Freight Forward: Inland Distribution

Welcome to this special edition of the Freight Forward. Today and tomorrow, I'll be sharing a recap of JOC's Inland Distribution conference here in rainy Chicago.

I’m Cathy Roberson, a supply chain writer and researcher. For this weekly series, I serve as a research analyst for the Journal of Commerce (JOC), for whom I identify trends, provide thoughts and input into stories, and assist with parcel last-mile queries.

The first two days of Inland Distribution are already in the books, and what an action-packed two days they were! The event started off with its first Inland Academy on Monday, included such learning sessions as:

• Making Your Voice Heard in the C-Suite led by Holly Pearce, Director of Logistics for C+D Technologies
• Vetting Freight Brokers led by Tony Darnell, Manager for Lippert Components
• How Precise LTL Data Unlocks Consistent Pricing led by Curtis Garrett, founder of Understand LTL

Yesterday, the conference officially began with Bill Cassidy welcoming a packed room.

Next up was the North American Freight and Economic Outlook with Paul Bingham, Director of Global Intelligence and Analytics for S&P Global, Larry Gross, President and Founder of Gross Transportation Consulting, Bobby Holland, Vice-President/Director of Freight Business Analytics for US Bank and JOC's Ari Ashe.

The underlying theme was that freight recovery is not expected until late next year or even in 2025. Check out Eric Johnson's story for more highlights on this session and also on the session - View from the Top: A Conversation with Industry Leaders - led by JOC's Mark Szakonyi. A great quote from Mark's session was about the peak season. Brian Alexander, chief operating officer at Hub Group said, "We're calling it a 'peak in pockets'. With e-commerce, we're seeing [the] peak dragging a bit later into the year even into December. But the peak is definitely muted compared to the past. We're hopeful of a rebound in 2024."

In a fireside chat with Jim Monkmeyer, President-Transportation and LLP North America, DHL Supply Chain, Jim also noted some signs of pick-up and the supply chain industry, overall, has done a poor job of selling supply chain/logistics as a career. DHL is addressing this need by partnering with the Girl Scouts to establish a program and branded patch to empower Girl Scouts to learn about the importance of the supply chain industry. More details on this announcement from DHL’s July press release.

Other tidbits from various sessions:

• Some folks are calling nearshoring the “second great reindustrialization”. Others are calling it ‘deglobalization’. Regardless, a number of folks throughout the day said that nearshoring is real and we need to prepare.

• Labor was another big topic throughout the day. In a session I led on future warehousing, automation is not going to replace workers. But the type of worker may be a bit different – the need for engineers, data scientists etc will be great.
• Cargo security/theft was another big topic. One panelist noted that 2022 and this year have seen greater cargo theft in Mexico. One thing I didn’t realize was that there is no cargo insurance in Mexico. Teri Errico Griffis wrote a good story on this theme of cargo security. In her story, Teri notes that Truckload thefts are increasing in the US, with the value of stolen goods jumping more than 128% year over year in the second quarter. Ouch!

Stay tuned for a wrap-up of today’s events tomorrow morning!

That’s it for now. Please be sure to hit the subscribe button to receive the latest updates.

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Are you attending Inland Distribution? Share your thoughts and photos in the comments section.

In the meantime, here’s wishing everyone a good freight week ahead!

-Cathy

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