Land Transportation Makes Forwarding A Lot Easier

For over decades and decades upon its first creation, roadways have undergo major changes for the people’s benefit. Roadways play an important role on business transactions such as freight forwarding. In the Philippines, nation’s infrastructure was not being focused on, not until these recent years. The government has been investing on projects for the improvement of the country’s pathways.

Land Transportation could be classified into three (3) categories mainly the roads, highways and expressways:

Roads

The Philippines’ roadways has measured to 199,950 kilometers (124,249 miles) of roads, of which 39,590 kilometers (24,601 miles) are paved. The roadways were under the care of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), but as how things have been going, the roadways development have been passed on to Local Government Units (LGUs). The nation’s topography have its fair share of hurdles, due to its mountainous areas and scattered islands. But through some innovative minds, transportation have progressed from being by feet or horsepower to by engines and fuel-powered machineries.

In rural areas, the roads make or break a forwarding business. Sending goods in remote areas could really be challenging but through major efforts, pathways has been undergoing enhancements for better handling of freight transport.

Highways

Highways make transporting goods a lot easier from its purpose on connecting major towns or cities. The Philippines’ highway includes roads categorize into six (6) divisions: the Maharlika Highway, Controlled-access highways, the Regional Highways, the Provincial Highways, the Manila Arterial Road System, Pan-Philippine Highway and the secondary city and municipal avenues and roads.

Source: Wikipedia

The Pan-Philippine Highway, also known as Maharlika ("Nobility/freeman") Highway was proposed on 1956 and built under President Marcos’s governance. Its main purpose is to connect the islands of Luzon, Samar, Leyte and Mindanao to make moving of goods less costly and more efficient.

Expressways

An expressway is functioned to reduced traffics among connecting towns or cities. It was designed to have a controlled entrance and exit, dividing ongoing to outgoing lanes and each sides both have two or more lanes resulting to decrease unwanted heavy flow of traffic and increasing on road safety.

The Philippines have modernize their roads turning it into expressways. And its most widely-known expressways were located at the main island of the country, Luzon. The first expressway systems in the country are the North Luzon Expressway formerly known as North Diversion Road and the South Luzon Expressway, formerly known as South Super Highway. Both were built in the 1970s, during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos.

Source Wikimedia

The North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) under the operation of Tollways Management Corporation is a 2 to 8-lane limited-access toll expressway connecting Metro Manila to neighboring provinces of the Central Luzon region. It was designed to expand the reach of local transport coming from Manila to another town or city. The routes entrance and exits were divided into two ends, North end: Mabalacat-Magalang Road (in Barangay Sta. Ines, Mabalacat, Pampanga) Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (in Mabalacat) and South end: Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (in Barangay Balingasa and Pag-ibig sa Nayon in Quezon City) A. Bonifacio Avenue (in Balintawak, Quezon City).

The South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) is the country’s another important expressway, it serves the southern part of Luzon. The expressway is a network of two expressways that connects Metro Manila to the provinces of the CALABARZON region in the southern part of Luzon. It was still under construction expanding pathways for the public to improve passable roads to far away areas to reduce the unwanted cost of land transportation.

Having ways to transport goods is both beneficial to the consumer and the producer. Being able to do 

so will produce more opportunities for the society’s growth.

This article was brought to you by Metro Combined, leading freight forwarder, provides logistics solution and trucking services.

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Cargo Vessels Used in Freight Forwarding: Dry Cargo Vessel

In the freight forwarding business, one of the means of forwarding is through the sea. The earth is surrounded by bodies of water. And in order to deliver goods is by having a vessel and a shipping agency philippines fit for the job. One of the goods being delivered were dry. An example of dry goods will be metal ores, coal, steel products, forest products, and grains.

Dry cargo vessels are ships that carry dry cargo such as boxes, bales, bags, or lumber, which is normally hand-stowed. These vessels are not precautious due to the fact that they carry dry goods. Dry goods are not temperature conscious. It also has on-deck cranes and other mechanisms for the loading and unloading of goods.

