What happens to Port Miami during a Hurricane!

What happens to Port Miami during a Hurricane!

What do Ships do to Avoid a Hurricane?

Preparing for a HurricaneWhen a hurricane hits, many boats will need to make decisions on where to be when that happens. To keep it short, there are two things you can do: Sail away and Tie it Up.

Tying it Up – It’s pretty cut and dry, all that needs to be done is you find a floating dock with high pillings. This lets you tie your boat up so that it can accommodate the higher waves while still keeping it attached to the mainland.

How does Port Miami prepare for a Hurricane?

Port Miami has to prepare in several ways for a hurricane. A port must manage the incoming and outgoing boats as well as ensure the port is properly managed and secured.

Boats Must Re-Route – Every boat must re-route their arrival to a nearby and safer port. For example, many of the carnival cruise lines that were going to Miami for Hurricane Irma instead went to New Orleans to avoid the storm.

Floating DocksSecuring the Dock – Next and most important is securing the dock. Most of the docks at Port Miami are floating docks which need to have additional security on land. Additionally, office buildings need hurricane force windows as well as shutters to ensure no intrusions occur in the buildings.

Alerting – Finally, there is typically an issued public statement. During Hurricane Irma, the website produced this webpage for people to know that the terminal is closed until Irma completely passes.

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Port of Miami is one of our closest business connections. We are highly invested in keeping our readers and partners up to date with what’s going on during the storms.

We work to stay up to date on as much information as much as possible. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at any time.


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Tesla: Partners with AMD/High Trucking Turnover

Tesla: Partners with AMD/High Trucking Turnover

Tesla has partnered with AMD to Expand A.I.

high turnover rate in truckingTesla has recently partnered with the chipset maker AMD to expand the A.I. initiative for their cars. These will be implemented into every one of their new automobile lines to help make the software better faster.

This is a big bonus for both companies since Tesla now has an industry leader helping the division and AMD has a stable market with which they are directly aiding since they are having troubles against Nvidia and Intel in the video card and processor markets currently.

Will this create a spike in the growth and research for the development of autonomous vehicles and onboard A.I.? Only time will tell.

Increased Freight Demands to cause Driver Turnover Rate

National freight is on the rise across the board. More places are requiring more things to become delivered faster and more frequently. This strain is causing to be too much for some of the freight drivers on hand.

tesla partners with AMDThe turnover rate has risen to 90% in some areas because the long hauls and the strain will often not be worth the pay. This is a fateful sign for human drivers in the future. This has caused a deficit of anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 vehicles.

Couple this information with the surge in a push for better A.I. with AMD and the imminent test drive of the new Tesla trucks, how will this affect the future of people driving trucks by themselves?

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A1WWL will always push to keep our clients and trade associates up to date with all the latest information when it comes to freight forwarding, customs brokerage, and international trade.

If you have any questions about either of these topics or how we can better serve you and your import business, give us a call today!


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The Journey Towards Electric Vehicles

The Journey Towards Electric Vehicles

Are Fuel-Run vehicles Running out of Gas?

The spark that Tesla lit over a decade ago is about going off. It seems that everyone in the world is finally grouping to go green in a big way. Whether or not that means we will ever live in a fuel-free world is a separate question, but it means we will be bringing in less fuel from separate countries, possibly putting strains on their economies.

How Vehicle Manufacturers are Going Green

GM

manufacturers going greenGM has promised to bring in 20 all-electric vehicles by 2023, including two within the next 18 months. This type of the first-step initiative is sought after, especially since they will be trailing behind Ford’s announcement even thought they are already ebbing them out of the market with the Chevy Bolt and the Chevy volt, which is widely-regarded as the most accessible hybrid and EV right now.

Nissan and Mitsubishi

Nissan is the leader of the all-electric car; the Nissan Leaf can be seen on the road more often than Tesla at this point. However, Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi have announced a merger to launch 12 new electric-only vehicles by 2022. This will be an interesting angle to take because Mitsubishi undoubtedly will bring a sports and competitive edge to the electric market.

Volvo

Nissan and Mitsubishi partnership Volvo has made the most drastic initiative into the EV market. They announced that 2018 would be the last year they offer combustion engines. From 2019 on, all of their cars will be electric only or hybrids.

India vs. China

India and China are already in competition to see who can get the most solar panels up by the end of the year and while the race is close, the differential between the two of them is still much more than most other countries are even attempting to put up. But now they are taking their initiative off the forests and onto the roads.

China has commissioned dozens of automotive manufacturers to create EV only vehicles to ensure a stranglehold on the market in the country. Additionally, India is making a push to be an only EV-Country by 2030 to curb emissions completely.

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All of these initiatives are doing great things for the world, and they are also bolstering the kind of healthy competition that the world needs for positive trade movement. Expect some industries to starve during these times such as gas stations and gas prices, but now is the time to get into technology and solar power.


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Logistics Deals and the Recent Snowman Agreement

Logistics Deals and the Recent Snowman Agreement

Snowman and Ikea have a Trade Deal.

Snowman Ikea MergerIkea is foraying farther into India and because of that are pushing for their restaurant chain to supply more income than it does on the national average. Currently across the nations it serves, their restaurant business only applies for ~5.5% of their global revenue, but for India, they are hoping to have a 10% contribution.

To do this, they need to streamline their logistics department and manage their in-store restaurants better. Enter a partnership with Snowman Logistics who have previously only been focusing on shipping and maintaining quick times.

Now they are responsible for managing and overseeing ideal partnerships and expedited trade routes for Ikea in India. This is the first time that Snowman has to agree to services like this before.

