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Home Depot News

28 Dec 2023

Red Sea Shipping Workarounds Add Costs, Delays for Suppliers

© EvrenKalinbacak / Adobe Stock

Toymaker Basic Fun's team that oversees ocean shipments of Tonka trucks and Care Bears for Walmart and other retailers is racing to reroute cargo away from the Suez Canal following militant attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.Suppliers for the likes of IKEA, Home Depot, Amazon and retailers around the world are doing the same as businesses grapple with the biggest shipping upheaval since the COVID-19 pandemic threw global supply chains into disarray, sources in the logistics industry said.Florida-based Basic Fun usually ships all Europe-bound toys from its China factories via the Suez Canal…

05 Dec 2023

Austal USA Names Blastos VP of Supply Chain Management

(Photo courtesy of Austal USA)

Austal USA has named Jim Blastos as vice president supply chain management, with responsibility for the company’s procurement, strategic sourcing, warehousing, logistics, material management and production control activities.Blastos has over 25 years of experience in developing strategic organizational transformation, collaborative solutions and operational processing. He has held leadership positions in supply chain and operations in the U.S. Navy and industry, including Overhead Door Corporation…

20 Apr 2023

West Coast Port Union, Employers Reach Tentative Deal

© kgrif / Adobe Stock

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) said on Thursday it had reached a tentative agreement with an association representing the U.S. West Coast employers of port laborers on some key issues.Negotiations over a new deal have dragged on for roughly a year since the contract between the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and the union expired on July 1, 2022.Any strike in the absence of a deal may prove costly as supply chain issues persist, and high inflation takes a toll on consumer spending…

13 Apr 2023

Employers Say Union is Disrupting Work at Southern California Seaports

© angeldibilio / Adobe Stock

The Pacific Maritime Association on Thursday said the largest longshore union local on the West Coast disrupted work at the nation's busiest seaport complex for the second week in a row, as labor talks covering 22,000 dockworkers from California to Washington state approach the one-year mark.Frustration is growing over the lack of resolution in the talks, which started in May.

09 Jan 2023

Some Ocean Shipping Rates Collapsing, but Real Price Relief is Months Away

© angeldibilio / Adobe Stock

Prices in the most volatile segment of ocean shipping are collapsing, but top retailers like Walmart and Home Depot should not expect relief until the spring contract renegotiation season, industry experts said.Spot rates, which cover anywhere from 10% to 40% of ocean container shipments and are considered a key indicator of the industry's health, are in free fall as recession looms and the pandemic-fueled U.S. import bubble deflates.The cost to send a container from Asia to the United States on the demand-sensitive spot market has tumbled more than 80% from its September peak above $20…

31 Oct 2022

Austal USA Names Alcathie VP of Human Resources

(File photo: Austal USA)

Mobile, Ala. shipbuilder Austal USA announced it has hired Michelle Alcathie as vice president of human resources, responsible for the overall development and implementation of company-wide human resources policies, programs and services.Alcathie is a human resources administrator with over 25 years of experience leading workplace transformations that support long-term strategic business plans.Before joining Austal USA, Alcathie was vice president of human resources for Kratos Defense & Security Solutions.

31 Oct 2022

Feds Struggle to Address Supply Chain Capacity Issues

© dbvirago / Adobe Stock

The Biden Administration’s struggles to alleviate supply chain capacity issues appear to be continuing with no end in sight. Part of the issue arises from the Administration’s limited focus on ports and another part arises from Congressional stalemates. Could the much-needed beltway leadership on these issues come in the form of the newly-tapped Maritime Administrator?Biden focuses on ports to address larger issuesThroughout October the President and his Supply Chain Disruptions…

14 Oct 2021

US Port's Supply Chain Fix Challenge: Selling 24/7 Shifts

© Paul Bradbury/KOTO / Adobe Stock

The Port of Los Angeles is beginning the hard work of convincing terminal operators, importers, warehouses owners and trucking firms to embrace moving more cargo at night."It's not a single lever we can pull today to open up all the gates," Executive Director Gene Seroka said on Thursday.On Wednesday, the White House gathered stakeholders including retailers Walmart and Home Depot, logistics firms United Parcel Service and FedEx, and electronics supplier Samsung. The companies…

