Supply chain disruption shows benefits of working together to offer flexible, reliable solutions

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic reverberates across the globe, Warehowz and our partners are working hard to be a source of support during a time of massive supply chain disruption. While supply chain leaders are assessing the bigger picture as conditions change by the day, countless businesses are facing transportation and inventory challenges that need to be solved immediately.

In the past few weeks, the range of requests that we have received speaks to the complexity and multitude of issues that companies now have to overcome. Orders of restaurant furniture that are suddenly canceled; ocean containers of stainless steel water bottles that require storage by certain deadlines; shipments of paint that can’t be delivered since the end destinations have closed; 3PLs facing overcapacity.

Pooling resources to help businesses facing supply chain disruption

In an industry as interconnected as the supply chain, there is no better time to pool resources than now. Our ecosystem of partners like Estes Express Lines, the nation’s largest privately-owned transportation carrier, and Estes Forwarding Worldwide (EFW), a U.S. freight forwarder and subsidiary of Estes Express Lines, helps us devise solutions that are flexible, easy to produce, and reliably managed.

We also support the Virginia Supply Chain Initiative, a centralized supply chain resource for business and local government responding to the COVID-19 outbreak. And then there’s the Warehowz platform itself, a cloud-based online marketplace that connects businesses in need of short-term warehouse space and services with warehouses that have unused space to fill.

“Our customers have already begun looking for short-term warehousing and this will only accelerate in the coming weeks and months as the flow of goods into the United States rises quickly,” says Pat Martin, Corporate Vice President of Sales for Estes Express Lines. “Thankfully, our partnership with Warehowz.com gives our customers a solution in this unprecedented time of need.”

The answer: supply chain flexibility

If your storage and transportation solutions are experiencing the effects of supply chain disruption and the future seems more unpredictable than ever, inserting an element of flexibility into your supply chain can help alleviate some of the pain points related to the uncertainty.

Short-term warehousing can offer relief and a way out of very challenging scenarios, including, for instance:

Increasing fees from demurrage, labor, and other emergency costs. Average demurrage fees can range from $75 to $150 per container per day and those figures can double or even triple the longer the container remains in the terminal.
Sudden stockpiling of supplies as a result of decreased exports.
Unexpected business closures and ensuing shipment cancellations.
3PL providers reaching capacity.
Movement of inventory from quarantine zones.

Building resilience for the future

The move toward short-term measures to meet the immense challenges triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak could lay the foundation for proactive supply chain resilience, PwC predicts. Diversified sourcing, improved supply chain visibility and risk modeling, and increased supply chain flexibility are some of the longer-lasting reconfigurations that this trying time is likely to bring.

In the meantime, we stand ready today to help you tackle your immediate storage and transportation needs. Please do not hesitate to get in touch.