Andy Moses, senior vice president of global products with Penske Logistics, talks about the growing popularity of dedicated contract carriage - and offers a frank appraisal of the challenges that shippers and carriers face in today's uncertain economy.

I don't know anyone who would argue with the assertion that supply chain operations must be highly dynamic and adaptable in order to succeed in today's fast-changing markets. Why is it, then, that pricing of transportation and other supply chain services remains a largely static process, based on annual bids and static routing guides that can never do more than reflect a single snapshot in time of a company's freight volumes and flows?