Thread by @santoshsankar

Given supply chain got sexy in 2020, it only feels fitting I do 365 days of interesting supply chain facts to keep it going in the new year...

01/ ~90% of non-bulk cargo is transported by containership

02/ After a banner year for eComm, it's estimated that 30% of holiday purchases will be returned representing over $70B worth of merchandise (credit @CBRE)

02a/ Some estimates see returns totaling $115B (per @FT)

03/ Semi trucks are the workhorse of supply chain. They have a lifespan of ~750k miles or 10-15 yrs. At that point they can be refurbished but a new truck is the better investment

04/ It takes 60 days to send a container back to the origin port from a destination. Currently, this is taking 100 days on average

05/ The average Amazon facility (with some baseline automation), workers are expected to pick at a rate of ≥350 packages/hr for a takt time of 7 secs

Takt time is the amount of time it takes to process a single item

06/ Research suggests that 30% of delivery drivers "sample" the food they're delivering

07/ A Boeing 747-400 Freighter can hold as much as 26k ft³ of freight (about 5 truckloads full)

08/ There are 700 common carrier freight railroads in the US with just 7 considered to be Class I operators (≥$490M in annual sales)

09/ A driver with just 25 packages has 15 trillion trillion (that's 24 zeros) possible routes

10/ Approximately 60% of commercial warehousing square footage in the US is owned/operated by "mom and pop"

11/ TEU or Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit is the unit of measure for container and container ship capacity

That said, FEU or Forty-foot Equivalent Unit is the most frequently used container and likely what you're familiar with

12/ Pallet rack systems are the most basic organizational tool in a warehouse. They are vertical steel structures with horizontal supports

They are split into high density (fit more freight for storage) vs low density (fit less freight for access) with an avg height of ~25 ft

13/ Latest numbers suggest a $1.5T gap in trade finance that's expected to grow to $2.5T by 2025. The deficit is growing as developing economies in Asia and Africa benefit from a shift away from Chinese supply chains

14/ In the US, there are ~2M semi trailers in operation relative to ~5.5M trailers

15/ There are 585k road freight transportation companies in the EU compared to roughly 10k in inland water transport and 1k in rail freight

16/ Airfreight charges are based on the greater of

a) Gross weight = cargo + pallet
B) Volumetric weight = (L*W*H)*167

As info, 167 is the air cubic conversion factor

All measurements should be taken/converted in/to metric units

17/ Researchers found that the "Monday blues" can impact supply chains as employees return to work less productive and have to manage process interruptions from the weekend

Technology such as automated order processing have been observed to help improve this by as much as 90%

18/ Trucks use diesel over gasoline because of fuel efficiency

This is most noticable when generating torque to get the vehicle moving. Diesel can generate more torque at a lower speed than gas

🚛⛽

19/ Cargo ships are estimated to emit 3% of annual global CO2 emissions

20/ Some interesting logistical statistics from prior presidential inaugurations...

3000 personnel

200 transportation movements

13 field command posts

21/ The average rate/mile for dry van goods (your standard trailer) in the US per @LoadBoards

22/ According to a prior study by the World Shipping Council, an average of 568 containers are lost at sea each year

* Data from '08-'16

23/ Fulltruck Load is a single trailer of freight (takes up 50%+ of trailer) going from point A to B with pricing primarily driven by:

- supply availability on lane
- seasonality
- fuel costs

24/ Less Than Truckload is when you can't fill at least 50% of a trailer. LTL has diff types of cargo coming from/going to different destinations

Pricing is primarily driven by:
- Weight
- Density
- Distance

Accessorial charges can also add up on top of fuel, handling, speed

25/ The "ton" originated in the 1400s when the King of England mandated that all inbound wine be filled in standard 252 gal casks called "tuns" to prevent tax evasion

Each tun weighed 2,240lbs vs today's more common short ton that's 2,000 lbs

via @tedalling

26/ The essence of Warehouse Management Systems:

What's entering/leaving today?

Where is inventory in this warehouse?

How much do we have/can we verify that?

How is inventory allocated across the system?

Who is working today?

