PA & Associates is proud to announce a strategic alliance with Above the Standard Procurement Group (ATS). The alliance will allow ATS to offer transportation spend management services to its existing clients and its prospects. PA & Associates is spotlighted as a Premier Vendor with ATS; the highest level of strategic alliance offered.

"We are honored to be working with Ted Landgraf and ATS", said Richard Palarea, CEO of PA & Associates. "ATS is the epitome of a trusted adviser to their clients; having some notable brands that have trusted them and have received valuable assistance from AST. We also look forward to opportunities to add value to our existing clients through the various cost reduction and procurement services that AST offers. Their franchise model ensures national coverage and deep expertise for our clients".

For more information on Above The Standard Procurement Group, please visit their website.

High-capacity Boeing 777F freighter creates market-leading transit times in key international trade lanes.

DHL Express has announced a new "round-the-world" flight connecting high-volume international hubs. The flight originates in Hong Kong and flies directly to Los Angeles, California. Once emptied and loaded, it continues on to Leipzig, Germany for more package transitions before loading again and flying on to Hong Kong. DHL Express plans to launch the daily flight on March 27, 2012.

"This is a huge strategic advantage; not only for DHL Express, but for PA & Associates. We have a number of clients in California that rely on import shipments from Asia and do a fair amount of exporting to Europe", said Richard Palarea, CEO of PA & Associates who's company provides international shippers in the U.S. with significantly discounted shipping rates. "Whether an importer in CA receiving valuable supply chain goods or an exporter to Europe of finished product, the new flight means that our clients can now take advantage of next-day service on our program with DHL Express. We have a number of customers in California that will also benefit from longer processing times -- as much as an additional three hours -- before having to make packages ready for pickup. This is a competitive advantage to their business".

This announcement comes on the heels the March 14, 2012 press release from DHL Express stating an additional $47 million investment in the CVG hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport. The forecast for the area initially hit hard by the departure of DHL in 2008 is to add back 280 new jobs over the next twelve months.

For more information on InstantSaver -- immediate access to discounted DHL Express shipping rates -- please see http://www.getinstantsaver.com. For breaking news from DHL Express, see the press release area of their website.

DHL has spent some time connecting up the rich volume of data they posses and the web programming they have access to. The result is the DHL Capabilities Worldmap; an interactive website that allows anyone to query the capabilities of DHL shipping networks including Express, ocean/air freight, and Global Mail by geographic location.

If you're a data-hound like we are, you'll enjoy just poking around the maps and reading the results. It is astounding how many packages are processed on a given day in the network.

Give it a try. Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

DHL Express has announced the launch of two new direct flights from its hub in Hong Kong to Chengdu, China and from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The move will ensure evening pick-up and next day delivery for shipments to Chengdu and the Southewest region of China.

The Chengdu route enhancement was accomplished through a partnership with Yangtze River Express; a Chinese all-cargo airline flying B737-300F freighter with five flights per week. The partnership with DHL Express will allow Yangtze River Express to benefit from the DHL Express highly-efficient customs clearance process for the many formal and high-value export shipments in the network. Same-day uplift service had previously been unavailable, but is now possible.

Similarly, the new routes for Vietnam were accomplished by working with Air Hong Kong; a joint venture underway with DHL Express. This brings an additional five Boeing 727F direct flights per week into the network and increases the uplift payload by 22 tons. Transit times will be shortened by a projected 2 hours for shipments routing from Vietnam to the US and Europe.

Shippers that wish to take advantage of deeply discounted international import and export rates can find them through an innovative gain-share program provided by PA & Associates called InstantSaver.

Comparative Services in TAS

Imagine that you are a supply chain professional (or maybe you are) responsible for procurement of materials and goods to run your operation. You have a number of choices when it comes to vendors, since most of what y0u buy is commodity with similar or identical pricing globally. In this case, shipping fees -- including duties and taxes and trade agreements -- can be the deciding factor in narrowing down the best purchase selection.

Let's say you're buying machine screws for use in your assembly. You need a metric size and these are typically supplied from outside the US by a number of vendors you have relationships with. If a case of screws is currently selling for $120 USD from all vendors after factoring in currency conversion, your next decision in vendor selection needs to be based on who can get you the shipment at the best landed cost. Landed cost is the term typically used when determining what a given shipment will cost to arrive at a particular destination factoring in all fees such as transportation, fuel surcharge, accessorial charges, duties and taxes.

