Ultimate Guide to Managed Transportation Services

Modern logistics problems demand modern solutions. Today, countless US shippers face supply chain issues like driver shortages, capacity inefficiencies, government regulations, shrinking delivery windows, and rising transportation costs. Companies slow to address these issues run a severe risk of falling behind competitors who continuously seek faster, more efficient, and cost-effective chemical logistics solutions. Facing these challenges, the market is seeing significant increases in the reliance on outsourced shipping specialists for logistics and supply chain services – first and foremost are comprehensive managed transportation solutions.

At CLX Logistics, we’re passionate about managed transportation and want to share everything we know about it with you in your search for the ideal managed transportation partner. In this blog, we’re looking at what managed transportation is, how it works, and its key benefits. Continue reading “Ultimate Guide to Managed Transportation Services”

Transportation Visibility: What You Need to Know

Transportation Visibility [trans-per-tey-shuhn viz-uh-bil-i-tee]
noun
The ability to know where a shipment is at any time and when it will arrive at its destination.

“CLX Logistics offers modern telematics provide real-time transportation visibility on all in-transit shipments, anywhere in the world.”

Transportation visibility is critical to success in today’s logistics industry. Past methods of shipment tracking and tracing were often comprised of a website or 3rd party program. Through a relatively cold and clunky interface, users could input container numbers, airway bills, rail numbers, and other bits and pieces of information. Visibility was limited, data was often inaccurate, and real-time exceptions like delays, inventory complications, and other network service fluctuations were difficult to manage properly. Rising customer expectations for shorter transportation times and increased transparency lead increasing businesses to seek systems that can better collect and share all types of tracking information and data across the supply chain.

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The Challenges Chemical Shippers Face in Designing a Precision 4PL

The past couple of years have seen unprecedented disruptions to all types of businesses in every industry. COVID-19, economic instabilities, and rapidly changing global political situations impact countless logistics operations. In response, supply chains have adapted quickly. But not every chemical shipper did as well as they could have. Smart, precision supply chain management means building in greater flexibility and adaptability to deal with the inevitable ‘what ifs.’

In our new Guide: Design a Precision 4PL for Chemical Logistics, we provide a comprehensive look at chemical logistics 4PLs, examining your current supply chain, and designing a precision chemical 4PL. Today, we’re focusing on the different challenges that chemical supply chains face and how a specially designed, precision fourth-party logistics provider (4PL) can help.

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Intermodal Logistics in Extreme Weather & Environments

Winter weather can make even the most menial tasks more challenging. In northern Canada, the Arctic wind, ice, and snow are especially severe, leading to snowballing complications across every aspect of supply chain logistics. From manufacturer to end-user and everyone in between, each component of the supply chain is impacted. To succeed, shippers need expert planning and management that maximizes resources to continuously optimize and develop valuable supply chain solutions.

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4 Essential Qualities of a Top-Tier Chemical Logistics Provider

Between 2020 and 2024, the chemical logistics market is projected to grow by $24.7 billion. As demands increase, so do the number of companies who claim to be able to handle your chemical logistics needs. Chemical logistics is different from regular logistics. With unique HAZMAT requirements, permits, regional and regulatory knowledge, and industry expertise. To effectively tackle these challenges, you have to have an experienced chemical logistics specialist in your corner.

To help you find the right industry partner, we’re looking at 4 essential qualities of a top-tier chemical logistics provider. 

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Stop Bleeding Money with Outdated Freight Bidding Strategies

Let’s look at the facts – the percentage of supply chain managers using new analytics tools and services to develop better bidding strategies has increased from 17% in 2017 to more than 30% in 2020.1 As the ability to strategize bidding continues to improve and keep shippers competitive, that number will continue to grow. Soon, it’ll almost be a guarantee that if you’re not leveraging modern data analytics properly, you’re losing money or leaving it on the table. So, what are your competitors getting from modern data and analytics solutions that you’re missing out on?

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Does Your TMS Carry its Weight? Take Steps Towards Improvement

Choosing the right TMS is a critical part of every chemical shipper’s transportation network. Modern TMS provides advanced visibility into your day-to-day transportation operations and documentation that ensures your chemical freight gets to your customers on time. The right TMS makes it easier, more efficient, and cost-effective to track, manage, and optimize logistics operations across all modes and provide the right level of visibility to all parties.

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4 Benefits of 4PL & Managed Transportation Services

You’re likely familiar with a 2PL or 3PL, but now, we often see the term 4PL used throughout the industry. Sometimes you’ll see both 4PL and Managed Transportation Services used together or interchangeably to describe similar services. Even here at CLX Logistics, we provide 4PL services to many of our clients. So, what does it mean, exactly?

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Solve Chemical Logistics Challenges with Intermodal Transportation

In the world of transportation and logistics, the chemical industry is a bit unique. The biggest differences come from the need for highly specialized containers to safely transport chemical freight, and the extensive regulations chemicals must comply with for transportation. Fortunately, these challenges can be solved with a combination of tools and techniques that not only address the problem but introduce significant potential to save time and money across your supply chain. The strategy as a whole revolves around intermodal transportation and the use of BulkTainer™ ISO tanks.

This blog looks at the key challenges of chemical logistics, leveraging intermodal transportation, and how BulkTainer™ ISO tanks fit in to streamline the whole process.

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Issues Impacting Chemical Bidding and Benchmarking Carrier Rates in 2021

Each year, bulk truck and mode managers, transportation managers, and executives develop budgets to address new or different needs – but 2020 was unimaginably volatile, and 2021 has shown little signs of settling. Around the world, COVID-19 continues to strain driver capacity, the demand for chemical products continues to rise, and opportunities for supply chain improvement are increasingly difficult to forecast. A complete understanding of how your procurement process compares with other chemical manufacturers and their partners is key to developing efficient transportation strategies.

Whether you need to report on supply chain performance or identify sources of value within existing operations, it’s never been a better time to benchmark and bid your carrier rates. Our new Case Study, Achieving Chemical Supply Chain Optimization with CLX LaneLogix, shows how CLX Logistics implemented LaneLogix to help a Dutch multinational chemical company transform its global supply chain to enable continuous optimizations.

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