okay it's 11 A.M thank you everyone for joining us today
um we're gonna please be presenting this Logistics webinar what to expect in 2023
um we have Robert ferreras our CEO CEO Travis Frank from the Port of Charleston
and David dembitzer our c-o-o so thank you thank you everyone for joining I'm
just gonna go through um how to use the platform so you can understand how to interact with us and ask any questions
um if you go to the top right of your screen you will see a chat bubble
um you can type you know any questions you have if you're having issues hearing anything
like that I'll be moderating the webinar um throughout the hour and then if you
go to the um tab to the right of that chat bubble you'll see another chat bubble with a
question mark inside of it that's where you can post any questions you have for the group and we're going to be holding
all of those until the end of the presentation so um please use that in order to ask
questions then we also have right next to that is our polls um if you could just answer that
question for us that would be very helpful and then we have um right next to it you'll see a little
gift icon if you hover over it says offers that's where you can request a
quote from us if um you're interested in getting a a rate sheet or a price list
on our services um so just to get started
um we have our agenda for today so this is going to be our our agenda
overview first we're going to start with our introductions then we're going to go into the logistics industry outlook for
Robert um with Robert and then using the Port of Charleston with Travis and then using
a 3pl logistics provider with David and then we'll have our closing and
questions um basically if you ask a question whoever the subject matter expert is on
that question we'll be answering it and without further Ado I'll turn it over to Robert
well thank you everybody really appreciate everyone being on this call and although I can't see you I think
it's important to thank each and every one of you for your participation today our our goal is is twofold here uh I can
tell you we don't have a crystal ball but uh we do have uh quite a bit of experience so one of the things we want
you to get out of this uh presentation here is to maybe get you thinking of
some Alternatives and and you know kind of learn from some of the things we've
learned over the last couple years which we'll share with you today we're going to start with I'm going to talk a little
bit about geopolitics and the impact on the supply chain we all know that's going to become a big factor here very
soon if it hasn't already talk a little bit about population growth and and
what's coming down the pike and how you might want to be prepared for some of this uh we we want to talk about Labor
and Technology that's a huge factor in in our industry itself in terms of how it impacts the supply chain it if you
haven't already seen and haven't experienced what's out there you know I want to talk a little bit about what
some of the impacts are and what's going on there I'm going to talk a little bit about supply chain resilience and you
know that's a term that you're going to start to hear quite a bit it's become a big buzzword in the logistics industry
this pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons and a lot of it kind of centers
around this concept of supply chain resilience so we'll talk a little bit about that and then of course we you
know we want to discuss a little bit about Outsourcing to a 3pl and some of the advantages of that and and David
will be covering some of those topics as well Brittany if you can jump to the to our first slide so uh geopolitics is is
again and I I don't have a crystal ball but if if you're not uh up to date with
current events you know and you're not concerned about Taiwan or you're not concerned about how your supply chain is
being is going to be affected sure should there be some kind of geopolitical event in the world
um you're you're uh something you know you should be thinking about it uh you know
it's creating heightened risk and it's increasing wages you know this whole evolving trade agreements it's really
forcing companies to rethink what should be done in a lot of companies that as
they look at what they're doing today uh it it really focuses around what's going
on in the world we're going to get different perspectives but the the one thing that I want to make sure everybody
leaves with this today is is you've got to start with a strategy you know this
is something that we can help you with as a partner in in the logistics world but you definitely got to look at a
strategy we've helped a number of customers uh to reduce the risk if you
will of the impacts and in this particular Arena so go to the next bullet point so let's talk a little bit
about short term uh considerations or options and a lot
of people have already taken an interim solution to safeguard against any kind of potential trade flow disruptions and
and something and and you know this is obviously easier to said than done but
the fact is that a lot of companies are moving out their supply chain or they're
moving their factories over to different destinations in the in the southeast Asia Pacific uh Arena we've seen people
move uh plants to or production to Vietnam Philippines has become a big popular uh
destination right now for some of this stuff we ourselves for example in in our labor pool we started to Outsource some
