I am a supply chain guy. I have been in the industry for 30 years. That port is highly automated, meaning, they have robot chassis that will take a container. Minimal people and labor involved compared to 10 years ago. None of this makes any sense to me. There are also other circumstances, i.e. the State of CA has mandates on the carriers/draymen that their trucks have to meet certain emission standards or they cannot pull from the port. Trucking hours of service are also artificially placed on how much work someone can do, or how long someone can be on duty. During the 2020 shutdown, the hours of service were waived. I am still waiting on the safety reports to see if drivers were more unsafe during this time. On the other side of the pond, there is a shortage of drivers in China. We have hundreds of containers that are ready to ship, but there are no empty containers, nor space available on ships. Last year, a container 40ft cost us $2500 to get here (Port to Door) that same container is now $25,000. The only reason we don't make this product line in the US, is we can buy it delivered for cheaper than we can source the raw materials in the US. Every thing else we manufacture here 24/7, 360 (we shut down production for Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, and 4th of July) The resident is a joke saying work 24/7 and the problem will be resolved. Wal Mart was their to back him up. Wal Mart DC's have ALWAYS been 24/7. They cannot get labor right now to unload trucks or load trucks out. We supply grocery goods and we have customers who are out of stock on the shelf, but cannot take delivery of our goods because they don't have the labor in the warehouse to take delivery. There are so many more intricacies weaved into this than just saying open up 24/7. Rant over. OP tell your pops thank you for keeping the economy going. Without hard working folks like him, everything grinds to a halt as we are seeing.
I am a supply chain guy. I have been in the industry for 30 years. That port is highly automated, meaning, they have robot chassis that will take a container. Minimal people and labor involved compared to 10 years ago. None of this makes any sense to me. There are also other circumstances, i.e. the State of CA has mandates on the carriers/draymen that their trucks have to meet certain emission standards or they cannot pull from the port. Trucking hours of service are also artificially placed on how much work someone can do, or how long someone can be on duty. During the 2020 shutdown, the hours of service were waived. I am still waiting on the safety reports to see if drivers were more unsafe during this time. On the other side of the pond, there is a shortage of drivers in China. We have hundreds of containers that are ready to ship, but there are no empty containers, nor space available on ships. Last year, a container 40ft cost us $2500 to get here (Port to Door) that same container is now $25,000. The only reason we don't make this product line in the US, is we can buy it delivered for cheaper than we can source the raw materials in the US. Every thing else we manufacture here 24/7, 360 (we shut down production for Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, and 4th of July) The resident is a joke saying work 24/7 and the problem will be resolved. Wal Mart was their to back him up. Wal Mart DC's have ALWAYS been 24/7. They cannot get labor right now to unload trucks or load trucks out. We supply grocery goods and we have customers who are out of stock on the shelf, but cannot take delivery of our goods because they don't have the labor in the warehouse to take delivery. There are so many more intricacies weaved into this than just saying open up 24/7. Rant over. OP tell your pops thank you for keeping the economy going. Without hard working folks like him, everything grinds to a halt as we are seeing.