{"id":1083,"date":"2022-12-30T10:51:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T02:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/supply-chain-disruptions-continue-to-plague-australian-container-ports\/"},"modified":"2022-12-30T10:51:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T02:51:43","slug":"supply-chain-disruptions-continue-to-plague-australian-container-ports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/supply-chain-disruptions-continue-to-plague-australian-container-ports\/","title":{"rendered":"SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTIONS CONTINUE TO PLAGUE AUSTRALIAN CONTAINER PORTS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

According to a report from the Australian Competition and Consumer <\/p>\n

Commission (ACCC), the COVID-19 pandemic, and other developments, have continued <\/p>\n

to cause significant congestion and delays in the container freight supply chain <\/p>\n

in Australia throughout 2021\u201322. The report cited three factors that have <\/p>\n

exacerbated these effects: low shipping schedule reliability, increased size of <\/p>\n

ships calling Australian container ports, and labor shortages throughout the <\/p>\n

supply chain.<\/p>\n

\"SUPPLY<\/p>\n

Stevedores have informed the ACCC that low vessel schedule reliability is a <\/p>\n

critical factor contributing to congestion and has resulted in \u2018vessel bunching\u2019 <\/p>\n

at ports. While global schedule reliability improved over 2022, it remains well <\/p>\n

below pre-pandemic levels. This creates significant peaks and troughs for <\/p>\n

stevedores in handling containers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There has been a longer-term trend towards larger ships in container <\/p>\n

shipping globally. The proportion of port calls made by ships with gross tonnage <\/p>\n

above 80,000 at Australian container ports has increased from 3.8 percent in <\/p>\n

2018\u201319 to 14.3 percent in 2021\u201322. Servicing these larger ships presents more <\/p>\n

operational challenges and further amplifies the peaks and troughs throughout <\/p>\n

the container supply chain.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The report stated that some market participants raised concerns about staff <\/p>\n

availability throughout 2021\u201322 due to sickness or isolation requirements. This <\/p>\n

has been worsened by broader labor shortages throughout the supply chain, with <\/p>\n

stevedores finding it challenging to identify appropriate new hires and retain <\/p>\n

them long enough to develop skills and industry knowledge. In particular, the <\/p>\n

shortage of truck drivers has contributed to increased congestion at some <\/p>\n

storage facilities and empty container parks.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These delays at the ports have led to some importers preferring to hold <\/p>\n

higher inventory levels, moving from a \u2018just-in-time\u2019 to a \u2018just-in-case\u2019 <\/p>\n

business model. This puts further pressure on the supply chain and has increased <\/p>\n

demand for warehousing space, driving higher rents.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All these factors contributed to ongoing congestion in the supply chain, <\/p>\n

sometimes overwhelming its capacity to unload efficiently, transport, process, <\/p>\n

unpack and return containers. Stevedores stated that it had been more <\/p>\n

challenging for them to allocate labor and equipment, resulting in stevedores <\/p>\n

taking longer to move containers to and from ships.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Despite these challenges, there are signs of improvement. It is estimated <\/p>\n

that global container port congestion has halved between January and August <\/p>\n

2022.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the COVID-19 pandemic, and other developments, have continued to cause significant congestion and delays in the container freight supply chain in Australia throughout 2021\u201322. The report cited three factors tha…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"hj_lang":[3],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"hj_lang","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hajomech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hj_lang?post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}