work to the to the Philippines in in an effort to try to stay competitive in some areas but it's certainly something
that you you got to put something in short term and that's something thing
you want to consider at least as an alternative now long term it's a little different long term it's going to
require a lot more work a lot of companies if if you haven't and I wish I can see some of you so to ask you to
raise your hands but I can tell you that um you know long term a lot of companies are completely overhauling their supply
chain uh and and again this is something that we can help you with uh we we've
worked with many clients where we look at this their distribution and we figure out where the uh the main populations of
their uh end user customers are and we try to position uh you know different uh
Supply sources closer to those people there's a lot of things that we can do in this Arena but when it comes to the
long term more and more companies are shifting production closer to their consumers at the end of
the day if I can shorten that cost to get to my consumer I'm that much better
off and and you know historically it's looking like about 70 percent of
companies from from a recent poll are are trying to move to that uh uh that
Arena Brittany let's go ahead and go to the grow to the population size so you
know the population and and I can tell you that this is uh a real number uh you
know we're looking at you know the the middle class in when it comes to
demographics and this is really worldwide but the middle class is gonna jump you know in the next decade okay
now uh you know I I'm gonna preface it with I think about 30 of this is 30 to
40 percent of it is expected to come out of China so the middle class in China but the reality is is that uh across the
board we're gonna see a huge demand we're going to see increased levels of
consumption we're going to see uh really an except an acceleration of getting
uh product to consumer our role as an organization uh in in general you know
we like to say that we want to help you connect your production to your consumption and this is really where it
starts to make a lot of sense because now uh as you know we're we've all gotten used to uh some of the uh
the industry standards have been set where you can order something and have it at your doorstep in two days or in
one day uh that's that's not going to stop that's going to continue and with the population growth that's going to
create a lot of opportunity for us to work together so that we can help help you deliver that type of service level
so that you can compete and again in this Arena it's a big factor uh bring
this go on to the next slide and by the way if you have questions I
know Britney brought them up but if you have questions certainly put them in the chat and I I can see that some of the
questions already starting to come through so we'll try to get them answered uh labor and technology is probably the
biggest Arena that um that that impacts our business in in
the 3pl space and Logistics space and as David uh starts to talk a little bit
about later on in in our presentation about the advantages of 3pl you know
that technology sector is is a huge uh section that allows us to compete you
know as a as an organization we've invested quite a bit into that space and and you know it goes hand in hand with
that labor market you know the reality is is that immigration policies are tightened
all across the board okay and so whether whether you have a facility in
California or one in the northeast or one in coming out of Texas uh you know
there's you know you're gonna have uh you're gonna feel the the pain of shortages go ahead and go to the next
slide or the next um you're going to feel the uh you know you're going to feel shortages in that
market uh it's going to uh as a result increase the need to adopt technology uh
to compensate for that and I want to make sure everybody understands here uh there's a big Mist a big myth about
technology you know it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to employ your robots to run your
distribution that's not the case you know when I when we say that 30 of the workforce can be replaced a lot of this
what I'm talking about is is simple technology like barcode scanning
warehouse management technology things like that these are all things that that have a uh a direct impact that will help
bridge the gap between that shortage in the labor pool and and meeting that uh
service level that's needed another way that that companies are are trying to
impact their costs or reduce their costs become more efficient is whether it's geographical or operational
diversification it's something that's going to impact you and I want to point this out because we're actually a pretty
good example of this when we talk to our customers and we talk about how we can
help them improve their their supply chain one of the factors that come into
play here is the cost the cost of storing Goods costs of bringing product in Travis will talk a little bit about
you know some of the advantages going through Port of Charleston but for example we listen to our customers and
our customers said hey we have some long-term storage we want to stock up on our some on some of our inventories so
we need uh an attractive lower cost solution so we went out to the
Charleston area and we built uh 340 000 or 340 000 square foot facility to help
compensate for that right and you know while the labor costs across the board are probably about the same the the you
