A Dent in the Armor

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Hello all, what a busy week!  I hope everything is going your way for you.  I just finished up a training session in the Atlanta Georgia area. I mean literally like 15 minutes ago.  It’s late but I wanted to talk for just a few minutes about the Supply Chain.  I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  Last year I learned that our nations supply chain was a bit more vulnerable than I ever realized!  When so many manufacturing and production plants shut down due to the pandemic, remember those early weeks when we didn’t know what was going to happen!  Here in the states, we started noticing, much quicker than I thought we would, that we were running out of imported goods.  That 3-month lag in goods hitting the seas would end up taking us months to reboot.  We did though, and I for one feel we’re much stronger for it!  Let’s not jump subjects I guess, but I did want to take just a few minutes and share a thought or two about that supply chain again. 

So, we all know how important containers and trailers are to our economy.  Without those tractors and all the women and men willing to move all our goods across the states we wouldn’t have everything we want.  Much less everything that we need.  I for one appreciate them, as I’m sure you do as well.  Many drivers took a beating for those few months with the delivery lanes and ports all messed up.  I hope that we never experience something like that again. 

With that being said, we dodged a bullet this week, or I feel that things could have been much worse and I’m thankful to report that all is right in the world of ships heading to ports again!  

This is going to be a brief episode, life got in the way the last couple of days, vehicle troubles, doctor visits and friends needing a hand!  Anyway, lets talk about the near disaster of the Ever Given container ship that blocked the Suez Canal this week.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given  Does anyone know how big of a vessel we’re talking here!  This thing is huge.  Wikipedia tells us that it is owned by a large Japanese ship building company.  It was launched in May of 2018.  Its tonnage is written as 220,940. And its length is 1312 ft.  It got stuck or ran aground in the Suez Canal last Tuesday.  The ensuing back up started immediately!  

As of this Monday there were 367 vessels waiting their turn to take the short cut thru the canal.  Although the Ever Given is afloat and under power now, it’ll still days if not a couple of weeks for everyone to get back underway.   

As a little side note, the Suez Canal handles about 12% of our global trade.  I learned a few things while looking up these facts tonight.  A couple of things were a bit alarming to me.  Maybe our global supply chain is showing signs of distress and we’ve just been ignoring it.  We all know that more than 75% of our goods are moved by sea.  Any little burp like a large storm, an area taken over by pirates or a large port fire even, something simple like all those examples can disrupt a good thing.   

I’m thinking, as more and more people have returned to the workforce that our demand of consumer goods are going to outpace the flow of goods. Maybe an opinion for another time! 

So back to the ever given!  I read one estimate that said over 8 billion dollars of goods were being held up each day.  The rescuers were using every tool they could think of.  Tugboats, digging sand, I think they tried everything but calling two Texans with four-wheel drive trucks to pull from the bow and the stern.  Seriously thinks we’re starting to look bleak for a few days.  Can you imagine the delay if they had to unload all those containers to float it again? She was carrying just under 18K containers!  Another article stated that, I think it came from a Lloyds list, anyway, it said that estimates were as high as 400 million dollars an hour was being lost.  That’s a lot of money my friends!   

But like I said, all’s good now.  Or is it?  The canal is open again and the Ever Given is back on course.  But I think we’ll fell the impact of the last 6 days for much longer.  I mean, things have been delayed for a week.  I wonder if the ports had laid anyone off since the ships weren’t arriving?  Can they call them back quick enough?  And what about the many ships that chose to take the long way around and not wait for the canal to be cleared.  They may have added a week to their travels.  That could mean much more fuel and dangers at sea.  I don’t know but as you can probably tell, my interest has been peaked!  I’m pretty sure we’ll be having an upcoming discussion regarding the health of our national or global supply chain!   

There is a ton, get the pun.  There is a ton of articles on-line about the events of this week.  Check them out, I think you’ll find the situation interesting.   

Will your facility be affected by the delays?  Are you experiencing any changes in your business or inventory due to the supply chain?  Share any concerns you may have with the group please.  Send us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and I’ll present them to the group.  Maybe someone could start a discussion on the warehouse and equipment operator’s community Facebook page.   

Life, I love it but man it can get busy!  Well, those are a few thoughts I’ve had.  Now I’m ready to wrap up the week.  Until next Thursday, be safe, share a safety thought with a friend, and remember there waiting on our safe return at home!