If Proctor and Gamble, target, Oscar Meyer, and six dozen other giant corporations can't find a way to get product to retailers.

Why don't they buy some trucks and trailers?

They make money now or they wouldn't be in business.

Is throwing crap in a truck and sending it down the road so complex that they won't make money doing that ?

Too expensive to do that. Easier and cheaper to use existing logistical methods.

EasieR


NEPtuNe

Logistics is the closest thing we have to magic. The fact that anything gets to it's destination, on time, and intact, are nothing short of miracles.

It's not as easy as just getting some trucks and trailers.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable

Is throwing crap in a truck and sending it down the road so complex that they won't make money doing that ?

Yes.

The issue is that the product is made in a plant that might serve a geographic region that covers dozens of states or countries, and the product has to then make it onto the shelves of tens of thousands of stores.

No single manufacturer would make any money on their products at current prices if they had to pay for the trucks to go from their plant and then make a delivery onto every store shelf. The only economic way to do it is to send your product to warehouses that will be picked up by trucks/trains/ships that are heading out a direction with other things from other manufacturers also headed that direction. Your product might get moved dozens of times through various warehouse, hubs, and then onto distributors and wholesalers as it finds itself being separated into smaller containers, pallets, and then cases.

Like Airsoftguy says, it's pretty much a miracle that Wal-Mart can sell 10 cans of shaving cream on Monday, and then reasonably expect a single case of replacement shaving cream from a pallet of 300 cases that had originated from Mexico in it's stockroom by the end of the week. Consider also that the can of shaving cream itself was just produced using two dozen ingredients that each had just arrived at the plant on their own trucks as well.

Say they "just buy some trucks and trailers" and in 6 months, don't need the volume anymore, then what? Millions of dollars in vehicles with no purpose.

Modern logistics are, for the most part, pretty amazing if you consider the scale of them. The big companies you're talking about aren't doing anything by luck or mistake.

Look at the airlines when COVID hit and the way that hundreds of planes ended up mothballed and the expense involved in getting them flying again.

...and that assumes that you can just "get" trucks and trailers.

Some companies do that on a small scale. Target for instance will have a small fleet of tractor trailers. They shuffle product from their warehouse in Mpls. to their stores say in a five state area and ltl loads between their stores. Home Depot, Menards and Wal Mart are other examples. But they still must rely on other carriers and methods for getting the bulk of their products.

The root of the problem is we manufacture little to nothing in this country any longer. We depend on overseas manufacturing and the logistics of first crossing the ocean. Now add in the more recent problem of finding people who are willing to drive trucks or unload ships or just work in general has exacerbated the problem.

After your insight and a wee bit of thought Iam wondering if it's a "people" problem.

People and their impatient's

Americans demand gratification /satisfaction pretty close to immediately. The days of a week to ten days delivery are long gone.

Keeping manufacturers, materials supplier's,shipper's,truck drivers,retailers,banks, insurance companies,o s.h.a.

and customers all kinds of happy and satisfied is way too many variables to correlate on a weekly basis, let alone a Dailey basis

A friend had a lumber business. He ended up buying a few trucks doing trucking, both his own and for others. Eventually, he shut down the lumber business and kept the trucking business. His comment was that a guy who will actually do what he says he’s going to do will have more work than he can handle for his trucks.

Another friend is in the trucking business and has been since he got out of college. He runs about fifteen trucks, transfers, end dumps, flatbed (mostly with grape bins on them for harvest), and a low bed. New trucks are over a quarter million dollars and are more of a pain in the neck to try to keep on the road than those without the latest emissions crud.

Anyone standing up a substantial trucking business now would have a massive investment and would have an interesting challenge finding the right employees to keep that investment busy and productive. Drivers, sure, but mechanics, logistics folks, etc. You’d either have to outsource you mechanical work and be at the mercy of whoever did your work or employ your own mechanics. Eventually, you’d have to stock certain parts. Being self sufficient is somewhat of a never ending rathole.

Not saying interplanetary travel is easier, but there is a lot more to the transport industry than you think.

bendable has it right. Have you ever talked to a trucker? Who in their right mind would want to hire one? Ornery, cantankerous, individualistic, take no shit from anyone kind of guys. Probably have some of those here.

WRT interplanetary travel, those truck stops can be a little tricky.

quote:

Originally posted by airsoft guy:
Logistics is the closest thing we have to magic. The fact that anything gets to it's destination, on time, and intact, are nothing short of miracles.

It's not as easy as just getting some trucks and trailers.

Yep. I'm in supply chain management and logistics is a subset of supply chain. It's like you may need knowledge on the understanding of a masters degree to be good at supply chain but you need a phd to be good at logistics.

Put another way, not only do they rely on sophisticated software program to carry out logistics but if you're in logistics, you have to keep track of the players in the field, government regulations that affect you that keeps on changing, and upcoming trends such as labor strikes, weather conditions, etc. You also need contacts.

In 2005 when I rebuild the engine on my 1988 truck, it cost me $8,000. In 2016 when I rebuilt the engine on my 2010 truck, it cost me $29,000. My mechanic told me that to rebuild the engine on the 2016, today it would run about $54,000.

Hope everybody is enjoying all these mandates. We’re all paying for them.

It's just like places that might get snow once or twice a year. People ask, "why don't we have snow removal equipment instead of just letting it melt?" Because if you have snow removal equipment to use once or twice a year, you are keeping that fleet year round, paying for it, insuring it, maintaining it, etc. Just cheaper and easier to let the snow melt.

There is also a shortage of truckers and lots of regulation. There are programs trying to convince teenagers to become truckers. Certain goods cannot be transported by rail.

Just watch out for them driving trucks into Uranus.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

Put another way, not only do they rely on sophisticated software program to carry out logistics but if you're in logistics, you have to keep track of the players in the field, government regulations that affect you that keeps on changing, and upcoming trends such as labor strikes, weather conditions, etc. You also need contacts.

I wrote a program, a really huge program for a place in Northern California called Professional Logistics. I offered to put a graphic of a UPS truck going over a cliff on the Home page, but they declined.

Wrote it in Paradox, a relational database program in Proprietary C.

Took me 6 months, all day long to write and debug that puppy.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/28...igh-school-teenagers
Provides a good summary of the outlook for the industry

These days, we make goods for almost nothing. Most of the cost is logistics. (That’s a gut estimate, but it seems about right. Everything profitable is either transported by rail, or very small and high value.)

Like some of the others that have posted I’m in the industry. To be more specific, I manage the private fleet for a paperboard converting company in TN. I’ve got drivers, technicians, and dispatch staff. It’s not for the faint of heart. Regulations for hours of service, the constant threat of being sued, current economic conditions, take your pick. Driving a truck isn’t glamorous, but it’s a well paid profession. Our drivers are home every weekend, getting home either Friday or Saturday and then leaving out again either Monday or Tuesday. We deliver to a lot of food distributors, (Sysco, Bunzl, PFG), if they hold up our driver then they are late to their next stop. It’s a never ending battle to be on time. Remember that if you have a delivery appt at 0500 it doesn’t mean that you can show up at 0445 and be on time. At large facilities there may be 20 trucks in line. By the time you get to the guard shack you are now “late”, meaning that there can be no detention. Many companies don’t pay a driver detention unless the customer pays. A driver is limited on how many hours they can work, drive, etc. Many drivers have to cut their day short just to ensure they can find a place to park for the night. There is no end to the struggles for trucking.

Go to YouTube and look up two sites JBG Travels, and Trucker Ray and FSC Trucking to give you an example what the trucking logistics is like today, and what truckers have to put up with today delivering the goods to America.