Walmart, Target, Home Depot Will Move More Cargo At Night To Help Clear Supply Chain Backlog

Smart move by the Administration to help try to ease the supply chain logjam. JL

Lauren Debter reports in Forbes:

Walmart, Target and Home Depot are among the retailers that will take advantage of new, round-the-clock operations at the nation’s two busiest ports to move cargo faster and get it onto shelves in time for Christmas. The efforts are part of a plan that the Biden Administration announced to keep the port at Los Angeles operating 24/7, with the expanded hours meant to help alleviate a logjam that has caused delays and shortages. As of last week, there were more than 60 ships waiting off the coast to dock. This port, along with one at Long Beach, account for 40% of the containers coming into the U.S.

Walmart, Target and Home Depot are among the retailers that will take advantage of new, round-the-clock operations at the nation’s two busiest ports to move cargo faster and get it onto shelves in time for Christmas.

The efforts are part of a plan that the Biden Administration will announce today to keep the port at Los Angeles operating 24/7, with the expanded hours meant to help alleviate a logjam that has caused delays and shortages of everything from toys and bicycles to appliances and furniture. As of last week, there were more than 60 ships waiting off the coast to dock. This port, along with one at Long Beach, account for 40% of the containers coming into the U.S. The Long Beach port introduced nighttime and weekend hours in September. Ports in Asia and Europe already operate on this schedule.

“Ordinary people and businesses are feeling the effects of these delays and bottlenecks,” said a senior administration official on a call with reporters on Tuesday evening. “It makes it challenging to get products on the shelves and for goods to be delivered to their doorstep.”

The bottleneck at the ports is just one source of delay threatening the make-or-break-it holiday season. As consumer demand has soared, it has placed additional strain on a global supply chain hobbled by the coronavirus pandemic. Factories in Asia have periodically gone dark as workers become ill. It’s become difficult to secure space on shipping containers, prompting some large retailers like Walmart, Costco Home Depot to charter their own ships. Others have turned to putting stuff on planes. Once stuff arrives in the U.S., their transport is further slowed by a shortage of truck drivers.

Walmart said it will begin operating “significantly” more at night, which could help increase its throughput by as much as 50% in the next several weeks. Home Depot HD +1.6% plans to move up to 10% additional containers per week during off-peak hours.

Target TGT +2% said it is currently moving about half of its containers at ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach at night, with plans to increase that amount by 10% over the next 90 days. Samsung will move nearly 60% more containers out of these ports during the next 90 days by working nights and weekends.

UPS and FedEx, which together shipped 40% of American packages by volume last year, are pledging to work more hours, too. UPS plans to take increased advantage of 24/7 operations and also enhance its data sharing with the ports, which could allow it to move up to 20% more containers from the ports. FedEx is looking to double the amount of cargo it moves at night.

Altogether, these companies will move another 3,500 containers at night every week through the end of the year, according to the administration. It’s often faster to move goods during off-peak hours. For instance, at the port at Los Angeles, goods move 25% faster at night than during the day.

“By taking these steps, they’re saying to the rest of the supply chain, ‘You need to move, too, let’s step it up,’” said the official.