volumes for the next six years. The terminal capacity, however, will not avert another congestion meltdown unless railways, container lines, equipment providers, and warehouse owners flex their assets.

In December 2020, marine terminal capacity at the largest US port complex seemed to be at capacity, but port executives and independent port planners claimed the biggest drivers to the congestion are problems in the international supply chain, not a shortage of terminal capacity.

Severe congestion at both ports has prompted the current contemplation of a potentially dramatic adjustment in operations. Container volumes have risen since last summer, fueled by a boom in US consumer demand for products in a stay-at-home economy, with escalating congestion that may have recently peaked, with ships routinely waiting in the water for 10 days or more to be unloaded, as measured by “dwell time.”

All major participants, including ports (some of which are currently open 24 hours a day), terminals, rail carriers, drayage and trucking companies, warehouse and cross dock facilities, and so on, would have to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It will also necessitate renegotiated labor contracts with unions.

Poor Supply Chain Management Issues Leading to Big Congestion

Last summer, flaws in the Southern California supply chain began to emerge, and by the fall, they had become more severe, as failures in one sector impacted other sectors. Warehouses and distribution centers were overburdened

Chassis shortages worsened as warehouse dwell times more than doubled, vessel reliability in the eastbound trans-Pacific fell to less than 15%, labor shortages arose across the supply chain as a result of COVID-19, and increased container dwell times at marine terminals exacerbated congestion issues. Rail containers have been backed up at ports in recent months due to a scarcity of railcars.

The ongoing back-ups at several sites for goods entering the massive complex that incorporates the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have some thinking it's time for the ports – and all the associated services – to contemplate "24x7" operations.

What Are Your Options for Dealing with the Port Congestion Issues?

As we are still in the midst of the congestion situation at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, there aren't many shippers can do right now to get their cargo off the docks quickly. However, there are a few pointers that can aid now and in the future.

  • Utilize free-flow stacks at the Ports with the help of your drayage supplier. You don't need to make an appointment with the Ports' free-flow program. Instead, the terminal will store your container in a designated area until your drayage provider is available to pick it up.

  • Work with a logistics company that has enough yard space. As previously stated, many warehouse providers have run out of yard space, causing containers to pile up or even be denied access to the lot owing to a shortage of space. You can prevent these problems by working with a 3PL with enough yard space to store large volumes of containers during peak periods.

Close Communication with Supply Chain Partners

  • Maintain close communication with your supply chain partners so that you are informed as soon as possible about any opportunities to move your items.

  • Partner with a chassis-owning asset-based drayage supplier. When ports get overloaded, rental pools become unreliable, therefore partnering with an asset-based provider improves the chances of securing capacity. You should also discover out how many chassis the supplier owns and how many it uses each month. Although a 1,000-chassis owned chassis pool may sound appealing, if the operator only moves 5,000 containers each month, you may be kept waiting.

  • Partner with a drayage company that uses an automated scheduling method. Terminal appointments at the Ports are extremely tough to come by in cases like this. However, if your drayage company uses an automated material handling system to check terminal appointments, you'll have a much better chance of securing an appointment slot as soon as one becomes available.

Supply Chain Management—The Need of the Hour

Container lines are increasingly seeking west coast alternatives and diverting boats or rearranging the schedule of port calls as the colossal congestion at the US's busiest marine gateway complex shows no signs of abating.

And there are little signs that the situation is changing - in the United States, limited inventory levels have raised fears about insufficient stock levels for Easter, as many businesses are seeing sales outpace inventories.

Identifying and developing parcels in the harbor region for so-called dray-offs and chassis storage is a particularly effective technique for enhancing marine terminal throughput capacity. Many marine terminal service providers have successfully expanded the capacity of Long Beach ports by using dray-offs of heavy inbound containers. Both ports plan to build near-dock storage facilities as well as pickup and drop-off points for chassis. 

Thus, one of the ideal ways to mitigate this issue is the utilization of effective supply chain management. Find the best solutions of supply chain and warehouse management at https://mwi.solutions/home

Source: https://erpsoftware.substack.com/p/navigating-port-congestion-challenges

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