This is a common scenario that many supply chain professionals wish they could solve.

DHL Trade Automation Center (TAS) can do this calculation for you. TAS is an online service offered at no charge and features a Comparative Services section that can calculate the landed cost of any commodity based on the HS (harmonized system) code. You can check the landed cost of your item from up to five different countries of origin at one time.

TAS should be a bookmark in every procurement, finance and supply chain professional's system if only for the Comparative Services tool; but there is far more that TAS offers.

The TAS system features:

• The ability to create a new "shipment"; all of the info for any shipment you wish to test in the system. These shipments don't actually go anywhere...they are just test cases for you to get information, run reports and make valuable business decisions. Shipments can be entered one time and stored under your TAS profile for easy access
• Restricted Party Screening Report -- based on your shipment, TAS will run realtime queries against government databases to return any restrictions for the item you are shipping by party, including restrictions on your own company and your suppliers. This is valuable information if you are trying to obtain your product quickly and don't want things hung up in customs or, worse yet, never reach their destination.
• Landed Cost Estimator Report -- using connections to live databases, TAS can report back the current duties and tax rates. Valuable to anyone that needs to budget or to those trying to close a sale and need to estimate the duties prior to the goods reaching their destination. I can't tell you how many times we've seen packages refused by the buyer because the courier arrives with an invoice for the unexpected taxes.
• Shipment Documents Report -- provides the shipper with all of the required documents for the type of shipment created and destination. No longer will you need to pour over books of documents, endless online research and rely on other experts to obtain these documents.
• Interactive Product Classification System -- this "drill down" application allows the user to enter their product in a plain English description and the system begins to return codes by description, allowing you to fine tune the code by description until you reach your final HS code; also referred to as the Schedule B number. The correct HS code is invaluable for shippers who wish to avoid delays in customs clearance or returned/confiscated packages.  We recently had a client who sends kid's trading cards (baseball cards, Pokemon, etc.) and the buyer never received the package because customs in Brazil incorrectly determined that the cards were for gambling purposes and returned the package to the shipper.
• Extensive Trade Document Library -- the Library is organized by destination country and features a huge amount of documents in PDF form.

If you use shipment value protection on your small package shipments (also known as Declared Value Insurance), be aware that FedEx and UPS raised the rate in January, 2012 to $0.80 per $100 of declared value. The 2011 rate was $0.70 per $100 of declared value.

Since the standard limit of liability for FedEx and UPS package delivery service is $100, most shippers insure their packages when the value is greater than this so that they are protected from loss and damage.

In some enterprises, it is commonplace to fill in the innocent-looking field on the shipping form entitled "declared value".  Some enterprise shipping systems that are tied to ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems and WMS (warehouse management systems) will even pull value information from a shipper's database to populate this area. Once you put an amount in this field, you are opting in for the carrier's declared value service and the associated fees that go with it. Not a big deal if you are shipping a $500 watch one time; that would be a  an additional $3.20 in service fees (.80 cents * 4, as the first 100 is covered under the standard liability). What if you "declared value" on every shipment as a matter of standard operating procedure and you sent 250 watches per day? How about $1,000 per day in declared value surcharges!

How can you minimize your declared value charges?

Self-insure - check with your insurance provider about adding transit insurance to your policy. Many insurers have a standard rider that they can add to your existing policy. If you are a large shipper who frequently sends expensive packages, this is a good option.

Use carrier-provided services wisely - check your default settings on your shipping systems, inquire with your shipping managers and warehouse staff about their common practices and set a policy for all to abide by that is in line with the exposure you wish to have or not to have. You might be surprised at how much cost you can cut out of shipping by just checking to see what's going on.

Use third-party parcel coverage - a number of providers exist that specialize in parcel package insurance coverage. Many times, their rates are less than the surcharges levied by the carriers directly. At PA & Associates, we have preferred relationships with some of these companies and have obtained coverage for as little at $0.10 per $100 of value.

Using the example above, the $1,000 in fees becomes $125. Now that's real savings!

