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Supply Chain Bottlenecks

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Whatever4
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Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#1

Post by Whatever4 »

No thread on supply chain issues? It’s a puzzlement. :think:

Anyway, it’s an issue that fascinates me. Here’s an excellent Twitter thread on why there’s a huge bottleneck at ports and possible solutions.

Tl/dr: too many empty containers, nowhere to put them, sitting empty on trucks, thus nothing can get offloaded as there’s no trucks.

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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#2

Post by zekeb »

I drove to Sin City a couple of weeks ago. The route takes me along about 30 miles of Union Pacific mainline. Usually I meet four or five trains along this route. I like to check and see which locomotives they are using and if they are using distributive power. On the trip down I didn't meet a single train. On the trip back I met one train, pulling a consist of empty coal cars. I made the same trip about three weeks before that and met one train. For some reason the containers aren't making it to the railroads.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#3

Post by Slim Cognito »

Hubs' bestie is a trucker and they're panicking. Trying to find drivers now is hard enough but once the ships are off-loaded, it's going to be even worse.

If we can ever get the community college thing thru, maybe include technical schools too?
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#4

Post by northland10 »

Whatever4 wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:17 am Tl/dr: too many empty containers, nowhere to put them, sitting empty on trucks, thus nothing can get offloaded as there’s no trucks.
At first, I thought you were talking about some redneck's pickup in the parking lot.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#5

Post by Volkonski »

I know where all the trucks are. They are all on the Interstate highways between the North Fork and Texoma. ;)
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#6

Post by northland10 »

And I-80 from Joliet, IL to Porter, Indiana. Maybe I should have gone to Michigan next week. For once in my life to not have been stuck in a crowd of trucks there would have been refreshing.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#7

Post by RTH10260 »

Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach to fine firms over container backlog amid global supply chain disruption
Associated Press | AP

LOS ANGELES — In an effort to ease congestion at the nation's busiest port complex, officials said Monday that they will start fining shipping companies whose cargo containers linger for too long at marine terminals.

The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach said in a statement that arriving containers scheduled to be moved by trucks will be allowed to stay for nine days before fines start accruing. Containers set to move by rail can stay at the ports for three days.

After that, ocean carriers will be charged $100 per container, increasing in $100 increments per container per day, the statement said.

The new rules will go into effect Nov. 1.

"The terminals are running out of space, and this will make room for the containers sitting on those ships at anchor," Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero said in the statement.

It's the latest step aimed at relieving the logjam of cargo ships that has interrupted the global supply chain. The backlog prompted the Biden administration to allow the port complex to operate 24 hours a day to try to get goods unloaded and out to consumers.

About 40% of all shipping containers entering the U.S. come through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.



https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... 549770002/
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#8

Post by RTH10260 »

Port of Los Angeles chaos: 24/7 operations won’t be immediate
By CNS
October 14, 2021Updated 1:25PM

LOS ANGELES - Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said Thursday that a timeline for the port to begin 24/7 operations was not clear and would depend on collaboration between the port's longshore workers, truck drivers and the more than 125,000 companies that import cargo through the port every year.

"It's not a single lever we can pull today to open up all the gates, but what we're doing is trying to squeeze every minute, every hour of efficiency out of this port complex that we can, sharing information, building on those strong decadeslong relationships, and with the strength of the federal government behind this, the work here will be fast; it has to be," Seroka said. "There's no timeline when suddenly we will wake up and everything will be 24/7," he added.

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the port will begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week as part of a push from the White House to clear supply chain disruptions threatening the holiday shopping season and slowing the nation's economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

In an effort to reduce the backlog of cargo ships floating in the pacific, the White House has reached an agreement nearly doubling the number of hours cargo is transferred at the Port of Los Angeles.

Major shippers and retailers, including Walmart, FedEx, UPS, Samsung, The Home Depot and Target, have agreed to speed up operations to clear cargo out of the ports and free up more space on the docks.

The Port of Los Angeles will nearly double the number of hours that cargo is transferred from container ships offshore to delivery trucks as crews work through the night. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union members will fill the extra shifts, according to the White House.

The goal is to process and unload 3,500 extra containers during the night each week.

Round-the-clock operations were already in effect at the Port of Long Beach. The two ports are responsible for about 40% of all imports into the United States.



https://www.foxla.com/news/port-of-los- ... -immediate
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#9

Post by Azastan »

Ryan Petersen loses money when he can't deliver on his promises. Of course he's interested in getting containers out of the ports and on their way.

I am all for getting shipping containers back to their place of origin so that the bottleneck can be resolved, but Mr Petersen has a rather large personal investment in getting things going.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#10

Post by Maybenaut »

At the user end…

Delays in getting our front door and new windows installed. Although they’re made in the US, the materials come from overseas.

Also, delay in getting our solar system installed. Provider had to redesign using panels made in the US because the ones we originally chose are made in Viet Nam and will not be available for the foreseeable future.

Delay in getting our new wood stove installed because the stainless steel flue liner is back-ordered.

And, alas, kitten food.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#11

Post by RTH10260 »

Aluminum Shortage Disrupts Montana License Plate Production
Montana has become the latest state to temporarily stop making license plates because of a disruption in the U.S. aluminum supply.

By Associated Press
Oct. 29, 2021, at 6:07 p.m.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana has become the latest state to stop making license plates because of disruption in the U.S. aluminum supply — another example of supply chain problems caused by the pandemic.

Montana Correctional Enterprises, which makes the plates at the state prison, ran out of aluminum this week said Carolynn Bright, spokesperson for the Montana Department of Corrections. Another shipment of aluminum isn’t expected until December, officials said.

