Select Courier Blog

READY FOR THE CHRISTMAS RUSH?

2015: Nearing the finish.  Holiday season has definitely started. Orders piling up and packed distribution centers.  Large quantities of Christmas gifts, presents and the occasional Christmas greeting card are pushed and pulled through the networks. With the smart shipping solutions of Select Courier, we enable our customers to save valuable time, money and energy - also during the upcoming Christmas rush.

Shipping christmas gifts and presents
How do you make sure that, despite this christmas rush, all of your christmas packages and parcels are going to be delivered in time?

Select Courier enables you to book all of your shipments in one go. Our website generates all your shipment labels automatically. Label printing is done in a single click and a driver is ordered just as easily. Done. That's how we make seasonal shipping easy.

Three useful tips:

+ Book your shipments in time.

+ During the holiday season, carriers and transporters may adjust their regular routes and pick up times.

+ Please take extra care with the packaging of your shipments. Vans and distribution centers will be tightly packed.
       

Easy Shipping during Holiday Season with Select Courier

If you have seasonal shipping projects, Select Courier gladly enables you to organize this project in a efficient, fast en easy way.

You can sign up for a free and completely non-committal account right here.

Of course, you can also call us at +31 (0)10 223 7006. 

 SENDING BATTERIES? WARNING, WARNING.

Sending batteries? Not so easy, anymore. To ensure safety in the skies even better, the IATA (International Air Transport Association) established new rules for sending batteries. Violation of these rules may result very well in the destruction of your shipment. To keep this scenario from happening, we’d like to offer some instruction on sending batteries.

What do I need to know?
In short: If you are sending batteries, PLEASE CONTACT US. This will save your shipment from delivery delays, gathering surcharges or even destruction. Not exaggerating.

CUSTOMS: RECIPE FOR BAD WEATHER AND HIGH PRESSURE. A Clarification.

It is easy to look at Customs as a necessary, opaque and potentially painful hurdle.  So, what is even Customs? Is it an institution? A location? Taxes? Plural or singular? Some clarification:

Recipe for bad weather

So, what is customs? A lot. The existence of many meanings result in frequent misuse and confusion. Which is sad and unfortunate for all the Customs officials, who get blamed for whatever goes wrong. To add to this: there are Customs brokers and customs officers, and there are Customs brokers who are actually state employees.

A definition

WordReference.com offers some clarification with a somewhat manageable
definition: 

Customs, an authority in a country responsible for collecting customs duties and controlling the flow of goods. 

In other words,Customs is not immigration. Or police. Or  quarantine. 

Function of Customs

Customs duties are being organised in a so-called Customs Tariff. In most cases, the government imposes the Customs Tariff on imported or exported goods. Another function of customs, the institution, is to provide budget-makers with statistical data to manage Customs Tariff. 

Just a start

This is only the tip of the giant Customs-uncertainty mountain. Trying to conquer this mountain would be a never-ending expedition.  However, what you can do when shipping internationally is to inform yourself with the rules regulations of the destined country.

Another step towards sustainable shipping: 
GREEN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT


The ongoing search for sustainable shipping yields a daily amount of new, innovative and more or less succesful initiatives. However, current supply chain management is still one of the biggest challenges to more green practices.

Supply chain managers

Gaps, challenges and opportunities. Difficult pieces of the puzzle for supply chain managers. Current issues that keep managers from switching gears? Current fads and a lot of opinions. In addition to that: traditional contractual models, a hesitant approach of changing conventional procedures and a lack of collaboration with the supply chain. 

So...

In the meantime, public demand on sustainable shipping is growing. This demand will also ask supply chain managers to think about greener and more sustainable ways to organise supply chains.

Enjoying simple measures

The Internet is full of tips. Some great. Since being pedantic is never a great way to get a message across, we have just collected some vere easy to implement sustainable supply chain tips. 

Switching lights and PC’s off when left idle

Recycling paper

Taking the bicycle

Use virtual file cabinets in stead of printing out everthing

And, our favourite tip: Give time in stead of presents! A great piece of advice is worth more than whatever mall-bought present.

1 MINUTE READ: QUICK BLIPS OF THE PAST

O history. Too much to read, too much to learn. To keep everyone entertained as well as informed, we’de like provide you every now and then with a bitesize piece of logistical background info. 

Great feet of ancient Logistics: The Amazing Roman Logistical Supply Chain

The ancient Roman military had a complex logistical supply chain. Since the Roman Empire never acquired the knowledge to construct motorized airplanes, most shipments were organized over land. Military supplies were supplied via fixed supply chains. One legion consists of roughly 6000 infanterists, requiring 13,5 tonnes of food per month. 

Speed of transport: 15 miles (24 kilometers) per day.  The Roman Army did not have logistical overseers, supply chain managers or electricity. End of section.

TRUMPETS AND TIMPANI: LOGISTIC CHALLENGES IN A WILDLY COMPLEX WORLD

There are the daily small fixes. Upscaling the small fixes: global logistic developments. Trumpets and timpani. The big stuff. Checking in with this year’s international developments.

I Basic Border Management
The speed of improvements in developing countries is decreasing, meaning they now have to face bigger, and more complex issues. Quick fixes, in this case, are mostly about improving infrastructure. Building roads and raillines. Filling up pothole roads. However nice it is to not having to dig your truck out every twohundred meters, improvement is still hard to realize if there is no  basic border management. A difficult and multi-layered challenge, asking patience, creativity, organisational skills. And perseverance. 

II Increasing sophistication
Hopping over to mid-income countries contrast. Most of them have a basic and well-functioning border management. Next step and biggest gain: expanding logistics services.  Setting up specialized functions, like warehousing or freight-forwarding. Growing knowledge.

III Environmental awareness
When everything works properly and every legal nook and cranny is neatly plastered, environment awareness is kicking in. The demand for “Green logistics”. Planes flying on recycled cooking oil.  If the growing demand on green logistics continues, logistic providers will need to take steps in order to keep existing.

And now?

It’s hard to tell what development in logistics will be next. Collaborative consumption, access vs ownership, online systems taking over, old and new business models changing places. Changes, trends, current fads and, of course, a bit of that same old.

Want to know more? Read more about global trends in logistics in Connecting to Compete, a publication of the World Bank. 

WHY SHORT TERM THINKING IS NOT A GREAT WAY GET YOUR SHIPPING READY FOR THE FUTURE

Who takes a moment to look around in the world of logistics will discover: Also logistics has it hands full with quite a lot of short-term stuff. No surprise, since Logistics is mostly organised by humans (still).   

Human

So: Is short-term thinking a human characteristic? Even without a doctors diploma, the answer quickly yields itself. Yes. Totally. Little issues, stubborn error messages, an e-mail with panicky explanation marks, a lost invoice, an incomplete label, etcetera.

Rule of thumb

Short-term thinking works best in an unpredictable environment. More, in an environment which is being felt als unpredictable. Which is all very relative, of course.

Either way, short-term thinking tends to stand in the way of longterm-challenges. Withing the company. Within logistics.

Questions, questions
So: how do logistic companies and service providers cope with technological developments? The environment? Global issues? Other problems? Questions, questions.

Questions, questions

The creeping and uncomfortable feeling of there’s something systematically wrong, but i’ll investigate that later is not a great way to make your shipping organization future proof. It’s a start, though. Our small advice: Bet on the long term.