know the real estate pricing the the whole cost of of storing materials in that region of the world is so much more
cost effective and it's in a just another example of that Geographic uh
diversification the um the on the operational side yeah it's you know
pretty much the same thing it's it basically just changing uh What uh what
we're doing to uh become more efficient you know there's there's a lot to in that particular Arena that we can cover
as well Brittany if you want to go to the next and of course at the end of the day
there's a lot of Technology uh whether it's barcoding whether it's a warehouse management system whether it's RFID
technology these are all solutions that have been in play for years and and a
lot of people are using it today but those little those little cost savings and time and labor if I don't have to
write it down and manually enter it into a system to track it just become that much more efficient and it plays a big
part in this whole process so let's talk a little bit about supply chain resilience because again this is
something that um you're going to hear the term quite a bit in the industry today and the
reality is is that you know we as an organization have to reevaluate our own
strategy uh in the logistics world and so will you you you need to consider and
rethink your strategy in terms of where the production is and where the logistics are and where the end user
customer is and and again it's something that uh a lot of companies have been
doing for years uh but now you're gonna you might have to change that you know the you know all the things that are
going on in the industry today whether it's politics whether it's it's uh you
know the cost of of living uh labor pool all that stuff is really gonna you
really need to rethink how you're going to do things and this is an area that um we encourage everybody to start
thinking about go ahead and go to the next bullet diversifying your manufacturing base
across multiple regions again when I mentioned earlier that we have customers that are moving some of their plants to
Vietnam or the to the Philippines um this is all in the aim to
mitigate any risks involved in uh in
that will impact the supply chain and and I want to bring up a good example of a we have a client that
um actually thought way ahead they were way ahead of of the curb and they brought in a significant investment in
inventory and during the pandemic while everybody was struggling to meet demand
this particular client had their their you know their strategy
well put in place they had inventory you know at higher levels they normally do yes you know so they they incurred some
carrying costs but they definitely benefited from that and and the fact that they had different uh uh
plants across different regions made a big main a big impact this uh the fact that they're invested
in a higher inventory level it really did Safeguard them from a lot of the disruptions and and it's one of the
things you'll want to consider and again this goes back to you know let's figure out what makes the most sense for you
this is something that we can definitely help you with and uh this is an area where there's a lot of
different factors that go into play you know we can we can look at your transportation going from different uh
distribution points to uh to the end user customer if we can shorten some of
that and it might cost justify maybe uh adding more distribution points if we
can reduce on one end so it's really about sitting down and looking at at that whole uh strategy and figuring out
how we can make it better I hope you if you have any questions
please make sure you put them on uh to the payment to the chat but let me hand
it over to uh Travis Frank and I'll let Travis take it from here
awesome thank you so much Robert much appreciated thanks for having me today
um just a little background on myself I'm on the commercial sales team here for the South Carolina Sports Authority
so we own and operate the Marine terminals across the state um and and our large one is the Port of
Charleston so if ready if you could go to the next slide please
so there's a few things that are a little different about South Carolina ports and the Port of Charleston and
then some other Port Authorities that you might be used to doing business with I think the main one is that we're an
owner operator Port Authority so that means that we own and operate all the
land um on our terminals so we're we're not a landlord Port um we don't we don't have a third party
operating the terminals it is our folks out there loading and unloading the ships and doing all the functions on on
the Marine Terminals and so that means if you have any sort of issues um if you need help with anything
related to your International Commerce you can call us and we can help
um you know we are the number eight uh number eight largest port authority uh in the country
um and because of that we've been growing a lot of our infrastructure and you see the capacity note there we've
been we've invested three billion dollars um we've invested three billion dollars in
the operation over the the last few years I saw a few questions come in I think I'll get to those towards the end
um Brittany if you go to the next slide please
So within that three billion dollar capex plan there's a few things just
some of the major initiatives I'd like to point out here um added new cranes to our terminals so
the Wando terminal that's what you see uh in the top left corner the top right is our new Hugh Leatherman Container