Dry cargo vessels Types

Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) Vessels

RORO ships are vessels designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, trailers, and railroad cars. These vessels have either built-in or shore-based ramps which make the cargo be easily rolled on and off the vessel when in port without causing any damage to the goods. There are various types of ro-ro vessels such as ferries, cruise ferries, cargo ships, and barges.

Source worldmaritimenews.com

Mark V class, being the world’s largest ro-ro with a cargo capacity of almost 1, 400,000 cubic meters and first begin its operation in the year 2011. It was also named as ‘Ship of the Year 2011’. Each Mark V Class vessel measures over 260 meters lengthwise with a width of slightly over 32 meters and a draft of about 11 meters. It truly is magnificence for what it was cut out for.

General Cargo Vessels/ Break Bulk Cargo

Source: maritimejobs.org

General cargo vessels are designed to handle break-bulk cargo such as bags, cartons, cases, crates, and drums, either individually or in unitized or palletized loads and move packaged merchandise from one location to another. These cargos have its own cranes and other heavy lifting machinery needed in loading and unloading of goods. Generally, they carry cargo that is too large to be carried in a container. 

Bulk Carrier/ Bulk Freighter or Bulker

A bulk carrier is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo, such as grains, coal, ore, and cement in its cargo holds. Bulk carriers could be identified by how it was built mainly from the construction of the cargo which was divided into separate cargo holds and covered hatches.

It was known to identify goods carried through abbreviations to describe bulkers. "OBO" describes a bulker which carries a combination of ore, bulk, and oil, and "O/O" is used for combination oil and ore carriers. The terms "VLOC," "VLBC," "ULOC," and "ULBC" for very large and ultra large ore and bulk carriers were adapted from the supertanker designations very large crude carrier and ultra large crude carrier.

Source: www.aukevisser.nl

MS Ore Brasil previously known as Vale Brasil is a very large ore carrier with an overall length of 362.0 meters (1,187.7 ft), making her one of the longest ships currently in service owned by Brazilian Mining Company Vale.

Container Vessels

Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. These ships load and unload their cargos through gantry cranes which move the containers straight between the vessel and the truck, removing the need for a warehouse. 

Source: Wikipedia

The Maersk Triple E class container ships comprise a family of very large container ships (more than 18,000 TEU). The name "Triple E" is derived from the class's three design principles: "Economy of scale, Energy efficient and Environmentally improved". These ships are expected to be not only the world's longest ships in service but also the most efficient container ships per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) of cargo.

This article is brought to you by: Metro Combined Logistics Solutions Inc

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The Path Always Taken: An Analysis on How Public Roadways Affect Logistics Business in the Philippines

The present condition of the roadways of our beloved country, the Philippines, is a double-edged sword for logistics service providers. The state of our roadways is one of the main reasons why people are buying the idea of taking advantage of logistics services but at the same time, it is also what causes most of the biggest challenges for logistics companies.

Transportation is a major problem in the country. Just recently, we have been labeled as one of the countries with the worst traffic and airport. If we will look closely, there are many factors that contribute to this situation like overpopulation, poor urban planning, lack of discipline, and corruption. In the Metro Manila alone, more private vehicles are occupying the road than public utility vehicles and the number of registered motor vehicles only seem to increase each year. With the election for public officials looming, we can expect that the already chaotic traffic will worsen with the attempts of the outgoing officials to arrange last-minute road patch-up projects for the sake of having one.

Logistics companies have learned to embrace the fact that the current state of our roadways is one of the hurdles that they need to accept and adapt to but there is more to it than what meets the eye when it comes to logistics business. The poor roadways can affect the logistics companies in many ways.


