Another development—driverless trucks—has generated a great deal of buzz over the past few years. While it may be a way to expand final-mile capacity, it’s unlikely to make a dent in the hazardous chemical world. “Driverless trucks are not something that will be on the forefront of solutions in the next four to five years,” says Joe Hassenfratz, sales and marketing manager with The Logistix Company. What’s more likely is a continued shift to alternative fuel trucks, such as fuel cells and electric vehicles. Most companies, no matter where they’re located, face pressure to reduce carbon emissions in quantifiable numbers. “Everyone wants to get ahead of this before any sort of fees, taxes, or regulations are levied,” Hassenfratz says. Longer term, all decision makers who can make a positive impact on the U.S. supply chain must work together to make it easier to do business by improving the responsiveness and resiliency of the entire transportation network, Gonya says. While many reasons account for the poor condition of much of the U.S. infrastructure, a key one is the gap between election cycles and investments. “Election cycles are short, and infrastructure investments are long- term,” says David Vieira, chief executive
regulations. Deployed in more than 60 chemical industry implementations, the CLX TMS offers shippers visibility and control over their day-to-day transportation operations. Shippers can identify outliers and potential problems that require attention, and more easily manage and optimize logistics operations on any mode and region. With the TMS, shippers also can calculate the carbon impact of their shipments. Another solution, CLX Gravity, offers advanced analytic management capabilities that can help shippers gain supply chain visibility to drive improvement, optimize spend, and reduce risk. The tool accomplishes this by pulling data from the TMS as well as other information systems. For example, with this solution, a vice president of supply chain can access a dashboard that identifies all sites that have shipped products, and also monitor the progress of those shipments. “It’s infinitely configurable,” Vieira says. CLX’s focus on and experience with intermodal transportation is another way it stands apart. The company is the largest intermodal transport company and provider of domestic, door-to-door, intermodal transportation service for the bulk liquid chemical market. Not only does this help shippers mitigate the truck driver shortage, but it also can slash transportation costs by up to 30%, when compared to domestic tank truck shipments of hazardous and non-hazardous chemicals. The Managed Transportation solution CLX offers is a robust suite of à la carte solutions that chemical shippers can customize and adjust on demand, according to their requirements. The solutions include capacity management, brokerage, intermodal services, Gartner- recognized freight rate benchmarks and bids, carrier negotiation, rail fleet management, and detailed reporting. By leveraging these solutions, shippers can lower costs, improve service, and fill in any gaps in their knowledge
officer with CLX Logistics, LLC. “Untangling the current logistics challenges isn’t simple.” Many logistics providers, however, are taking steps to meet these challenges and ensure their clients’ products move safely, securely, and on time. “There’s great demand for creative solutions,” Vieira adds. The chemical logistics providers highlighted here offer a range of creative solutions. Quality people, processes, and technology are key to the success of CLX Logistics. “With these three elements, we make solutions happen,” Vieira says. CLX’s technology stack is focused on chemical shippers. “It’s configured for chemical shippers and can handle the constraints they face,” Vieira says. For example, the CLX TMS (transportation management system) is the only globally deployed, enterprise- scale, software-as-a-service TMS with a focus on chemical products. The TMS covers all regions and modes, and allows chemical shippers to plan, execute, and optimize their transportation operations, ensure delivery performance, and comply with
CLX Logistics offers a cost-effective BulkTainer service, which uses a combination of truck and rail to deliver shipments via ISO tank.
74 Inbound Logistics • June 2022
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