How Can Shippers Prepare For The ELD Mandate?

The Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate will take effect on December 18, 2017, and will require all truck drivers (unless exempt) to connect an ELD device to their truck engine to track their hours of service. To increase driver safety, drivers will not be able to drive over their allotted hours - 14 working hours, 11 driving hours a day, with 10 hours off in between shifts. This mandate will have a major impact on both drivers and shippers, which means driver efficiency will become a shared responsibility among all parties in the supply chain. 

From the shipper’s perspective, the ELD mandate could lead to reduced carrier productivity, driver shortages, and increased rates. Drivers may also refuse to work with facilities with extended wait times or charge more for going into difficult loading and unloading locations.

Longer wait times may turn into service failures for the shipper because product will not be delivered on time. This, coupled with capacity shortages, may force shippers to resort to expedited solutions or team drivers, which can cost 10-30% more than traditional solo transits. The ELD mandate will also result in drivers holding shippers to their appointment times or charging them if they are forced to wait. 

So how can shippers be more prepared to handle these challenges?

• Review appointment and lead times. Check with your carriers to make sure they will be on-time, and communicate with them when wait times are expected to be longer than normal. Additionally, provide carriers with enough lead time so that they can legally run the load.

• Preload trailers. Preloading trailers, and using drop and hook when possible, can save drivers nearly an hour compared to live loads.

• Be carrier friendly. Shippers should consider offering flexible appointment times and extending their hours of operation. In addition, providing safe overnight parking, or suggesting nearby parking can save drivers from eating into their hours of service while searching for a spot to park for their 10 hours off. 

• Improve staffing. Shippers should consider hiring additional staff during peak seasons. 

The ELD mandate will have a major impact on shippers, drivers, and many others within the supply chain. Actively seeking out ways to efficiently load and unload trailers and decreasing driver wait time will go a long way in lessening the inevitable challenges that will come with this mandate.

Is Your Supply Chain FSMA Compliant?

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), a ruling built off of the 2005 Sanitary Food Transportation Act, went into effect on April 6, 2017. The act shifts the focus from responding to food contamination to preventing it by prohibiting the distribution of “adulterated food” or food that has been held under unsanitary conditions. FSMA affects all parties within the supply chain. This includes shippers/brokers, receivers, loaders, and carriers.

The act specifically addresses safety, not spoilage or quality issues for all human foods, animal foods, additives, and dietary supplements. It requires all parties within the supply chain to be aware of things like material failure of temperature controls, or other conditions which could cause the food to become unsafe – thus requiring all parties within the supply chain to work together and communicate more than ever before. Below are a few ways to ensure your supply chain is compliant.

Online training. Communicate the availability of the FDAs online training to your carrier base.

Communication with shippers. Shippers should provide the carriers and receivers with key information for transport such as temperature requirements, product descriptions, and special trailer cleaning requirements to ensure food product is safely transported.

Standardized communications.  Carriers should receive all of the shipper’s product specifications on their carrier tender to avoid miscommunications.

Updated contracts. Your company’s contracts with its carriers should include language on FSMA, as well as the cleanliness and condition of the trailers and seals.

Detailed records. Shipper orders, carrier tenders, and any other load specific information should be stored by all parties indefinitely for future reference.

Food safety requirements are changing, and it’s important to make sure not only your company, but also your logistics partners are compliant to ensure a safe and efficient supply chain. 

Time for a visit from the supply chain doctor?

Here’s a revelation: your company has supply chain inefficiencies. And guess what? Correcting some of these inefficiencies could bring substantial savings, while improving logistics performance. The problem is how to uncover these issues and prioritize which ones to address.

Think of it like visiting a doctor. You can wait until you have an ache or pain, or in this case “pains” such as costly overtime or increased transportation costs. A more proactive approach, however, entails visiting the doctor’s office for regular health checkups. Your doctor can highlight areas to work on to improve overall health, but most importantly, head off major issues later on.

This is the role a supply chain consultant can perform for your company. Their “health check” will focus on key decision-making levels – strategic, tactical, and operational.

Strategic can look at things like:

• Network optimization
• Facility Layout
• Space utilization
• Pick/pack strategy 

Tactical includes:

• Ship-to alignment
• Safety stock analysis
• Mode conversion
• Racking configurations

Operational touches on:

• Carrier and mode selection
• Transit time analysis
• Metrics and reporting
• SOP creation

What companies will receive following a consultant’s visit is a roadmap to improving the health of their supply chain. The best logistics consultants will not only identify areas of improvement, but prioritize them and provide an ROI calculation. Companies then can enlist the services of a supply chain professional to swiftly correct high-priority inefficiencies.

It’s a simple fact that you can’t fix what you can’t measure. Enlisting the help of a supply chain consultant will not only help identify problems and corrective actions, but they also can assist with developing metrics to measure performance moving forward. The end result is a healthier supply chain.