The Friday Report Blog: September 9th, 2022

Port of Los Angeles to Receive $20 Million Federal Grant

On September 7^th, United States Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a $20 million federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) infrastructure grant to the Port of Los Angeles. The grant will be used to enhance a critical road-railway grade separation project at the Port that will improve truck access to help move cargo.

Construction of the project includes a four-lane, rail-roadway grade separation that will allow truck access to an 80-acre container and chassis facility. This will reduce traffic delays, truck dwell times, and greenhouse gas emissions from idling vehicles.

The new rail-roadway will connect trucks to the highway system in two directions. This will result in decreases of 2,500 truck-hour delays a day, over 3,000 metric tons of emissions per year, and a 1,200 truck-miles traveled per day. The project will also create 300 new jobs.

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Chewy Opens Third Automated Fulfillment Center

Pet supply retailer Chewy opened a third automated fulfillment center in Reno, Nevada in July. This new facility has added fulfillment capacity to the business, which expects a third of its outbound volume to be shipped from automated facilities by 2023. It will only take half of the time to reach full operational capacity than its first automated facility, which was opened in 2020.

The Reno facility is the second of four automated fulfillment centers that Chewy committed to construct to improve productivity amid labor shortages. Chewy currently operates three automated fulfillment centers in the states of Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Nevada. The fourth is set to open in Nashville, Tennessee late in the 3rd quarter.

Chewy joins retailers such as Walmart and Target that are investing heavily in automation to keep up with rising e-commerce demands. In addition to their automated fulfillment centers, the pet supply company plans to continue its investment in Chewy Freight Services, their in-house delivery fleet. According to Chewy, the services volume tripled last quarter which contributed to a reduction of costs and improved on-time delivery.

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3M Opens New Shipping Site to Focus on Asian Shipments

3M recently announced the opening of a new shipping site in Charleston, South Carolina. This site will focus on the company’s shipments to Asian countries, which will reduce shipping times and delays for customers on the continent. The East Coast Consolidation Center is located only 10 miles from the Port of Charleston. The site will combine Asian orders that are less-than-container load size into full container load. This will lower costs and improve speed in overseas shipping.

The Charleston location is the third consolidation center that 3M has constructed. Other sites are in Ontario, Canada and Dekalb, Illinois. The new shipping site was built to combat congestion and delays at ports on the West Coast, such as the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. However, the past several months have seen a rise in volume at East Coast ports as businesses attempt to bypass supply chain disruptions.

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