GLDPartners News Blog
GLDPartners Leads California Projects: Enhancing Competitiveness and Reducing Emissions
In Merced, California, GLDPartners has been exploring proactive opportunities to reduce emissions impacts from the Mid California Industrial Trade District (MCITD) and the California AutoTech Testing and Development Center (CATDC) while enhancing competitiveness. The team has had many discussions with strategic public and private sector partners moving forward. Examples include the Port of Los Angeles and how the next wave of goods movement technology might support inland distribution, including hydrogen and electric, and automobile companies and their suppliers to ascertain future automobile charging and fueling requirements.
Announcement: Silicon Valley Autotech Complex Funding Set; Construction in 2019
Funding has been put in-place and the site secured to build a global hub for a large-scale automotive technology testing and development complex in California. The California AutoTech Testing and Development Center (CATDC) is a 700-acre project that is being developed in Merced County which is located near to and directly to the east of Silicon Valley. The purpose-built testbed project is being planned, designed and engineered to be an important asset for developing many of the new technologies and applications that are shaping the future of human mobility. The CATDC is open currently and will complete an major expansion in mid-2019.
Supply Chain Stress in the Aerospace Industry
Recently the WSJ reported that Boeing is running out of space to store unfinished 737s as it waits for critical parts. Actually both Boeing and Airbus are experiencing production delays because of critical tier 1 suppliers that are just having a difficult time in dealing with the stress on their supply chains.
Trade Agreement Challenges Will Impact Automotive Supply Chains In Many Ways
The story below by Paul Eisenstein describes the impacts to automakers about the much-reviewed changes being discussed and negotiated for NAFTA. The current view in protectionist circles about trade agreements generally are classic debates that are framed by too many as one about winners and losers. The temptation to do that is alluring but the interlocking issues and short-term and long-term results require far more complex analytics. As is the case with most complicated things, the debate is generally confused by ignoring basic facts and quite different assumptions and priorities.
Supply Chain Resiliency Challenges: Investment Attraction Opportunities at Logistics Hubs
It is obvious and becoming more obvious that too much facility or geographic concentration exposes global supply chains to massive risk - the kind of risk that simply cannot be ignored any longer. Surely, there are some technological and cost efficiency challenges to break-up some production hubs - but there are also huge insurance benefits to assure continuous and uninterrupted production for global market products. Combined with evolving trade agreement dynamics, there may be great opportunity for anew production investment in other areas including in Latin America North America and Europe, especially at and around well-connected logistics hubs.
Impacts of US Trucking Regs Are Becoming Clearer
In an article published on August 6th, William Cassidy from the JOC wrote an article: ELD Surprise: Costing Supply Chain Time, Not US Truckers, where he outlined some of the impacts from the newly enforced Electronic Logging Data (ELD) requirements that have been put on the trucking industry in the US. While to some this may be a reference to some arcane trucking regulation, these regulations create some fundamental changes to the internal logistics system of the largest economy in the world. For inland markets that are situated in locations that are just beyond the HoS limits for a one-day dray to the nearest load-center seaport like Albuquerque, Salt Lake City or Indianapolis, this will have important implications to competitiveness for international shipments. For international supply chains that rely on inbound or outbound cargo movements, they are faced with higher shipping trucking expenses. These dynamics may suggest that with proper intermodal access, alternatives via rail may even be more attractive.