*Share this with adjacent systems- ERP, WES, WCS

27/ In Europe, a truck driver cannot drive more than 9hrs but can drive up to 10hrs up to 2x/wk

A driver must rest 11hrs daily with an exception of going down to 9hr, max 3x/wk. Daily rest can be split into a 3hr
and 9hr period for a total of 12hrs of downtime

28/ The modern pallet was invented in 1925 by Howard Hallowell who adopted the age-old "skid" to work with forklift trucks

During WWII, the pallet got upgraded to be "four-way" so a forklift could pick it up from all sides

29/ There are 17M containers in the world but only 6M are used (for logistics or otherwise) 🤦🏽‍♂️

30/ Interstate 90 is the longest and busiest highway in the US seeing over 320k vehicles/year on its 3k mile stretch

31/ The Boeing Everett Factory is the largest warehouse in the world at 4.3M sq ft. It's used to assemble the 767, 777, and 786 Dreamliner planes

32/ In an average year, US railroads transport 2M+ carloads of construction materials (6%+ of total carloads transported)

33/ In the US alone, Amazon has 110
warehouses, 45 sorting centers,
and 50 delivery stations that
employ 125k+ full-time workers

*As of 2019

34/ In Q4 2020, UPS had 39k drivers who used their personal vehicles for last mile delivery. This network handled 69M packages

35/ The minimum tread depth on commercial vehicles is 4/32" on steer tires and 2/32" on all other tires

36/ In 2020, the Indian Ministry of Rail announced the running of the longest goods train in the country, "SheshNaag" that spanned 2.8km/1.74mi

37/ Did you know an empty 40 ft shipping container weighs 3.8-4.2 tons?

Variability of weight is a function of container type (ex high cube aka a tall container is heavier)

38/ Super Bowl Sunday! 🏈

Top items ordered

- Food and beverages
- Apparel
- Electronics

All of which can be ordered and stored in advance to avoid a spike in demand and accordingly, supply chain

39/ Barges travel at approximately 5 mph but carry 25x as much tonnage as a railcar/40x as much as a truck

40/ A tanker trailer can hold anywhere from 5,500 to 11,600 gallons of liquid (gasoline, milk, chemicals, etc)

41/ Supply chain activities account for nearly 8% of US GDP vs financial services at 7.5% 📦🚛💰

*Sigh* supply chain is the unappreciated backbone of the economy

42/ Amazon's shipping costs

2016 $16.2B
2017 $21.7B
2018 $27.7B
2019 $37.9B
2020 $61.1B

30% CAGR

43/ Happy Chinese New Year!

Offices and factories close for ~ 3 wks causing pause in freight and info flowa

~40% drop in travel this year due to COVID expected to drive intra-city spending boom

The Ox is typified by trust and faithfulness

44/ In delivery/fulfillment logistics, batching is the concept of pooling deliveries that are within a similar destination radius and assigning them to an available vehicle/driver

The goal is to drive down the cost and time of delivery

📦🚚

45/ Happy Valentine's Day!

🌷90% of flowers are grown in LatAm

✈️US imports ~24M flowers/day

🌴91% of flowers enter via #Miami

🥶Transport requires temps at 35F with some flowers stored vertically with water

⏳Pick to purchase can be as fast as 48 hrs

46/ In the dairy supply chain, milk from various farms operating under the same co-op is often pooled together to make a full truckload

The truckload varies state by state- In NY, the limit is 40k lbs while in CA it is 80k lbs

47/ For the last 3 years, FedEx and UPS have increased prices for standard parcel service 4.9% each year

New fees, surcharges, and accessorials could cause increases well north of 8%

48/ On average, the 10 major ocean liners have <70% completeness for 4 of the 8 required status events when transporting freight

via @VizionAPI #weAreDynamo

49/ The largest verdict against a commercial trucking company is said to be the 2019 ruling against Schnitzer Steel that required it pay out $280M to one person of a family of five who were killed in a 2016 accident involving a driver for the company

🚛⚖️

50/ A 747 can hold nearly 64k gallons of fuel

✈️⛽

51/ Fleet managers are responsible for the purchase, licensure, and maintenance of vehicles. They're also responsible for efforts around minimizing cost and maximizing yield of assets (practical efforts vary from company to company)

52/ OTIF - On Time and In Full is a KPI that answers the simple Q: "Did the customer get what they ordered when you promised it to them?"

Break into 2 parts:

1) Did you deliver within the lead time promised?

2) Did you deliver the right product in the right quantity?

