Shipping people: Casas on call
As you drive over the bridge into the Port of Miami, the signs soon direct to you two locations: the cargo side or the cruise side. Separating the two was a good idea, because passengers in cars and buses do not mix well with big trucks moving freight.
For the growing number of ports where cruise business has become a complimenting revenue stream for the traditional cargo business, cargo and cruise are looked at as completely different animals. When you talk to people involved with freight carriers and cruise lines, you see each side knows little about the other.
But when you consider that the large, modern cruise ships are like small towns on the move, usually between different countries, you realize that there must be some very special freight, logistics and documentation issues in play.
That becomes especially clear when talking to William Casas, a veteran freight forwarder who is district manager in the Miami office of Target Logistics Services.
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William Casas |
Target Logistic Services has evolved from a primarily California air forwarding operation in the 1970s to become a highly sophisticated international logistics services company that covers the entire United States from six regional control centers.
This month, Target said it has reached an agreement to sell the company to New Zealand-based Mainfreight Ltd. for $53.7 million in cash. Meanwhile, Target's plans to move into a major new facility in Doral that will serve as a major regional gateway for the entire company remain on schedule for January, Casas said.
Casas has oversight of all the traditional operations, sales and marketing facets of the Miami office. But as the head of an office in the world cruise center of South Florida, he has had to hone a very special set of skills while working with one major client, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
What happens when a cruise ship has set sail, then they discover something is missing? If there is no rack of lamb for the captain's dinner, or not enough champagne aboard on a New Year's cruise, something has to happen — and fast.
There are many things that can happen, and the products that need to catch up with a ship in transit — say 3,000 pounds of lobster headed for a port in Mexico — are widely varied. And they are not the kind of things someone can just run ashore and fetch at a foreign port of call.
Ready 24/7. Casas has a whole team of pros and established working partners in place in Florida, but to make sure an important client like Royal Caribbean gets its goods delivered, he has accepted personal responsibility as the 'go-to' guy when there is an emergency that requires especially high levels of service.
'We'll get a call at 2 o'clock in the morning on Friday night, or Saturday, 3 o'clock in the morning Sunday — whatever time — it's 24/7 service,' Casas explains. 'When Royal Caribbean in particular needs special service, I'm the point man. We've coordinated it that way to assure that service is going to be provided.'
There are several bases that need to be covered to pull off a successful rendezvous with a cruise ship. The main thing is arranging an air charter in an extremely short time period. But there are many things involved in the operation, Casas said.
Walking through a typical scenario, the first step is to zero in on the product or commodity in need, then figuring out what it will require to handle that shipment, he said. Will they need dry ice for a temperature-sensitive product? Will it move on a pallet?
Once that is determined, Target has to contact one of the air charter companies it works with. They confirm the size of the aircraft needed, availability, and landing rights availability at destination. Once those questions are answered, they book the charter.
Meanwhile, there is a lot that still needs to be done on the ground.
'We assure the goods are ready to go. Then we go out and pick up the goods, and provide the specialized packing for that shipment,' Casas said. 'We coordinate all that, then get the trucks to the airport to meet with the agents in charge of loading the goods into the aircraft.'
Documentation has to be ready, and once the shipment is airborne from Florida, Target has to be coordinating with the people at destination. Either a Royal Caribbean agent at the destination port — cruise lines are required to have port agents in place wherever they might call — or in extreme time emergencies a Target agent or partner, will meet the shipment, get it cleared through customs, and onto another truck that will get the product dockside where the ship is berthed.
System In Place. While most of the work Target does for Royal Caribbean are comparatively non-urgent logistics services, they do have to be ready for those special cases, Casas noted.
Finding the right product or commodity is not a problem. Royal Caribbean has its own distribution center in South Florida, where virtually anything, dry or refrigerated, is warehoused. Like anyone with a modern supply chain operation, they have to technology to track what is coming and going, and are constantly ordering new product as demand warrants.
'You've got to have your partners all lined up and your vendors lined up,' Casas says. 'You also have to be well known in the industry to be able to partner up with certain vendors that will be there when you need them. It's a team effort. That's the only way any forwarder could provide the service at that level.'
The bottom line, he stressed, is that you have to deliver.
'Whatever the product or commodity is when they're calling with an urgent shipment, what it boils down to is, it's got to get there, period.'