Quality of service –

Source: Business World Online

Traffic condition is one of the things that is put into consideration when deciding deadlines and estimating time for deliveries to be completed. Trying to give out a realistic timeframe on when a transaction can be completed can be a real challenge. The traffic can stall the progress of deliveries and can sometimes cause delays. This is why there are some logistics companies who do not accept transporting perishable good. This could also be a problem with setting the expectations of the clients especially those who are trying to catch tight deadlines.


Maintenance --

Long hours on the road put a huge toll on the vehicles that are used in deliveries. The poor condition of the road can also add up to the strain and, in worse scenarios, may cause damages. If a vehicle will be out for repair or maintenance, this could affect the production and could lead to missed deadlines and decrease in the company output quality. Not to mention, repairs could be really costly almost 100% of the time.

Fuel Costs –

Representation of Money spent on Fuel

Fuel is essential to keep the vehicles needed for the deliveries alive and running. We are all aware on how much fuel can cost nowadays. For people in the business of transportation, getting stuck on traffic is losing money with every stagnant drone of the engine.


Damages –

In the worst of worst situation, no matter how cautious a driver is, accidents may occur on the road due to many circumstances. This may lead to damages in properties that will probably lead to unnecessary profit loss. These could be in the form of potholes, faulty bridges, fellow motorists or even an errant piece of jagged rock.

This is just a careful analysis of some of the challenges that logistics businesses experience due to the current state of our pubic roadways and a reflection on how much attention is needed to develop more reliable and dependable roadways that not only big businesses can use but are also beneficial for ordinary Filipinos.

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Hurdles of Starting Business in the Philippines: Topography

There are many factors that we need to consider when starting up a business. If one would like to be proficient in this field, it would take more than experience, knowledge, and strategies. Even exceling in business courses cannot guarantee you of success as a businessman. We have seen how big business rise and fall. And I guess we can agree that this is true: there is no guaranteed formula in business. We need to understand that every business if different from one another and they would need unique set of rules, regulations, and business plans to set everything rolling. Even the careful study of data, figures, and economic trends can only be used guides in plunging in to this complex world of business.

Business opportunities, target market, and business location are just some of the important factors that a person venturing in business needs to know. But for today we are drawing your attention to one of the easily ignored factor in business: topography.

We might have all heard about topography in our science and geography classes and yes, it is what you think it is: the arrangement of the natural and artificial physical features of an area. More than being a term we’ve heard in academic classes, topography plays a big role in strategizing for business. But before we go down into the details, let us break down the physical features of our country, the Philippines.

The Philippines is the largest archipelago in the world that is found in the southeastern coast of the Asia mainland. Philippines is surrounded by water in which in the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Celebes Sea, and on the west and north by the South China Sea. The country consists of 7,107 island and islets. Only 2000 of these islands are inhibited. The populated and mountainous islands are grouped into three: Luzon, the biggest island group, covers 141,395 square kilometers; Visayas, 56,606 square kilometers; and Mindanao, 102,000 square kilometers. Other main islands are Samar, Negros, Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Leyte, Cebu, Bohol and Masbate.

Ever wondered what the oil price hike has got to do with the prices of other products? It is because consumers also pay for the expenses companies allot for distributing/moving their goods. And seeing how this works, we can say that any mountains, plains, desserts, and bodies of water can aid or hinder a business. The Philippines, being an archipelago, is surrounded by bodies of water. There are a handful of businesses that can really take advantage of this like sea freights, sea cargo services, etc. But for businesses that depend on the distribution of their products and service for profit, this could be a problem. Distributing to all the corners of the country would be costly since it will be necessary to partner with an air freight or sea freight company to be able to cross regions and distribute to other parts of the country. This could limit the potential of small scale businesses, farmers, and fishermen especially those who cannot afford freight services.

Realizing how topography can make or break a company, a smart businessman can come up with a sound business plan or solution that can take advantage of hurdles of Philippines’ topography. Running a business is all about strategy, and the more you understand about the things around you, the further you can go.

This article is brought to you by Metro Combined, a top of line logistics provider and freight forwarder in the Philippines.

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