52/ A truck emits 162 grams of CO2 per ton-mile (moving 1 ton, 1 mile)

53/ 45-50% of air freight volumes are transported in the belly hold of passenger air craft

55/ In oil and gas, the initial transporter is responsible for finalizing the bill of lading given the quantity of product isn't known with precision till the tanker is filled

56/ There are 360 commercial ports in the US according to the Coast Guard

⚓🌊🚢

57/ There are 5k public airports and 14.6k private airports in the US as of 2019

58/ Food delivery aggregators can take up to 30% of an order's value thereby reducing the profits of the restaurant

59/ The rail network in the US has ~140k miles of track and 100k+ bridges

60/ In the latest @ShipStation survey, 79% of consumers said they're ok with eComm orders taking up to 8 days to arrive due to the pandemic

But 60% of respondents expect a return to a 5 day or less shipping time post-pandemic

61/ AMRs (Autonomous Mobile Robots) have sophisticated sensor stacks that allows them to move goods thru a warehouse w/o oversight and can find and run on dynamic routes

Their flexibility is key- can find best route to complete a job w/o a massive adjustment to the surroundings

62/ For every $1B of eComm sales, we'll need 1.2M sq ft of additional distribution space

Via @themotleyfool @Prologis

63/ Over-the-road drivers typically spend 2-3 weeks at a time away from home. In some instances time away can be as long as 4-6 weeks

This varies based on company, service offering, and seniority in the fleet

64/ Short line railroads run shorter distances to connect shippers with the larger freight rail network (Class I)

Collectively, short lines operate 50k miles of track or nearly 40% of the US rail network

65/ Broker Authority is granted by the FMCSA and allows a company to organize and execute the transportation of cargo for third parties

This applies to both carrier operations and brokers

66/ Bobtail is when a tractor is not hauling a trailer

Bobtailing is considered to be riskier because the rear wheels are not held down to the road as well. As a result, a bobtailing tractor has elevated forward-roll risk (similar to riding a bike and slamming the front brakes)

67/ At the writing of this tweet, 30% of commercial air fleets remain grounded

The lack of capacity underpins elevated air freight rates which in total are +75% y/y

Via @WSJLogistics

68/ Historians believe that the first warehouses were built in the Stone Age (about 2.6M years ago)

The units were simple stone pits used to safeguard food and seeds

69/ Top expenses for a trucking carrier on a per mile basis

1) Driver Compensation (31%)
2) Fuel (23%)
3) Maintenance (12%)
4) Equipment Finance (10%)
5) Insurance (6%)

Via @TCANews @FreightWaves taking midpoints of 2020 survey data

70/ Since the 1970s, the US has not seen a net growth in manufacturing jobs after a recession

Case in point, the most recent February data shows that manufacturing jobs are still down 561k from a year earlier

via @business

@business 71/ Research suggests that ~30% of companies (of various sizes) use a Product Information Management (PIM) offering to manage product data (BoM, catalog variations among similar SKUs, et al)

Most of this is handled manually with spreadsheets being the most popular technical tool

72/ Research indicates that 40-50% of all food harvested/produced is lost through the supply chain

73/ Freight hauled on US railroads YTD carloads

1) Coal - 531k
2) Chemicals - 284k
3) Grain - 228k

74/ Survey data suggests that 38% of companies are shipping on time and in full (OTIF) at least 95% of the time

75/ Trucks arriving in the UK with freight are leaving empty at twice the rate relative to pre-Brexit levels

76/ The average price of a used commercial truck in 🇩🇪 averages $30K depending on make, model, mileage, and age

thanks to @_rachelbraun for finding some data on this

77/ Amazon's B2B marketplace now does $25B+ in annualized GMV. This was achieved in 6 years vs the B2C marketplace that took 7 years to achieve $10B GMV

via digitalcommerce360.com/article/amazon…

78/ A longshoreman is a person employed to load and unload cargo onto ships at port

79/ Break bulk cargo is loaded individually in barrels, drums, bags, or crates rather than in containers or the holds of bulk ships

80/ Forced dispatch is when a driver is unwilling or unable to accept a trip/load but the carrier/trucking company forces the driver to take the trip anyways (usually by threatening termination)

This is illegal

81/ In the US, there are expected to be 101M packages delivered/day in 2022. eCommerce is expected to drive 86% of that volume growth

from @FedEx via @business

82/ A lumper is a third-party worker tasked by a shipper to help unload and load cargo at the dock

While the lumper is engaged by the shipper, the carrier pays them upfront and then seeks reimbursement from the shipper

83/ The Suez Canal is 225m wide at a depth of 11m (the shallowest part of the cross section) with a min width of 121m at the base and max width of 313m at the surface

84/ Ever Given is one of the largest container ships in the world with a capacity of > 20k TEU

It measures nearly 400m long with a beam (width at the widest point) of 59m

Authorities expect it will take days to a week to dislodge from the Suez Canal

#SuezBLOCKED #EVERGIVEN