Overborder truck shortage likely to continue

Too many operations in the freight industry get rather carried away with grand company titles and tend to oversell their actual logistical capabilities, according to Moira Ambler of MSC Logistics. “There are people who call themselves international supply chain management specialists but who only operate one small link in the chain,” she told FTW. “They have little in the way of international contacts and only limited international expertise. “That’s a grand and glorious oversell.” If a company is going to do well it has to recognise the extent or the limitations of its function, Ambler added. “Take MSC Logistics, for example,” she said. “We’re in the business of moving MSC cargo around Southern Africa. But we don’t think of ourselves as a “supply chain”. We’re basically a transport company acting as the landside arm of the MSC group and a cog in a supply chain.” In Ambler’s overview of her marketplace she noted only one distinct trend at the moment. “There just aren’t enough trucks to deal with all the cargo – much of which is bound for Zambia and the DRC,” she said. “There are newly operational mines in both those countries, most of them in full production mode, anxious for deliveries of essential equipment and other supplies.” And Ambler – although she lays no claims to being an international financier – expects that to continue for the time being. “I think it’s going to take a while to slow down,” she said. “The stuff spewing off the ships into SA, but destined for our neighbouring countries, is just enormous.”