Terminal so we're just adding capacity newer larger cranes and also deepening
the harbor so we completed that project towards the end of the last year made us
the deepest Harbor on the Eastern Gulf Coast at 52 feet so that means that we
can bring in ships 24 hours a day seven days a week we're not restricted by the tides so we are connected from Asia
Europe South America all the major ports in the world you can bring in in and out
of the uh the Port of Charleston also in the top left of that slide is a
picture of a few chassis so we had 15 months in a row of record volume through
the pandemic it was fantastic for for the Ports Authority but it also acted as
a bit of a stress test and one of the areas that we realized we needed to improve upon was chassis we had a
regional chassis pool that we used to provide equipment for for the Port of Charleston
um the South Atlantic chassis pool so now we've got our own pool it's called the smart pool we went out and bought 13
000 brand new pieces of equipment um they're all GPS shipped brand new so
we're very excited about that um and then lastly the last slide there uh references our new Intermodal
facility which is under construction we have CSX in Norfolk Southern both
operating in Charleston today and that new facility will be located right next
to our Hugh Leatherman terminal we'll have both of those companies operating in that facility
if you can go to the next slide please a couple other things I'd like to point
out are Inland ports so we we as I mentioned we own and operate the Port of Charleston which is sort of the classic
Marine um terminal that we would all think of but we also own and operate two Inland
ports one in Dillon South Carolina and one in Greer South Carolina and they
operate sort of like a marine terminal but they're about 200 miles Inland we
own and operate the the land here in the terminals as well but really what these
tools do is they sort of give you um an extra layer of flexibility so you can
extend your reach 200 miles to the interior these are 24 7 facilities only
access from the Port of Charleston Charleston so back and forth on a daily rail service to and from the Port of
Charleston Greer's off operated by Norfolk Southern and Dylan by CSX the
rail portions are if you need any more information on that or or do you like more information on that I encourage you
to visit our website uh Brittany next slide please
so some of the cost savings um I think if you come and do business in South Carolina if you're used to
doing business in a place like California or New York the cost savings are going to be pretty tremendous you're
going to see those on the labor side uh the lease side so the warehousing side
um and then also on the trucking side across the board those costs are going to be lower
um we can help we can help get you connected with trucking companies
obviously iron link is a fantastic Warehouse provider so they are the best
in the business at doing that um and then also too one thing I'd like to point out is our Port tax credit so
that is a tax credit that you're eligible for users are eligible for if
they experience year-over-year container growth through the Port of Charleston so that's up to 200 per container uh with a
maximum credit of a million dollars doesn't cost anything to apply and again
that's based on your year-over-year container growth through the Port of Charleston so I know I've mentioned a
lot of things today um I guess the big takeaway is that we're an easy place to do business we're
a friendly environment to do business we're pro-business environment and if you need anything related to the Port of
Charleston or south care Carolina you can reach out to me and I'll be available
Brittany next slide perfect thank you
Travis thank you for that it was very informative and we appreciate you joining us uh you
know it's very hard to get a representative from a any port uh to
join us for a webinar so uh this just speaks to how easy it is to do business with the Port of Charleston so thank you
for being here I'm going to speak a little bit about the advantages of using a 3pl
um and Outsourcing to us um we obviously are going to go through
a little bit of what iron link is about we obviously have to plug iron link here but I'm going to speak more broadly
about the industry um what we do and how we do it next slide please Brittany
so some of the advantages of using us is is you of using a 3pl is providing you
know cost your customer base your ship to points with options that are closer to the to your delivery points
um and you know speaking to that that's when you're using a 3pl you're really able to
um spread your your inventory across the country without having to worry about putting up no buildings or you know
getting new labor pools uh things like that and then scaling your business so
we see a lot of customers that come to us and they're very focused on B2B or you know b2c where they're only shipping
to businesses or only shipping to Consumers and then they want to Pivot to
um one or the other and what we you know see is that becomes a very difficult situation for them using a third-party
provider that is very well versed in all aspects of Legend sticks and supply
chain really eliminates the need to have to scale or pivot which as we all know
is not the easiest thing to do in business in general especially in today's market
um some of the other things that a3pl provider can can offer go back to Second breeding some of the other things that a
