ATLANTA — Day One of the 2015 Georgia Logistics Summit had something for everyone involved in the movement of goods from here to there.
More than 2,000 business people — mostly from Georgia but also from nearly every other state and a handful of foreign countries — gathered at the Georgia World Congress Center on Monday to talk about issues including infrastructure problems, West Coast congestion, offshoring and emerging markets and multichannel e-commerce.
Summit participants heard from Chris Swartz, director of global transportation and logistics services for AJC International, that aging infrastructure in the United States is reaching a critical tipping point.
“We are heading for a real infrastructure crisis here,” Swartz said. “You may have read recently that the ports in the northeast were struggling to unload some of the larger ships that were arriving due to the West Coast slowdown,” said Swartz, whose privately owned, $1.4 billion global logistics company has headquarters in Sandy Springs, just outside Atlanta.
“They’re unloading a much larger number of containers all at once, the gates are not prepared for that volume. So the infrastructure, even now, is not in place,” he said.
“Going forward, I think the question becomes not only what impact will these post-Panamax ships have, but which ports on the East Coast are going to be ready to handle them.”
What you have, Swartz said, are a number of ports scrambling to get ready for the bigger ships and a federal government trying to distribute funds equally among the ports instead of letting one port be primary.
“But there’s not enough money for all of them,” he said. “Somebody’s going to have to make a tough business decision about where these funds need to go and how we develop our infrastructure to deal with that.
“If the United States wants to remain competitive, it’s got to be able to handle those big ships.”
Speaking about Savannah’s port, Swartz said Georgia Ports and the state of Georgia have set the standard for how a port and its governing body should work together.
“They are going to get their harbor deepening finished. I’m confident of that,” he said.
Swartz said the container ports in Savannah, Jacksonville and Charleston are doing well.
“But if you go farther north or south, the infrastructure simply isn’t keeping pace,” he said. “And Long Beach and Los Angeles are still struggling to get back on their feet.
“Meanwhile, China is setting themselves up to grow and grow quickly.
“We in the U.S. are heading for a real crisis in infrastructure.”
‘From e-commerce to fitting rooms’
Tom Wrobleski and Irv Grossman, both executive vice presidents with Atlanta-based Chainalytics, have watched their company grow from a regional research and consulting firm to a global firm with eight offices strategically located around the world to support a multi-national client base, which includes 18 of the top 25 supply chains.
Among the trends they are following is the evolution of e-commerce into “omni-channel” and multi-channel” marketing — think order it online and go pick it up in the store a few hours later.
But even those concepts are evolving, they said.
In the virtual “fitting room,” for example, a customer may order three dresses to be delivered, Wrobleski said. She tries them on, selects one and sends the others back. Only then is her credit card charged.
A new take on the “buy it online and pick it up” theme can even apply to groceries, where a customer e-mails a grocery list and it’s waiting for her at the store.
“We could see grocery stores that have an entirely different appearance and layout — half store and half warehouse, with large coolers and freezers up front where orders are stored for customers picking them up on the way home for work, for example,” Grossman said.
The Georgia Logistics Summit wraps up today with a “Rapid Fire Transportation Update,” featuring GPA’s Curtis Foltz as a panelist; sessions on e-commerce, intermodal and perishables; and a keynote speech by Home Depot president and CEO Craig Menear, who will discuss his company’s fast-growing online business with a focus on creating a seamless, interconnected retail experience.