LOS ANGELES (CN) — The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which last year became the focal point of the massive supply-chain meltdown that left store shelfs empty and cranked up inflation, have been making much progress in recent months addressing some of the most acute bottlenecks on the docks, but many underlying problems persist.
The backlog of containers with furniture, clothing, electronics and other imports that were piling up at the largest port complex outside Asia last summer and fall has been dwindling. The so-called dwell time a container sits around on average before it gets picked up has fallen by more than half from late October and there are no longer dozens of ships at anchor outside the ports waiting for weeks before they can berth and offload their cargo.
Those encouraging numbers are only part of the story, however, and no one at the ports is declaring victory yet or seeing an end to the supply-chain disruptions caused by the unprecedented volume of imports from Asia. The ships that were waiting outside the ports last year are now spread out across the Pacific Ocean, slow steaming or drifting to avoid a similar traffic jam like the one that put the ports in the national spotlight in the fall and more than doubling the time it takes to reach Southern California.
And although the stacks of containers with imported goods have been shrinking at the ports, the even larger stacks of empty containers that need to be sent back haven't budged much. The unyielding pile-up of more than 100,000 empty containers at the ports in turn creates a headache for truckers who need to offload their empty container before they can pick up a loaded one at the terminals.
"it's a very complex ballet that requires a careful choreography," said Matt Schrap, chief executive officer of the Harbor Trucking Association. "If I can't free up my chassis, I can't pull an import off the terminal."
Much of the recent supply-chain disruptions are connected to the Covid pandemic, which in the past two years has confined many Americans to their homes and has caused a shift in spending habits. Rather than spending money on vacations or going out, people have been buying lots of stuff for their homes, much of which comes by ship from Asia. That surge in imports combined with labor and equipment shortages in the trucking and warehousing industries has put enormous strain on the movement of goods, causing delays and price increases.
The latest Covid-related hiccup at the ports has come from the rapid spread of the Omicron variant in Southern California this month that has temporarily depleted the workforce at the ports by about 10%.
Both Long Beach and Los Angeles set records last year in the number of containers that moved through, predominantly driven by the volume of imports. Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said at a presentation Thursday that the port was heading for another year of challenges and uncertainty.
One critical element to meet these challenges is better use of data, Seroka said. The port last year started to provide accurate and up-to-the-minute data, such as real-time insights in operational conditions, to help cargo owners and service providers to manage cargo and free up terminal space, he said. But the country's entire logistics network needs to be digitized in order to identify and address supply-chain issues as they happen, according to Seroka.
"Our digital initiatives are a good start because America is years behind other countries in this area," Seroka said. "Data can help us untangle the complexity of the global supply chain."
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