3pr provider will offer is obviously Transportation returns processing
um and things like that uh one of the big you know perks of using a 3pl is
you're able to estimate your operational costs really down to a pallet level a
cartoon level you know exactly what it's going to cost you to handle that package
the inbound store it and then ship it as needed um
when you're using a 3pl you're essentially saying you know let me focus
on my on what I'm good at which is the buying and selling and allow the experts that know the business that understand
warehousing uh very well to handle uh the logistics piece of it so that you
don't have to focus on that and you can do what you do best next slide please
um so some of the services that we offer is obviously drainage Transportation um you know bringing get the port to get
the container to the port of your choosing and then give it to us and we'll handle it from there we work with
several uh drainage Partners throughout the country uh to ensure that your
containers are picked up delivered and then returned in a timely fashion uh
this also actually helps when you know for us when we're handling uh more pieces of the supply chain we're really
able to help you reduce your costs um we've seen that the customers that
allow us to handle their drainage and their outbound shipping incur uh little to know the merge per diem uh there's
less chassis days on average when it comes to drainage um just because we're overseeing the entire the entire supply chain or as
much of it as we possibly can um some of the other services that we offer is Pick and Pack that's for direct
to consumer cross docking and transloading um sometimes you know you bring containers in and they need to go to a
rail and they need to go cross country where you actually post one of the uh
shortest turnaround times in the industry and then we have a whole array of value-added services anything that is
very uh that can be very specific or very broad we really do it all so
whether it's labeling and ticketing you know um handling the outcome shipping we obviously work with UPS FedEx
all the local carriers and we get better pricing because of that and then we do
all sorts of kidding and packaging anything that may be needed to get your product where it needs to go
and you know what I always like to say is our warehouse is your Warehouse anything you would do in your own
Warehouse will do for you except we'll do it better because it's what we do every single day Transportation as we mentioned so
there's the drainage on the inbound and then Trucking on the outbound and then reverse Logistics so handling
returns um you know documenting the returns either disposing of them as needed or
repackaging them so that they can be sent out again to another customer next slide please
so a little bit about iron link specific um where the fat we liked it with the fastest although I can't prove that as
yet um we are very fast growing industry leader um we have gone from 7 000 square
feet which we started with four years ago uh to over 800 000 square feet cross
country um we've partnered with several uh as we call them our key accounts we provide
them with Advanced Logistics Services we improve their supply chain visibility and we reduce the distribution costs and
our job is to help you get your markets the pro your products to Market as soon as possible we understand that when your
capital is tied up in inventory the last thing you want is for that inventory to be tied up and not getting where it
needs to go for you to turn that Capital um we provide warehousing Transportation solutions for Fortune 500 or very large
companies as well as small ones um but we've you know we see it all
we've done it all um we haven't had this kind of growth because we don't know what we're doing we have this growth
because we are very customer focused our customer service is top-notch
um we're very uh into understanding our customers and partners businesses we
want to understand every piece of it and provide assistance wherever we can so
you know for us it really is a partnership we want to get involved we want to be able to help and drive your
course down um you know turn your product quickly and really be able to
take the headaches out of the logistics world and put it on us to us it's not a
headache it's just something that we do every single day currently we have seven facilities strategically located I
believe the next one of the next slides is going to be a map and we'll go through them there and we currently have over 800 000 square feet with plans to
double them by the end of 2024. um
we have a nationwide network of you know Partners whether it be in trucking
um you know shipping Solutions uh supplies um things like that you know I know that
we talked a little bit about uh labor and you know we have we have partnered with some of the greatest labor agencies
in the country um that really help us uh get what we
need done we do not you know when everyone was struggling through covet and the last couple of years there was a
lot of stress in the market and people you know other providers or any company really were struggling with labor and
thankfully our Partnerships really helped us get through that time and be able to
um deliver every single day in the same manner that we were before and after so
um you know those Partnerships are really important to us um we have currently like I said seven facilities strategically located near
