At Maersk they are making a dedicated effort to alleviate pains in the customers’ supply chain, providing visibility, clarity and predictability where they can.
One such effort is ensuring that customers can plan their supply chain with ease and accurate data. Industry digitalisation is key to building more sustainable supply chains, bringing with it the opportunity to react quickly to the market, as well as new events and changes in the transport plan.
Accurate transit times
Seeing where they were only five years ago, Maersk has come a long way on this journey. Are they there yet? No. Are they constantly trying to be better than yesterday? Yes.
One of the developments manifesting itself is the ability to predict more accurate transit times
One of the developments manifesting itself is the ability to predict more accurate transit times. In the past when the customers made a booking or searched for a product from A to B on Maersk, the arrival was based on a ‘proforma schedule’ lifted from a relatively static internal planning system. While this has long been sufficient, seeing the unprecedented strain on supply chains in 2021, they must strive to bring more clarity, accuracy and control to the customers.
Terminal productivity levels
Given the infrastructure bottlenecks they face, vessels are delayed beyond their initial proforma schedule, leading to actual transit times being longer than what they initially indicated to customers at the time of searching/booking.
In the summer they trialled - and later scaled up due to successful outcomes - a new process where they update schedules dynamically with the teams best realistic expectation eight weeks before the start of each voyage. The predictions are based on information from the frontline operators, who sit closest to the operation, and includes actual waiting time in ports, actual terminal productivity levels, weather data and any change in events happening at sea. As such making the most accurate information which Maersk has, available to the customers, so they can get a better view of what to expect given the current circumstances. Anne-Sophie puts it like this:
Making better decisions
Maersk is updating their timetable to reflect the 3 weeks of waiting time in LA
“Our teams compile massive amounts of data when handling the operation of our vessels – from terminal productivity, port waiting times, weather data as well as impacts from strikes etc. It makes a lot of sense, that this information is now available to our customers. It is what we make our decisions on, and it is very motivating to know that this will hopefully also enable our customers to make better decisions for their businesses,” said Anne-Sophie Zerlang Karlsen, Head of Asia Pacific Ocean Customer Logistics.
This new practice also means that when they partner with other carriers (through Vessel Sharing Agreements or VSAs), customers may see two different schedules for the same ship – on the respective websites of each carrier. As an example, on the US West Coast, Maersk is updating their timetable to reflect the 3 weeks of waiting time in LA, meaning the schedules show 35-40 days between Asia & Los Angeles, whereas the VSA partner’s schedule still reflects the originally planned proforma 14-15 days which is no longer realistic given the aforementioned bottlenecks and disruptions.
Managing supply chains
They are mindful that this might cause some initial confusion, but they will never stop trying to alleviate the customers pain points and try to offer the best tools and data for the customers to more effectively manage their supply chains – and they firmly believe that this improved accuracy can help do just that.
Will this certainty eliminate delays in the supply chain? No. But for every day their predictions are getting better and it means that customers can put more and more trust in the service reliability. Some customers are spending resources building their own methods to add days to the advertised schedules, to create predictions of their own. As their trusted supply chain partner this should not be necessary, which is why they’re stepping up the game. Their aim is that that the user will let them handle the logistics, so the user can instead put all their efforts into growing the business.