5 ms·

White House: Walmart, FedEx, UPS to go 24/7 to address supply bottlenecks

17 points by dev_tty01 5y ago

lugged 5y ago
This isn't even remotely going to solve the supply chain problems. Didn't everyone just quit? And they want to go 24/7? With no experience running 24/7? Good luck with that Brandon.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Maybe they can mint 350 million trillion dollar coins and give one to every citizen... then we'd all be trillionaires, and all our problems will go away! /s
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
They can't find enough workers for existing shifts, how are they going to find even more?
- atatatat 5y ago
  Well, the long answer ends with "junk bonds".
rogerkirkness 5y ago
As someone with a family member that is a senior logistics executive, most facilities already run 24/7. Is this about drivers or something?
- asquabventured 5y ago
  It's theater, play acting as-if the government has a magic wand to yield against the shit storm they've been brewing with poor fiscal and monetary policy.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Employment threatening mandates are fucking stupid policy when it hits already overburdened critical industries. Then they give us more policy theater like this - it'd be hard to do worse at governing than this current batch of morons. Both teams, BTW - they're all incomprehensibly awful at running things.
    - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
      Unfortunately our current political system selects for sociopathy rather than competency.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Reminds me of when George W Bush changed the dates for Daylight Saving Time to help with high energy prices. Completely worthless but it did make a bunch of work for IT folks.
- gitfan86 5y ago
  Actually no one had ever thought of moving goods 24/7, until the White House suggested it in 2021. So we should expect everything to return to normal very soon
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  Actually if you think about it, there are always legs along the supply chain that are not 24/7. Your AT&T Store isn't open 24/7, but they have to be there to accept an order of phone chargers (they're not gonna let FedEx just drop it in front of the store at 2am). So various segments of supply transport are probably timed to coincide with business hours. If they can run that delivery 24/7, that unburdens delivery so that even with a lower number of drivers, they can deliver more packages within a "working day", because the working day has gone from 12 to 24 hours per day. But of course.... that means the AT&T store now needs to accept packages at 2AM. You might solve that a couple different ways: a low-paid overnight employee to accept shipments, or some new lock-box delivered around back with packages. Whatever it is, it won't work unless the courier is delivering at those hours. And based on my personal experience receiving ground packages from UPS/FedEx, those packages only seem to move between facilities during the day. So like the PR says, this is a "signal" to other parts of the chain to figure out their own overnight hours. They specifically call out trucking, freight, ports, and retail. So there are probably opportunities in all segments for expanding operating hours. They might also be getting "creative" around pay. Even if they can't find more workers, they're probably offering double or triple for overtime and letting people work themselves to death, hoping that they can hire more before their employees burn out. But I might be cynical....
tomohawk 5y ago
We have unprecedented numbers of ships parked off California, and the 2 main ports there do not operate 24/7. This has been known for months and not much progress has been made on it. https://lbpost.com/news/are-the-long-beach-and-los-angeles-ports-operating-24-7-as-biden-claimed-not-quite https://lbpost.com/news/are-the-long-beach-and-los-angeles-p...
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > We have unprecedented numbers of ships parked off California, and the 2 main ports there do not operate 24/7. This has been known for months and not much progress has been made on it. Long Beach started 24/7 operation weeks ago, and while its not in the headline, this agreement includes 24/7 port operations at the port of Los Angeles as well. (Which the article text does mention.)
  - tomohawk 5y ago
    The original article goes off of the claims of the White House, and the article I link shows those claims to be misleading at best. More accurate: they are in the preliminary stages of trying to move to 24/7 operation.

17 points by dev_tty01 5y ago

This isn't even remotely going to solve the supply chain problems. Didn't everyone just quit? And they want to go 24/7? With no experience running 24/7? Good luck with that Brandon.

robbedpeter 5y ago
Maybe they can mint 350 million trillion dollar coins and give one to every citizen... then we'd all be trillionaires, and all our problems will go away! /s

Mountain_Skies 5y ago

They can't find enough workers for existing shifts, how are they going to find even more?

atatatat 5y ago
Well, the long answer ends with "junk bonds".

rogerkirkness 5y ago

As someone with a family member that is a senior logistics executive, most facilities already run 24/7. Is this about drivers or something?

asquabventured 5y ago
It's theater, play acting as-if the government has a magic wand to yield against the shit storm they've been brewing with poor fiscal and monetary policy.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Employment threatening mandates are fucking stupid policy when it hits already overburdened critical industries. Then they give us more policy theater like this - it'd be hard to do worse at governing than this current batch of morons. Both teams, BTW - they're all incomprehensibly awful at running things.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Unfortunately our current political system selects for sociopathy rather than competency.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Reminds me of when George W Bush changed the dates for Daylight Saving Time to help with high energy prices. Completely worthless but it did make a bunch of work for IT folks.
gitfan86 5y ago
Actually no one had ever thought of moving goods 24/7, until the White House suggested it in 2021. So we should expect everything to return to normal very soon
throwaway984393 5y ago
Actually if you think about it, there are always legs along the supply chain that are not 24/7. Your AT&T Store isn't open 24/7, but they have to be there to accept an order of phone chargers (they're not gonna let FedEx just drop it in front of the store at 2am). So various segments of supply transport are probably timed to coincide with business hours. If they can run that delivery 24/7, that unburdens delivery so that even with a lower number of drivers, they can deliver more packages within a "working day", because the working day has gone from 12 to 24 hours per day. But of course.... that means the AT&T store now needs to accept packages at 2AM. You might solve that a couple different ways: a low-paid overnight employee to accept shipments, or some new lock-box delivered around back with packages. Whatever it is, it won't work unless the courier is delivering at those hours. And based on my personal experience receiving ground packages from UPS/FedEx, those packages only seem to move between facilities during the day. So like the PR says, this is a "signal" to other parts of the chain to figure out their own overnight hours. They specifically call out trucking, freight, ports, and retail. So there are probably opportunities in all segments for expanding operating hours. They might also be getting "creative" around pay. Even if they can't find more workers, they're probably offering double or triple for overtime and letting people work themselves to death, hoping that they can hire more before their employees burn out. But I might be cynical....

tomohawk 5y ago

We have unprecedented numbers of ships parked off California, and the 2 main ports there do not operate 24/7. This has been known for months and not much progress has been made on it. https://lbpost.com/news/are-the-long-beach-and-los-angeles-ports-operating-24-7-as-biden-claimed-not-quite https://lbpost.com/news/are-the-long-beach-and-los-angeles-p...

dragonwriter 5y ago
> We have unprecedented numbers of ships parked off California, and the 2 main ports there do not operate 24/7. This has been known for months and not much progress has been made on it. Long Beach started 24/7 operation weeks ago, and while its not in the headline, this agreement includes 24/7 port operations at the port of Los Angeles as well. (Which the article text does mention.)
- tomohawk 5y ago
  The original article goes off of the claims of the White House, and the article I link shows those claims to be misleading at best. More accurate: they are in the preliminary stages of trying to move to 24/7 operation.