key ports throughout the us we have three locations near the Puerto Valley and Long Beach we have three locations
near the port of New Jersey and we have uh our newest location and really our
our largest debate um our pride and joy in the Charleston market uh it's 18 miles from the Port of
Charleston brand new 342 000 square foot facility um graded top-notch you know top of the
line building we're very excited about that one uh some of our customers our next slide please Brittany
just a little overview of some of our customers and really we do everything um like it says apparel homeless small
appliances um we're getting every every one of our facilities are going to be food grade approved so we can handle any food grade
product um liquor really anything that needs a warehouse we can store and we do it
really well and you know in closing I think this is the last slide for me um you know the key takeaway here is
that our customers their focus is obviously
buying and selling product um the warehousing aspect of it sort of becomes a back burner for them you know
it's something that they think they need or that they do need um but it's not something that they focus on and it's not something that
everybody is very good at um the difference when you use a third-party provider whether there would
be us or anybody else is that's what we do every single day that's what we're
focused on um the same way that you know maybe you're not going to change the brakes on your car because you're going to let the
mechanic do it maybe you shouldn't be handling the warehousing you should allow the experts in the industry to do
it for you and we've seen you know uh both ways some of our customers have opened their own warehouses and come to
us after and said hey look you know this is a disaster we can't do this anymore we need you guys to do it and then we've
had customers that have said hey maybe we're getting too big and we want to go and open our own warehouse and nine out
of ten times the ones that go and open their own Warehouse uh struggle and they end up coming back to us so you know
this is just uh something that should be put out there you know allow the experts
to do what they do best come to iron link we'll welcome you with open arms
um and anyone that has any questions obviously I see we're putting this quite a few questions in the chat I'm going to
hand it back over to Robert to run through them and uh decide who answers what but thank you all for joining us
um I appreciate it taking some time out of your busy schedules and uh yeah feel
free to reach out with any questions do you want to go through a couple of
the questions and maybe read off some questions and let's see who can get to answer them
sure okay so um we have one question
uh from the chat here uh with acceleration and
the adoption of Technology use what are you seeing in the increase in power requirements for your Warehouse
facilities okay so I I can certainly take that and
so I can tell you that from a power requirement in a facility uh a lot has
to do with whatever automation is being put in place and if you are going to put any kind of conveyance or any type of uh
en Material Handling uh you know power is is a big factor and it certainly goes
into the planning when when that implementation goes into play
okay next how much inventory do you recommend keeping on hand to prevent supply chain
disruptions so I'll take that one and the answer really uh lies with the customer and
depends on their needs um you know during uh covet you couldn't get any products from any warehouse no
matter who you were so that was a good time to really stock up on product
um today's day and age you know we're seeing a lot of that inventory that was sitting for a while uh shrink and people
are going back and reordering so in you know today my answer will be different than it'll be in three months from now
but really it depends on the cost it's very customer specific and you know what your business is what your sales look
like um some of our customers are seeing tremendous spikes in sales and others are seeing slow downs but this is
something that you know we'd love to sit with the client and really understand their business and plan accordingly with
them okay next question is what is the typical distance
from the end consumers that you would advise groups to set up in a new Distribution Center
and I can take that so you know again that's also a a subjective question but
we can tell you that depending on the industry uh you need you may need to be
closer to your consumer uh it just varies on the product and I'll give you a good example that we have a a client
that is a supplier of blank t-shirts to print shops so therefore in their
particular environment it is critical for their distribution points to be closer to where the print shops are
printing these t-shirts and doing this kind of work so that's a little bit different than for example if you're
storing a washing machines and you're going to be getting them to just different retail distribution warehouses
right so it's just it just varies this is an area where we definitely want to
help and look at what you're doing so we can come up with a solution for you
excellent um Travis this one's for you are there
benefits to being an owner operated port absolutely and I'd love just to go back
a little bit and expand on what Robert said and talk a little bit about my experience on on that last question I
think you hit the nail on the head there in terms of um how far you should be away from the end user or the the end consumer it