13 Oct 2021

White House Working to Ease Shipping Bottlenecks

© David / Adobe Stock

President Joe Biden will host a meeting on Wednesday to hail progress in addressing supply chain problems weighing on the economy and threatening the holiday season, while he asks business and union leaders to do more to ease shipping backlogs.The Port of Los Angeles is going to 24/7 operations to ease the shipping snarl there and at the Port of Long Beach, a senior administration official told reporters ahead of the meeting.In addition, three large carriers of goods - Walmart…

07 Oct 2021

'Containergeddon': Supply Crisis Drives Walmart and Rivals to Hire Their Own Ships

The Flying Buttress once glided across the oceans carrying vital commodities like grain to all corners of the world.Now it bears a different treasure: Paw Patrol Movie Towers, Batmobile Transformers and Baby Alive Lulu Achoo dolls.The dry bulk cargo ship has been drafted into the service of retail giant Walmart, which is chartering its own vessels in an effort to beat the global supply chain disruptions that threaten to torpedo the retail industry's make-or-break holiday season."Chartering vessels is just one example of investments we've made to move products as quickly as possible," said Joe Metzger, U.S. executive vice president of supply-chain operations at Walmart…

17 Sep 2021

Supply Chain Shocks: Ocean Shipping Challenges Abound

Pier 300 Port of Los Angeles. Photo courtesy Port of Los Angeles

Supply chain issues tied to liner shipping have been front page news throughout 2021; just about everyone agrees that there’s a problem. The underlying cause is right out of Economics 101: a surge in demand for moving containerized cargo, in the face of “inelastic” throughput capacity (which includes vessels and their landside interfaces to surface transportation, trucks and rail) that could not handle the swell, attributable to re-stocking of containerized cargo as economic activity recovered from the pandemic induced jolts.

01 Jul 2021

Crowley Appoints Claybrooks as Chief Marketing Officer

John Claybrooks (Photo: Crowley)

Crowley Maritime Corporation has appointed John Claybrooks to the newly created position of chief marketing officer, leading the company’s strategic marketing and communications to enhance and differentiate the Crowley brand across its worldwide services.In this new role, Claybrooks leads all marketing and communications functions for the global enterprise, including the harmonization of integrated marketing and communications for all business units and geographies. His strategic…

10 Dec 2020

China's Exports Pinched by Global Shortage of Shipping Containers

Illustration. Credit:MAGNIFIER/AdobeStock

China's world-beating economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic is being blunted by a global shortage of shipping containers, sending cargo costs to record highs and hampering manufacturers in filling fast-recovering global goods orders.Exports from China surged 21% in November from a year ago as the country's mammoth industrial engine cranked out mountains of appliances, toys, clothes, personal protective equipment, and other items currently in high demand around the world.But…

17 Jun 2020

Interview: William Doyle, Incoming Head of the Port of Baltimore

(Photo: Maryland Port Administration)

William P. Doyle is the incoming Executive Director of the Maryland Port Administration. A former U.S. Federal Maritime Commissioner, Doyle currently serves as CEO & Executive Director of the Dredging Contractors of America – and the group's member companies have recently made a series of announcements to build new dredges of several types and sizes. We caught up with the incoming Port of Baltimore head to discuss his initial goals for the new role. How do you feel about being selected the head of MPA and Executive Director of the Port of Baltimore?I feel terrific.

14 Nov 2018

Maersk Warns Trade War Will Impact Box Shipping

Maersk Chief Executive Soren Skou (CREDIT: Maersk)

Top U.S. importers are stocking up on Chinese goods before new import tariffs take effect, shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Wednesday, but warned a trade war would hit demand for container shipping in the coming years.Maersk's data indicated that imports into the United States from China had grown 5 to 10 percent year-on-year in the third quarter as companies such as Walmart and Home Depot built up inventories to avoid new import tariffs, Chief Executive Soren Skou said."The irony is that after (U.S.