Why this is Beneficial for Ikea and Snowman

Currently, the model that Ikea has used works half as well as they want it to in India. Snowman has never done this extent of their job before, and they are in-extent managing how the store’s profits become recorded so far.

So why is this a bigger risk for Snowman than Ikea?

Snowman was known for their cold-storage transportation. They only work with and manage to transfer products to a set degree.

Now Ikea is looking to them to manage more than that by including non-frozen storage as well as dealing with a huge market at the same time.

Ikea has a lot of faith in Snowman for this, but depending on how it turns out could result in losses for Ikea, but the blame would reside on Snowman moreso. They are hinging on this expedited service to ensure demands met for people who are ordering products.

Will snowman be able to provide the excellent service on this large of a scale and if so, how will this translate to moving into the Chinese market?


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Autonomous Ships and Their Impact on Customs

Autonomous Ships and Their Impact on Customs

The Advent of the Unmanned Shipping Vessel

Projected to set sail in 2018, the Yara Birkeland will be the first ever fully autonomous cargo ship, marking yet another step towards the automated vehicle paradigm. Following the trail blazed by Tesla and its artificial intelligence-driven cars, the Norwegian companies Yara International ASA and Kongsberg Gruppen ASA are working towards having the Birkleland completely unmanned and running itself by 2020 after around two years of having a crew aboard.

Not only is this ship fully capable of piloting and managing itself, but it is also electrically powered. The Birkeland’s developers expect these attributes to cut annual operating costs by about 90%, mitigating the ship’s hefty $25 million price tag.

What This Means

At the moment, regulations and sanctions do not exist for autonomous cargo ships. The precedent set by the Birkeland, however, could eventually spawn a fleet of AI-commanded vessels around the world once those regulations become set.

Automated ships would cut the costs of labor significantly and could potentially be even more efficient than manned boats due to their Global Positioning Systems and multitude of cameras. Electric power would also work towards cutting energy costs, not to mention lessening the impact on the environment.

Is this Good or Bad News?

what is the fsmaOf course, with any form of automation, reliability is the main concern. Just as humans are prone to error, so too are the machines they create. If a problem occurs on a manned vessel, the crew can work on-site to correct it. It could be much more difficult to fix an immediate issue if an autonomous ship encounters it while out to sea. Additionally, the loss of an autonomous, electric-powered craft could be far more costly than conventional ships.

By the same token, if a fatal error arises and the ship goes down, the risk to human life is drastically minimized. There are certainly strong advantages and disadvantages to both manned and unmanned vehicles, but only time will tell which proves the most effective.

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We work to stay up to date on as much information as much as possible. When international cargo and ships collide, it affects everyone personally and our business specifically. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at any time.


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How does Net Neutrality Affect International Trade?

How does Net Neutrality Affect International Trade?

What is Net Neutrality?

Net Neutrality is the concept that everything on the internet should be equally accessible and unregulated. Up until just a few years ago, the Internet was considered a type I Neutrality which meant that it was anything goes. However, it was changed to Type II Net Neutrality which means that businesses can be free to affect entities on the internet however they choose.

net neutrality international tradeThis famously resulted in the Comcast/Netflix fiasco where Comcast purposefully slowed down Netflix speeds because they owned Hulu. While this cut straight through ethics as a service provider and a content marketer, Netflix had to pay a multi-billion dollar contract to have their internet speeds uninterrupted.

Announced today, the FCC chairman Ajit Pai (a former Verizon employee) announced they were going to rescind Net Neutrality together and let service providers do with the internet what they will.

While it does seem bleak and grim for your everyday internet browsing, can this have any negative ramifications on international trade?

How does Net Neutrality Affect International Trade?

This negatively affects international trade in 3 ways: Indeterminate Internet Prices, Limited Access to Resources, Scale Tipping for Trade.

Indeterminate Internet Prices

Since Internet Service Providers will be able to restrict and limit your internet usages depending on what they deem just, it can mean that your internet and the internet services of your customs broker or freight forwarder can be limited and vary greatly. While this would be a standard operating expense for business, depending on the bandwidth usage, it could cause an uptick in prices on the sending and receiving side.

Limited Access to Resources

net neutrality affects trade ratesAdditionally, this can limit your access to certain resources. If a company can only afford to have a certain service package or has their pages limited by their ISP, it could make things harder for the importer to answer simple questions that they could with an untethered internet.

For Example, if you typically browse a forum for answers, that forum could be limited or deindexed from your ISP’s search engine if they use a certain host, ISP, or program that your current ISP doesn’t permit.

Scale Tipping for Trade

Finally, as is evident by the Netflix fiasco previously mentioned, you can be surcharged for using the wrong marketplace. If an ISP like AT&T or Comcast decides to open up online marketplaces to compete with the likes of Amazon or Alibaba, it could mean those websites are censored, and you will have to use AT&T’s or Comcast’s specific gateway.

For example, if you are on an Apple iPhone, and Apple was your ISP, they could force you to use Apple Maps instead of Google Maps regardless of quality.

Is there anything that can be Done?

The only thing that we can do is contact our state representatives and do the best we can to sway them to vote down the net neutrality repeal.

Not only will this affect international trade and the rates we are already paying, but it will affect every individual’s life differently. From the browsing habits, we have to the shows we like to watch.

Click this link here to place your phone on a call list and speak to your representative today.

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Net Neutrality is a serious infringement on our rights and on what a free and open internet can provide. Please make an effort to contact your chairman and have Net Neutrality stay instead of taken away.

All of these initiatives are doing great things for the world, and they are also bolstering the kind of healthy competition that the world needs for positive trade movement. Expect some industries to starve during these times such as gas stations and gas prices, but now is the time to get into technology and solar power.


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