[021011.EN.SEA] The ‘Daily Maersk’ Revolution

Building on his previously announced manifesto to 'change the way we think about shipping', Eivind Kolding the CEO of AP Moller –Maersk has outlined his plan to introduce day-definite daily services.

Through the "Daily Maersk" the Danish giant will, from October, offer a container shipping service between Asia and Europe with a "daily cut-off at the same time every day, seven days a week, and always with the exact same transportation time". This "conveyor belt" service is meant to offer shippers the ability to ship cargo "immediately after production without the need for storage".

Kolding asserted that "to underline that Maersk Line means business and how firmly the company believes in Daily Maersk, the promise is backed up with monetary compensation, should customers' containers not arrive on time". This re-payment will be US$100 for the first three days of delay, rising to $300 after that.

In order to sustain this service level, Maersk is utilising a fleet of 70 vessels and the Europe-Asia route. It is unclear if this will include the large new 'E' Class vessels which Maersk has on order.

This is an extraordinary offer. The container sector is characterised by enormous variability in service time, driven both by operational issues such as weather or ports, as well as the desire of shipping lines themselves to gain more business by keeping to vessel in port longer. Changing it will be hard.

Of course none of this is new to any other area of logistics. Road freight has always operated to tight deadlines, often measured in minutes rather than days, as has air freight. Even rail freight, which in parts of Europe is often criticised for its unreliability, does not approach the unpredictability of timetabling seen in the shipping sector; where Maersk is able to boast that with 75% on-time reliability it is the leader in the sector.

Ken Lyon from the OnOn Shipping web-based NVOCC, one of the entrepreneurs who have been in vanguard of the attempts to change shipping's old fashioned habits, commented to Ti that "the elements of this are not new and organisations such as ourselves have been pioneering this new way of shipping for a while now. How major shippers and the competition respond will determine if Maersk's gamble pays off."

Source : EFT, 14.09.11 (Content provided in partnership with Transport Intelligence).