totally from our experience it completely depends on the business and who's paying for the shipping and so if
a lot of times if customers are paying only to bring that inventory to their warehouse well then they want to be as
close to a port as possible so they can get that you can get that cost down um if if they're paying for the domestic
Trucking as well well then maybe it makes sense to be somewhere closer to the end and consumer so Robert you're
100 right there uh completely depends on the business but for any of those
businesses that need to be close to a poor iron link as David mentioned is only 18 miles away from from our Port
terminals um so to get jump over to that next question the benefits of being an owner
operator Port I think being an owner operator report is is a huge benefit there are a couple other reports in the
United States that use this model but the vast majority of ports are landlord ports and what that means is somebody
else operates the terminal and they don't really have any incentive to make it run well I mean they get paid rent
every month by the The Operators and and they're happy um for us we take pride in what goes on
on our Terminals and the biggest difference would be the folks in the ship to shore cranes the the individuals
that are loading and unloading the ships those are typically that's a Union function in Charleston those are Port
Authority South Carolina employees those folks are incentivized based off of
their productivity so in order for those people to make more money they want to
move more boxes safely but quickly in the other model that that's an hourly
position so they will make more money the longer it takes to load in a motorship so it's completely opposite
model that's what makes us the most efficient important country and what allows us our crane operators to average
about 35 container moves per hour per crane
and I guess the follow-up question for Travis um when is the Leatherman terminal expected to be operating at
full capacity if I may just before you answer that uh Travis if I may just add
to your last uh through the last and your last answer uh one from from being
in the warehousing business and having to deal with uh dwell times and and
ports being shut down and not being able to get appointments for us I think the uh one of the biggest benefits of of
being close to an owner operated Port is that if our customers container is stuck
on a ship or it's a hot container we can actually pick up a phone and speak to somebody and say hey look we really need
this container and they can make it happen and that short story but when I I was looking into the Charleston market
um I spoke to somebody who actually uh introduced me to Travis one of our customers that has a facility there and
they told me that they were able to call Travis from when the ship docked they were able to call Travis on his cell
phone and within 45 minutes there was a truck picking up that container so to me
that is the biggest benefit of being an owner operated port good
all right so the the question about the Leatherman terminal thank you David I appreciate that
um it is operational now we've completed the first phase of uh of the The
Container Terminal and there's room for two more so we've already started construction on the second
um but it is fully operational now there is a labor dispute
um that's been ongoing a little bit for some time now on that specific terminal related to a a contract between the
union and the carriers so that is ongoing but the Leatherman terminal is fully operational
thanks Travis um do we have a do we know what the price difference is for dredge in New
Jersey versus South Carolina the answer is less than half
um it's a much better uh price the turnaround time obviously is much better and we can do a lot more containers a
day and you'll see the difference in your chassis your paid chassis days things
like that excellent thanks David
um what kind of capacity do we currently have at our facilities on the west coast New Jersey and Charleston
Robert you want to take that yeah absolutely so
right now we have uh in on the west coast we have three facilities uh in uh in the uh Inland Empire area uh
so for those of you that that are familiar with Southern California it's you know Ontario Chino that arena there
we probably have right now about 60 to 80 000 square feet available
as it relates to today obviously that changes and products
coming in and out so that that varies but that's pretty consistent right now on the East Coast we have uh on the
northeast we have we also have three facilities probably about a hundred and twenty thousand square feet available in in
that arena being that we have more facilities and uh uh are able to
distribute that that space uh easier and then in the in the Charleston area uh in
our 342 000 square foot facility I think uh we have about 200 000 available today
uh a hundred and something thousands already uh occupied and so we're going
to uh uh we're trying to fill that up now so that's certainly something that
we have available if you need us excellent
requirements for trucks app the only the only requirement that
you need is similar to any other marine terminal is a transportation worker identification credential so a TWIC card
um and and most folks that that know the port industry or have any experience pulling containers would know exactly
what that is it's it's sort of very similar to a TSA pre-check um in terms of how you get that security
