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The provision chain ripples attributable to pandemic bottlenecks are being felt along the U.S.-Mexico border as nearshoring intensifies. Cross-border logistics continues to realize attention as large multinational corporations move their operations to Mexican border regions, creating additional demand for warehousing space, manufacturing facilities, transportation capability and providers to administer shipments.
While creating warehouses and manufacturing centers is an easy process, finding and managing Mexican transportation capability to service these locations is limited by visibility for available carriers and, if you happen to find willing carriers, the shortcoming to trace their progress. Mexican trucking regulations don’t require drivers to have ELDs. Drivers as a substitute use either paper logs or a digital logbook to comply with hours-of-service regulations.
In comparison with a U.S.-based carrier that may utilize third-party tracking or directly provide ELD telematics and placement data to all parties, contacting Mexican carriers is commonly a low-tech affair.
“We have a look at this really deeply also with our product and engineering teams. There’s some providers within the U.S. which might be getting just a little higher at Mexico … however the consensus is it’s not superb on the border and particularly on the Mexican side. Visibility is actually a challenge for many shippers. At Nuvocargo, we’re capable of provide end-to-end visibility with a full-time monitoring team, through integrations with GPS providers, and by partnering with select carriers,” said Deepak Chhugani, founder and CEO of Nuvocargo.
Chhugani notes that for sending messages to drivers and carriers, social media messaging apps like WhatsApp remain a fixture for many Latin American emerging markets, with tracking updates and cargo communication routed through those apps.
“You usually have WhatsApp groups together with your carriers, with 3PLs, with among the border service providers. We’ve built technology integrating with the important thing players within the ecosystem so you possibly can streamline, centralize, and measure those communications.”
Danny Gordon, head of account management at Nuvocargo, said, “You have got to have relationships with those carriers. It’s a really specialized network, and it’s especially essential to be an authority on the compliance side, sourcing carriers with the very best safety measures that adhere to Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) regulations.” Gordon notes in Mexico there isn’t any large carrier loadboard or repository where brokers can start dialing a listing of a whole bunch of carriers to source for a load.
He adds: “The last item you possibly can do once you’re doing Mexico is use one truck carrier you’ve never talked to or met and trust them to take that business. That’s a recipe for disaster. It takes lots of work to develop a specialized network of trustworthy, high-service-level carriers.”
To tackle these operational and visibility challenges, Nuvocargo is pairing technology with singular expertise on this trade lane to disrupt the established order. Gordon explains that many legacy providers approach the cross-border market like they’d a standard U.S. market where cold calling and brute force carrier discovery can create market share. Operating at a better level requires additional considerations, just like the documents required, the languages required for a particular facility to book appointments, and even routing considerations inside Mexico that have in mind infrastructure and safety requirements.
For Chhugani, Nuvocargo’s in-house technology addresses a serious blind spot in traditional transportation management systems, which aren’t designed to handle the added business logic that cross-border operations require. He noted that added complexity comes from the extra variables, like whether it’s a northbound or a southbound shipment, what number of legs the shipment has, whether there may be a drop on the border or final destination, and whether the paperwork is ready or a shipper or customs broker needs to supply additional documents before reaching customs on the border.
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For Nuvocargo, the give attention to in-house technology is paying off by reducing border crossing times. The corporate notes a 66% faster document turnaround time and 33% faster border crossings when Nuvocargo handles freight and customs. For the carriers that haul the cross-border, Nuvocargo reported a 43% faster approval process for on-time payments. Nuvocargo has been partnering successfully with US shippers to enter and expand into the Mexican market, seeing very strong momentum. The corporate now handles all cross-border logistics for a growing variety of U.S. shippers.
As nearshoring efforts intensify, the variety of trucks that cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day is anticipated to soar from the present total of nearly 35,000 in the approaching years. For shippers and logistics providers, this growth is upending expectations for service and visibility and requires a tailored approach in comparison with the present opaque process that plagues cross-border freight.
To learn more, visit www.nuvocargo.com
The post The Logistics of Nearshoring: Navigating U.S.-Mexico Border Complexities appeared first on FreightWaves.