It’s only just starting when you arrive
Your supply chain, reimagined.
Port-centric logistics is fast becoming a supply chain strategy that many businesses can reap multiple benefits from.
Whether you’re a clothing brand, a timber manufacturer or food and drink distribution business, engaging a port-centric approach can add value to your supply chain.
We’ve seen the crucial role ports have played over the last 18 months. They have provided more than a convenient spot for importing and exporting: one that is part of an efficient, integrated supply chain, supporting businesses during times of high demand and volatile market disruption.
Now more than ever, business need a supply chain that is resilient, flexible and cost effective, and avoids delays due to congestion.
What are the benefits of port-centric logistics?
Port-centric logistics cuts out unnecessary legs within the supply chain by carrying out various functions at the port itself.
Be it full processing, product finalisation or simple storage solutions, a port can fulfil a wide range of logistics activities. The close proximity to market or next stage of processing minimises the risk of disruption as a result of congestion, maximizing your responsiveness to market demands.
E-commerce to your door
Do you think your e-commerce delivery from a high-street brand came from one of their regional warehouses? It might have done, but it might also have come from an on-port warehouse, making the journey from ship to warehouse and into the dispatch system as efficient as possible, with no unnecessary legs introduced. Similarly for importers that are not sufficiently large to merit their own distribution centres, they can rent as little as one pallet space at a port to support their needs.
This is already happening at the Port of Liverpool.
Milling grain at the port
A large share of processing of grains and cereals takes place at ports, because of course it makes sense for that initial phase of manufacturing to occur as close as possible to where the product enters the country. Often imported wheat, corn, beans, or other products, are discharged into large storage compounds, which then feed adjacent milling or crushing facilities, getting the product off the ship, into storage, and onward to the plant without going anywhere near a public road. This is nothing new, and had been taking place long before the term port-centric logistics fell into fashion.
There are three large processing facilities fed by conveyor from Liverpool’s grain terminal, including Europe’s largest grain corn mill.
Ripening bananas
And in the food supply chain, it’s not just agribulks that can have value added at the port. If you’re importing bananas through a southern port, why truck them into the Midlands for ripening, only to have to deliver them back to the South, when you can get it all done without leaving the port in the first place?
There is a banana ripening facility at the Port of Sheerness.
Processing timber
What about treating timber at the port, rather than at another plant, so the first leg of its journey can be to the builders merchant, instead of to an interim facility? That saves on the trips from the port to the processor, and from the processor to the merchant. What about bagging or packing other materials too, and consolidating them at the port, so the road trip ensures greater utilisation of trucks? While you’re at it, you could throw in pallets of bricks as well, and send the truck directly to the construction site.
Peel Ports provides on-port treatment for timber products at customer request.
A partner you can count on
As a port operator which has long worked with its customers to really get to the heart of their needs and develop bespoke holistic solutions which provide flexible, resilient and sustainable solutions, we’ve long been an advocate of port centric logistics.
Key benefits:
- We can help businesses warehouse goods to get to market in the most flexible, efficient and cost-effective way - from warehousingand logistics to pick and pack and on-site shunting, we can deliver a fully integrated service.
- Fully scalable solutions to match operational volume swings to provide a seamless transition between each stage of the supply chain, to respond to markets and their varying peaks and troughs.
- Reduce the number of supply chain legs by having warehousing at the port.
- Reduced empty container movements – no need to transport the container inland and the cost of returning it empty back to the port.
- Added value activities (e.g. labelling, QA, pallet re-work) as soon as cargo lands to suit customer needs.
Port of Liverpool Port Centric Benefits
- Products imported into the Port of Liverpool can be manufactured and exported again without being subject to tariffs and import procedures.
- The port's deep water access and well connected land transport make it the ideal port for port-centric operations to help optimise supply chains and work as environmentally efficiently as possible.
- The Port of Liverpool has its own integrated rail terminal which connects the deep water facility directly to the rest of the country and provides vital flexibility for import and export supply chains while also minimising costs, crowding, and carbon emissions, as well as, helping to overcome driver shortage issues.
- Distribution centres tend to be more Northern biased presenting an opportunity for businesses to relocate their regional DC’s into the port centric model which can provide the full e-commerce offer.
- We have over 2 million sq. ft. of storage and warehouse space available
- Real time tracking – from port, to truck/rail to end destination
- Port to parcel network - whatever you remove from container can go straight into parcel network without leaving the port.
- Support a range of services from DC sized à classic warehousing à inherent e-fulfilment before leaving the actual port.
- The PoL provide global shipping companies reliable access to major import and export centres at the heart of the UK, to further increase capabilities and support increased demand.
- The majority of the UK and Ireland live closer to the Port of Liverpool than to Felixstowe, London and Southampton, and this represents a catchment of over 35 million people.
- We have the land footprint, the knowledge and the infrastructure, to help you design and build the perfect facilities on site. We can give you access to the North West and Midlands manufacturing centres and together we can tailor custom-built, port-centric facilities.
London Medway Port Centric Benefits
- The Port of Sheerness is strategically located with proximity to London and the South East, and offers improved access to service the market for forest products. We handle over one million tonnes of timber and forest products each year which serves the construction, publishing and packaging sectors.
- Instead of transporting your timber from its port of entry to a processing facility hundreds of miles away, why not develop a bespoke treatment and processing facility on the port estate? This means that the first time your product hits the road, will be on its all-important journey direct to the merchant or even an end customer, reducing road miles, cutting emissions and streamlining your supply chain.
- In the food chain it’s not just agribulks which can benefit, if you’re importing goods through a southern port, why truck them into the Midlands, only to have to deliver them back to the South, when you can do it all without leaving the port in the first place?
- London Medway caters primarily to unaccompanied freight. After your truck arrives it can remain on the port until you are ready to receive it, thus providing a just-in-time service for you regardless of when the vessel has arrived.
- Given the shortage of HGV drivers particularly cross-channel routes, the unaccompanied model is being more suitable for traffic that is not specifically time sensitive (e.g. perishable goods).
- A recent boom in home improvements has led to demand for certain construction products, e.g. timber, wood panels, cement, outpacing supply. At London Medway, we support supply to some of the UK’s biggest construction businesses and can actas a hub for storage and distribution of building materials. By consolidating materials on the port we can help cut out a transport leg, reducing the environmental impact of getting the product to the site.
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