This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ 3PL Summit.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: The new normal and adjusting in the face of a capacity crunch
DETAILS: A look at changes brought about by the pandemic and how shippers are approaching transportation capacity.
INTERVIEWER and SPEAKER: George Abernathy, president of FreightWaves, and Danny Loe, president of asset-light logistics and chief yield officer for ArcBest.
BIO: Loe was tapped to lead ArcBest’s asset-light segment in September in addition to his role leading the company’s efforts around yield, which he began in 2017. Loe has held various positions with the company since joining as an associate pricing analyst in 1997.
KEY QUOTES FROM LOE:
On the importance of holistic freight solutions: “I think of our managed solutions group as being able to tie a lot of those things together. We’ve done a lot of work over the years to build technology to not just present an ABF solution or not just present a Panther solution to the customer. It’s really stepping back and moving from a shipment to an order to what is your supply chain. And what those systems do is just allow us to use not just ABF but other capacity providers.”
On capacity for the rest of the year: “All signs that we see, this summer will be a very tight capacity type market, whether it be in the truckload area, whether it be down through LTL. It appears that we’re ramping to a point that there will be significant capacity concerns.”
On the change in the way shippers approach capacity: “I think the habits of some are just to ship when the product is ready to be able to ship out, and that may be the right choice. But I think as you get into capacity, if you want to weigh service and you want to weigh cost, having those conversations to let your capacity providers or your logistics providers like us help you plan, that is really what you need to be doing as you look forward into the future.”