QUESTION: A question for the shipping community...What are your plans for qualifying carriers under CSA?

Good question. The wording of your question is interesting because it covers a broad spectrum I'd like to break down & clarify. CSA 2010 will have larger impact on the Transportation Professionals than the Supply Chain Professionals. LET ME EXPLAIN:

I have several friends (Long Term Clients) managing Fortune 100 Supply Chains (and smaller of course) who have not even heard of the CSA 2010 initiative. I have been asking all of them what they are doing to prepare for carrier enforcement. What I believe is happening in terms of preparation for Supply Chain Professionals (Manufacturers / Distribution Companies), is quite the opposite of what professionals on the Logistics/Transportation side are experiencing. Supply Chain professionals are looking at the new regulations from the perspective that the Federal Government is now accepting a role in their quality control procedures by monitoring carriers and intervening non-compliant carriers.

I see there are two folks who posted excellent comments (from Transcore) related to this question. The tools Transcore is offering however, are targeted primarily to Logistics/Transportation professionals who make up the majority of Transcore's client base as Transcore has very little penetration in the direct Shipper market. The solutions introduced by Transcore are directed more at Logistics / Transportation Professionals who would certainly open themselves up to liability by hiring companies outside of compliance guidelines.

Direct Shippers & Distributors however (anecdotally of course) have far less interest in their degree of additional liability directly from tendering their own (or customers) freight. Many of these Supply Chain professionals already have quality & performance guidelines in place to restrict their carrier network to a finite number and do not feel as though further monitoring or program creation offers a palatable ROI due to current anemic resources staffing levels at this point in the economic cycle.

I just wanted to clarify the question and identify the stakeholders we are referring to in the 'Shipping Community' because the impact of the new regulation varies greatly from Stakeholder Type to Stakeholder Type. Shippers certainly will pay more for tightened capacity, while one could make the argument 3PL's actually will make MORE (since they often operate on margin and freight pricing will be higher) so long as these 3PL's have proper procedures in place to reduce liability from hiring non-compliance carriers.

Good topic and great responses. It is entertaining to see that this Industry has continued to live up to its Opportunistic Nature. There seems to be THE REPORT or THE SOFTWARE that you need to 'survive CSA 2010' in every other email. The truth of the matter is that the direct impact of CSA 2010 varies from company to company, while the indirect impact increases prices for all across the board (and potential profits also as identified above for 3PL).

Thank you;

Brad Hollister
http://www.freightaccess.com