Liquid bulk shipping requires complex planning and scheduling. For many oil, gas and chemical companies, getting the business in shape to manage incoming and outgoing shipments drives competitive edge. As prices fluctuate on a daily basis, understanding the options on large crude oil vessels and having up-to-date market information is vital when bidding on spot cargo to accurately schedule your fleet. Being able to take all unassigned ships to a legal berth, with all constraints considered, is a logistic and economic challenge. So, how can companies maximize profitability and avoid unnecessary demurrage costs?

The number of container ships afloat has decreased in the first half of 2014 and could fall on an annual basis this year, for the first time in at least 20 years. Although the total TEU nominal capacity of the global fleet continues to increase by about 6 percent a year, this growth in capacity now comes solely from the increase in average ship size, not from having more ships.

Third-party logistics provider Landair has developed Guaranteed Value Acceleration (GVA), a new service feature designed to give supply-chain managers greater confidence that outsourcing to a 3PL yields measurable financial, operations or customer-service improvements.

Huhtamaki Inc., a producer of consumer-goods and food-service packaging, was looking to expand its international activities. Scott Stuckenschneider, vice president of North American supply chain, is joined by Sheila Hewitt, vice president international with Transplace, to discuss how the company formalized its global logistics program.