Contact us to learn more.

FedEx has released a trial program for a flat rate box in Baltimore, Miami, Memphis and Portland. The program was announced to FedEx shippers in these regions on December 5, 2011. FedEx was careful to brand the service as One Rate Box so as not to confuse the marketplace with the US Postal Service offering of Flat Rate Box. The US Postal service has spend a considerable amount of advertising dollars over the past few years embedding the slogan "Flat Rate Box by the US Postal Service; if it fits, it ships...for one flat rate".

The program consists of the following:

• $15.00 covers the price of the box and shipping fees from any US destination to any other US destination
• Service is FedEx Express Saver (3 day express) and has a delivery commitment of 2-3 business days
• Two box sizes are offered: 12 x 9 x 6 (648 cubic inches) and 18 x 13 x 3 (702 cubic inches)
• No surcharges, no additional charges for fuel

As you can see, trying to figure out in which case you come out ahead and which case you lose is not easy to do. You would need a TMS or similar method of quickly determining which shipments should use the Box. A shipper that sends just one type of item could, probably figure out quickly if the Box makes a difference and execute on that knowledge.

Over 80 individual containers have now fallen from the vessel Rena off the coast of New Zealand. The ship hit a reef in the Bay of Plenty on October 5, 2011 leaving it precariously balanced with a large fracture in the side.

A narration-less video posted to YouTube shows shipping containers leaning toward the ocean; some magically being held in place against gravity and physics.

The issue for merchants with goods aboard will become the mounting losses beyond the goods. The maritime legal principal known as the general average places liability on all shippers aboard to share in the cost of containers that are lost when jettisoned overboard. However, the general average has only been invoked when the vessel's crew tosses freight overboard in an attempt to stabilize the ship or during a natural incident. Since this incident may have been negligence, it is unclear if this provision can be invoked.

See the video:

The following text is from the class action lawsuit site of Barber Auto Sales v. UPS. If you feel you are part of this class, please visit the website for more information. If you are a UPS shipper, you may have received an e-mail notification about the same:

NOTICE OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT

A Settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit about the way United Parcel Service, Inc. (“UPS”) audited the dimensions of packages when UPS’s measurements differed from those provided by customers, resulting in a higher charge to customers.
THIS NOTICE MAY AFFECT YOUR RIGHTS. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY.
The lawsuit claims that UPS customers were overcharged for shipping packages.  When you ship a package with UPS, UPS may calculate shipping charges based on package measurements (height, length, and width) as well as weight.  UPS, in its customer contract, reserves the right to audit package measurements to make sure they are correct, and adjust shipping charges if the customer’s measurements are not correct.  For some shipments between two U.S. locations on or after May 15, 2006, and August 29, 2011, UPS adjusted some package measurements based on its own measurements, resulting in a higher charge to customers.  The Plaintiff contends that UPS’s measurements were inaccurate and that it improperly increased certain customer’s shipping charges.  UPS maintains it is entitled to audit package measurements, its measurements were accurate, and its adjustments were appropriate.

UPS My Choice, a premium residential delivery program allowing for many of the features already offered by competitor FedEx's Home Delivery service launches today.

MyChoice allows residential package receivers to take control of the delivery one day before the estimated delivery date to set the delivery time window. This is not only an advantage to the recipient, but also to UPS and the sender who frequently face multiple delivery attempts for residential packages; especially those requiring a signature.

UPS is marketing the program as a membership opt-in with two levels as follows from the UPS press release:

Customers can choose between two levels of membership. UPS My Choice members will receive phone, e-mail or text alerts notifying them a day in advance of when packages will arrive and providing a four-hour window for the delivery. They also will have the option to electronically authorize release of packages that require a signature and, for a $5 transaction fee, to reroute a package to another delivery address or have it delivered to the nearest The UPS Storelocation.

UPS My Choice Premium Membership, available for a $40 annual subscription, provides all the benefits of a regular UPS My Choice membership but in addition, members gain access to an online delivery calendar that shows the status of UPS home deliveries. Premium members also are offered a two-hour confirmed delivery window. A $5 transaction fee is charged only upon successful delivery of the package within the two-hour commitment.

More information and membership registration available at the UPS MyChoice website.