“We knew this might be a possibility because it’s been an issue at other license plate factories throughout the nation,” said Gayle Butler, administrator of Montana Correctional Enterprises, a division of the Department of Corrections.

In May, North Carolina suspended its program to replace license plates that are more than six years old due to an aluminum shortage while Arizona had an aluminum supply chain problem that cleared up in June.




https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states ... in-montana
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#12

Post by northland10 »

So, in my day, non-music, role, every fall we do a mass mailing of recognition materials which includes ones that are made of material and contain the actual year, so we order them specifically. To ensure we can order earlier enough to have part of the order before we know the actual final number, we make a partial order early on. The second part is ordered later when we are able to determine a better rough number (using past years to determine the future number has oddly not been a useful method as the changes are usually larger than we would anticipate).

Well, the first order showed up without an issue. My biggest worry was that, due to playing fireman to cleanup fires from a massive change to a new system along with somebody who helps being promoted to another department, I would be running behind our normal schedule. Luckily, I managed to push the work (and some longer days) and I only missed our preferred date by about 5 days, which was amazing. It is still better than many past years.

Well... it looks like the supply chain fun finally came knocking. We sent out what we could with the first order, but the second-order is over a month later than when we would normally expect it. Ah well, at least we have an easy excuse this time. And, despite some of our constituents' opinion, this is really not an absolute mission-critical thing especially considering the more important parts of life that are getting hit.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#13

Post by tek »

Also some self-inflicted wounds.
This is an email from one of my long-time clients, who does contract engineering work, asking about the possibility of a redesign to get around the lack of parts caused by idiots idioting.. (the D44/D43 are ARM microcontroller chips)
Our customer did not purchase their parts for production this July as we asked. Now, there are no parts. In particular, the 4,000+ D44s that were available are now gone.

There are some D43 parts available. Different footprint and more importantly, a different DDR2 data path at 16-bit instead of 32-bit. I'm not real excited about putting together another design.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#14

Post by AndyinPA »

I've been doing my Christmas shopping ahead, but then I always do. Toys are supposed to be harder to get the closer to Christmas, so I got that done for my grandson. The shelves at Target were pretty picked over. I buy Toys for Tots each year, but I don't have to be so specific for that--boys, girls, all ages, so no problem.

Today, I looked at turkeys and thought the sooner I bought one, the better. There weren't a lot of them, but what they had were HUGE, so I didn't get one. I'll keep looking. Those bigger turkeys had price tags of around $60!

I don't know if it's supply chain or not, but for months the only store I can buy real coffee cream in has been out of it. Even the SKEW for it seems to have disappeared, so I'm not holding my breath.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#15

Post by Jim »

AndyinPA wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 5:27 pm I've been doing my Christmas shopping ahead, but then I always do. Toys are supposed to be harder to get the closer to Christmas, so I got that done for my grandson. The shelves at Target were pretty picked over. I buy Toys for Tots each year, but I don't have to be so specific for that--boys, girls, all ages, so no problem.

Today, I looked at turkeys and thought the sooner I bought one, the better. There weren't a lot of them, but what they had were HUGE, so I didn't get one. I'll keep looking. Those bigger turkeys had price tags of around $60!

I don't know if it's supply chain or not, but for months the only store I can buy real coffee cream in has been out of it. Even the SKEW for it seems to have disappeared, so I'm not holding my breath.
SKU not SKEW. SKU = Stock Keeping Unit. Skew = out of whack. LOL
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#16

Post by AndyinPA »

:rotflmao:

:oopsy:

Because I knew that.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#17

Post by RTH10260 »

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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#18

Post by sugar magnolia »

I’m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End
Ryan JOHNSON
Pretty interesting article from a truck driver.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#19

Post by bill_g »

sugar magnolia wrote: Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:12 am https: //medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-i-will-tell-you-why-america-s-shipping-crisis-will-not-end-bbe0ebac6a91
I’m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End
Ryan JOHNSON
Pretty interesting article from a truck driver.
In plain English with a lot of personal perspective, common sense, and no vitriol.

Thanks!
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#20

Post by RTH10260 »

FWIW (don't know the channel)

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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#21

Post by jcolvin2 »

I ordered three new appliances in August, each of which were produced by a different German manufacturer. Delivery was scheduled for this coming Wednesday. Got a call last Monday that the induction stove and the refrigerator would not be available until mid-January. The dishwasher may be available- keeping my fingers crossed.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#22

Post by pipistrelle »

sugar magnolia wrote: Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:12 am
I’m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End
Ryan JOHNSON
Pretty interesting article from a truck driver.
Been wondering this for years. Independence is not perfect.
They pay for all their own repairs and fuel, and all truck related expenses. I honestly don’t understand how many of them can even afford to show up for work. There’s no guarantee of ANY wage (not even minimum wage), and in many cases, these drivers make far below minimum wage. In some cases they work 70 hour weeks and still end up owing money to their carrier.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#23

Post by Slim Cognito »

Haven't read the article (yet) but Hubs' best bud from HS is a trucker and says they can't find drivers for whenever the boats are finally unloaded sooooo....yeah.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#24

Post by RTH10260 »

I think the independants are not those that transport shipping containers. They pick up trailer loads thru brokers of their preference, know that they can skip offers priced too low. Though the time factor on fetching the load and delivering it can still be volatile it seems to be less chotic as was described in the article for container transport. Ineresting for me was to read that the chassis to transport containers are a scarce resource.
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Re: Supply Chain Bottlenecks

#25

Post by Estiveo »

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