Reducing freight rates comes from understanding your business, your specific needs and the logistics business as a whole. Parts one and two of that formula won’t challenge most business owners, but the logistics part can lead to head scratching or worse — unnecessary costs.

Most larger businesses can easily afford to manage their own trucks and drivers. As a leader of your company’s logistics function, you know all-too-well that simple pickup and drop off does not add up to a complete 3PL logistics solution.

Skill, connections, leadership, negotiation leverage and extensive industry knowledge represent much of what your business looks for in 3PL logistics companies, but that’s not everything. Actually, none of those great attributes are worth a nickel if you don’t have a successful partnership and great communication.

Manufacturing companies spend a great deal of time looking for ways to beat their competition in new and innovative ways, whether it is through new manufacturing processes, better products or improved supply chain management. Manufacturing industry supply chain management can be difficult as you try to keep costs low and deliver goods and services to the customer in a timely manner. Fortunately, third-party logistics (3PL) providers offer many services that will improve a manufacturers’ supply chain.  

3PL companies strive to minimize transport costs and maximize the abilities of meeting their clients’ most demanding logistics needs. When it comes to logistics, the type of products to be transported, the method of transportation and the distance of transportation determines your ability to derive value from working with a third party logistics company. The efficiency of your supply chain is dependent on the level of efficiency of each component in the supply chain. In any company, you should be able to measure performance; the easiest way to determine whether the process is adding value to your company or not. Benchmarks should be set to determine the acceptable limits of performance given certain business environments.

Bad warehouse logistics practices lead to profit losses, whether you have dozens of warehouses at the core of your business or one which barely gets a second thought. In fact, there’s a strong chance that the less important you consider your warehouse, the worse off your current warehouse logistics are—but you should consider this a good thing. After all, inefficiency is an opportunity for more profit, as you figure out ways to cut down on the waste that’s eating your time, money, and resources (and perhaps find a new way to outperform your competitors). Today, we’ll cover five ways for any business to improve its warehouse logistics, and claim the profit hidden in your current flaws. 

When government regulations come into the scene, no industry is spared, including the transportation industry. Many regulations pertaining to this industry will bring about dramatic and significant changes in the coming years. It is believed the new logistics/transportation laws being enforced will affect the bottom line of carriers, truckers, consignees and shippers. Depending on the end cost, they may even affect consumers down the line. 

The transportation industry faces huge challenges in measuring the economic effects of cargo theft. The illustration below provides a comprehensive overview of American cargo theft from January ,1 2013 to December 31, 2013. The review examines stolen commodity type , theft incident location, date, and time , cargo origin and destination , and mode of transportation.

The 2014 outlook for the container shipping industry appears bleak. The industry generally remains leveraged by significant debt amid continued fluctuating business levels. That onerous interest burden can be traced to the steady increase in leverage across the industry in the past decade, as carriers have invested in new tonnage. We are now seeing a number of profound structural changes in the industry that will have broad ranging impact. The race to build and deploy larger, more efficient vessels is both a cause and an effect of the persistent financial pressure. 

One of the "firsts" in the Port Authority legacy, the Goethals Bridge was built as part of an overall project to accommodate greatly increased interstate automobile traffic following World War I. The Goethals Bridge is essential to moving cargo between airports and seaports and regional markets in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area.