A year after the West Coast Ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach experienced news making slow downs and narrowly avoided closure, the twin ports have bounced back at an amazing rate. In large part due to the Port Solutions project, in which the Center for GSCM is partnered, POLA and POLB have begun addressing root causes of the original slow down and have initiated new to prevent such inefficiencies in the future.
Since the labor negotiation, executive leadership of the two ports under Gene Seroka and Jon Slangerup has demonstrated the successful potential of a business model that allows collaboration while being open to competition in the market. Collaboration is increasingly becoming something of a thought leadership buzz word in the world of supply chain – so much so, that buyers are being urged to put competition to one side in favour of joining forces with other procurement teams in their industry.
With encouragement and approval from the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) , POLA and POLB have launched Supply Chain Optimization (SCO) as well as join research study with USC Marshall Center for Global Supply Chain. Current reports at the beginning of this year show that research into past inefficiencies and restructuring to correct the problems in the future with the use of strong leadership, lean thinking, and new technologies has paid off. For shipping to many destinations in the world, using West Coast ports will be the fastest option. We look forward to continuing to report on these successes as the project continues.