This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Intermodal Summit on Wednesday.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: How warehousing is responding to demand and disruption in the supply chain.
DETAILS: Warehousing providers are contending with unprecedented challenges in the supply chain as shippers deal with demands from consumers amid congestion and disruption of the supply chain. FreightWaves Senior Analyst Andrew Cox talks to Dale Young of World Distribution Services (WDS) about how his company is responding to the changing warehousing needs of shippers.
SPEAKER: Dale Young is vice president of warehousing and Distribution at WDS.
BIO: Young oversees operations, sales, customer service, business development, and employee training and engagement for WDS, which operates 10 facilities with 1.5 million square feet of warehousing space. He has worked in warehousing, distribution and logistics for over 25 years. Young has served in management and supervisory roles at Evans Distribution Systems, Cost Plus World Market DC, Hudd Distribution Services and UPS.
KEY QUOTES FROM YOUNG
“We’re seeing customers bring in, or attempt to bring in at least, more inventory than they typically would have had. … The old-school just-in-time model has gone away, and to some extent, it’s now become this just-in-case model. You have to have stock on hand because of delays.”
“Now there’s this pretty massive backlog of steel and a pretty massive backlog in terms of delivering new warehouse space. So that’s the easy trigger to pull if you’ve already done it: Just add capacity by adding facilities.”
“Shippers are really just increasing — or attempting to increase at least — the amount of inventory they have domestically, and they’re also increasing the number of places they’re storing that inventory domestically.”
