Shipping Congestion and Supply Chain Management 🚢

Like many others, my interaction with the global supply chain has always been an invisible one, offering me ever cheaper retail goods as globalization expanded while simultaneously now causing prices to rise with inflation. If it weren’t for the pandemic forcing my partner and me into a work-from-home situation and causing supply chain issues that affected his work as a menswear designer, I might have remained blissfully unaware of the powers operating on what we find (or don’t find) on shelves or our favorite e-commerce sites.

     

                                          Port Traffic in Los Angeles, CA. Image from The Guardian

Recent news reports warn of rising inflation tied to the pandemic, economic policy, trade tariffs, and more. Depending on whom you ask or where you read (check out the comments section in this article, for instance), any number of issues are to blame. I don’t hold an economics degree (I switched to anthropology 10 minutes into my first macroeconomics course), but the opinions of those who do have economics degrees say, “it’s complicated.” One thing is for sure: cargo ships are jammed up at ports on both shores of the country while prices creep upwards for consumers, reflecting improved efficiency in supply chain.

AI Supply Chains

Imagine the effects of human error on one cargo ship worth hundreds of millions, if not billions (depending on the cargo), arriving late, unloading slowly, and returning to its destination empty. I wouldn’t want that job. Luckily, even before the pandemic, there was a shift underway towards AI-powered logistics. 

Emerge Market, a Scottsdale, AZ logistics company started by two brothers who grew up in their dad’s air freight business, seeks to accelerate productivity and increase transparency for supply chain stakeholders. The brothers sold their previous company, GlobalTranz, in 2018 to a private equity firm for $400MM. 

Then there are the issues that come up during the journey, like temperature control and package tracking, for which companies are seeking to serve enterprises and carriers. Companies like Overhaul, whose customers include Microsoft and Gordon Food Service, will use their recent $35MM Series B to employ the growing tech force in Austin, Texas. 

Shipping through the Cloud

For companies who undergo the transition to software-supported supply chain management, the existential question of who manages the managing software tends to come up. That’s where cloud companies fill in the gaps. Cloudsmith, who raised a record-tying Series A for a Glasgow-based company, helps businesses manage their software through the cloud, rather than employing dedicated staff, VPNs, and licenses. 

For more logistics & supply chain management companies, search either keyword on the database.