clearance um but but that is all you need to to access the Marine Terminals and then for
the Inland ports and Greer and Dylan the TWIC card is not is not required so uh
just a valid driver's license thank you for that
um what is the receiving policy for vessels
I think that one would be for me as well um so we have a seven day window prior to
uh to the ship working so the gates the gates um for the trucks can come in and out
five to five uh Monday through Saturday but the terminals are 24 7. but the
vessels do open up seven days prior to the last receipt date and all that information can be found on our website
excellent um how do you price out the scope of work for new customers
so I'll take that one um as with our services it's very customizable and it really depends on
our customer specific needs so anyone that has um that needs a quote or a price should
please reach out to us uh we'll send out a questionnaire that really details your business that helps us understand your
business and we customize the quote accordingly
um okay the next question is where else are your customers asking iron link to
potentially expand to specifically any new Port markets
Robert I'll let you take that one yeah so so right you know right now we have
what we think uh are the three major ports in in the U.S covered quite well
um you know if if we need to go to a different market for a specific
requirement I think uh the only place left would probably be Houston or somewhere in Texas that that Houston
Port but I think uh from what the coverage that we have available today I
think we've got that pretty well covered uh there are no current plans to go to to another Port like that but certainly
if the requirement uh was needed then we definitely uh entertain it one of the
things you'll find with us is that we will as part of the solution uh
re-engineer our our models to to accommodate uh the demand so that's
that's available if needed thank you Robert
um her vocal drainage will the barge industry have an effect on local drainage from 3pl or asset based
carriers perspective all right I'll take that one
um so we are setting up a barge um a regular barge to move containers
from our Wando terminal over to our new Hugh Leatherman terminal and from there
those containers will get brought to the rail so these are these are Intermodal boxes it's going to be a daily barge but
it's only going to be a few hundred containers so in the broad scheme of things we did three million teu last
year roughly through the port so a couple hundred containers a week it'll
it'll be helpful in alleviating some congestion and traffic in the roads in Charleston but you shouldn't see a a
noticeable change in available business for truckers
are the containers available immediately or do we have to wait for the whole vessel to be unloaded
great question um those can import containers are available immediately upon Vestal
discharge so as soon as your container comes off of the ship and is scanned by
one of our operators you can send a truck in to come pick that container up now single Mission turn times at the
Wando terminal which is our main terminal 30 minutes or less and on top
of that if this is a hot container if it's a priority box you can let me know we can set up notifications so that you
and your team receive an email as soon as that container comes off the ship so
very very flexible very quick easy to access your container on the flip side
if if for whatever reason you need to meter the flow you know the outbound flow if you don't have room for for the
product and you want to just sit a little bit we can do that as well so again that's some of the benefits of
being an owner operator report and thank you for the question and this
this targeting where you expect near-term growth for your business
I can take that so um you know right now you know aside from the that Southeast
area where we think there's going to be a huge uh influx of of new business
coming out uh you know obviously the the Midwest from a distribution point is
another Arena that that we're looking for to try to bridge that Gap in terms
of the transportation costs so that's probably if I had to say that's probably
the next area that we're looking to as an organization to to expand to
excellent well that's all the questions that we have um if anyone else has any last minute uh
questions if they could type them in um that would be great otherwise
are you going uh can you let the group know uh what to expect after after this
event are they going to receive a recording uh documentation a copy of the
presentation things like that yes so immediately following the
um end of the broadcast you'll receive an email with a link to replay the video
whether you've joined or not you'll still get the recording automatically and we'll also be sending out a copy of
the pdf version of these slides for everyone's review
okay great well thank you everybody for joining us uh hopefully the first in a
series of many that we plan to uh work with our customers to help them improve
their operations and hopefully we'll we'll get to talk to everybody here soon
thank you all for joining thank you all Robert thank you Robert a shout out for
putting us all together and Brittany for uh holding everyone's hand through all of this and Travis thank you thank you
for representing the Port of Charleston and being here with your great partner to work with thank you everybody for
joining us thank you thank you