24 May 2021

Sea Change: Global Freight Sails Out of the Digital Dark Ages

© hit1912 / Adobe Stock

If suppliers in China fail to pick up freight containers to fill an order for MediaShop, Marcel Schneider gets an alert via a digital freight system, allowing the retailer to reach out and fix the problem swiftly.Before July 2020, Austria-based MediaShop’s deputy supply chain director says he would discover problems in his supply chain only when containers failed to arrive in Hamburg as scheduled.“It was like being in a tunnel where you had only a limited view of what was going on…

22 Jul 2020

Jones Act Does Not Raise Cost of Living in Hawaii -Study

(File photo: Pasha Hawaii)

The Jones Act has no significant impact on the cost of living in Hawaii, according to a recent report produced by economists from Boston based Reeve & Associates (Reeve) and Hawaii based TZ Economics.“The Impact of the Jones Act on Hawaii” also found that freight rates in the U.S. mainland-Hawaii trade lane have declined in real terms over the last 10 years, while the Jones Act has delivered positive and substantial economic contributions, including job creation, new infrastructure investments…

13 Feb 2015

Coast Guard Rescue Underway in Antarctica

(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class George Degener)

A U.S. Coast Guard crew is en route to assist a 207-foot fishing vessel with 26 people aboard beset in ice approximately 900 miles northeast of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is attempting to reach the crew of an Australian-flagged fishing vessel, Antarctic Chieftain, who contacted Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand Tuesday evening for assistance after becoming trapped in the Antarctic ice. The crew of 40-year-old cutter has reported heavy, snow, wind and ice conditions at times as well as large icebergs along their course.

29 Jun 2011

EPA Launches SmartWay Initiative

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in conjunction with the Coalition for Responsible Transportation and the Environmental Defense Fund, is launching a new initiative to protect public health and the environment and promote sustainable economic growth by reducing pollution from thousands of short-haul trucks that service the nation’s ports. The new EPA SmartWay initiative will green the nation’s supply chain by reducing harmful diesel emissions from dray trucks – large diesel trucks that are widely used in port facilities to haul freight from cargo ships to nearby local distribution points. “U.S. ports generate jobs and are critical to our nation’s economy,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.

06 May 2015

US Marine Highways to Help Prepare for the Future

With America's population expected to grow by 70 million over the next 30 years, moving the goods that enrich our lives --and the freight that fuels our economy-- will be a key challenge. As our Beyond Traffic draft framework indicates, by 2045, the volume of goods on our roads, rail, air, and water will increase 45 percent or more. Because tomorrow's looming increase will pose a significant burden on our transportation system, we must prepare to handle that freight now by developing and investing in solutions today. The good news is that DOT is working to do just that. Our Nation’s navigable waterways offer us a terrific, underused resource, and the Maritime Administration’s Marine Highway Program works to incorporate that excess capacity into the U.S.

04 Jun 2004

New York's New Faces

How many vessels entered New York Harbor for the very first time in the past year or two? Oh, probably a million. And probably most of them kept going, up the North River, out the East River, up to beantown or clamtown in one direction, cheesetown in another. Stop for a snack in New York, it's Boar's Head 24x7. Forty-eight hours later, it's catfish. Near everything, there are a lot of good reasons to come to New York, and a lot of good reasons to leave. A lot of good reasons to stay too, sometimes. Quite a few new faces have done just that, making New York Harbor all the handsomer. We thought we'd look a few over. At least four of the boats are new builds, arriving since May 2003; the others are acquisitions to enlarge and upgrade their fleets' capabilities.

06 Nov 2017

Op/Ed: Facts Do Matter - A Defense of the Jones Act

Credit: OMSA

I recently read a story in The New Yorker – but that sounds more intellectual than what really happened, let me start over. I recently clicked a link on Facebook, which sought to explain why the term “Fake News” has become so popular. The article claimed that facts no longer matter to the average voter. As evidence (yes, the article explaining why facts don’t matter included evidence), it detailed a study whereby the subjects had been given false information, then were asked to make a choice between two options.

28 Mar 2018

Georgia Ports: Mason Mega Rail Breaks Ground

The Georgia Ports Authority broke ground on its $126.7 million Mason Mega Rail Terminal Monday. The expansion will increase the Port of Savannah's rail lift capacity to 1 million containers per year, and open new markets spanning an arc of cities from Memphis to St. Louis, Chicago to Cincinnati. "Today is a great day for Georgia and the nation," said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal. The Mega Rail ground breaking is the latest in a series of Gov. Deal's signature projects designed to make Georgia the transportation and logistics hub of North America - which include the recent announcement of 50 percent completion of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, a new inland terminal in Northwest Georgia, and a $10 billion statewide transportation improvement plan.