Читать книгу The Digital Transformation of Logistics - Группа авторов - Страница 24

Macolm McLean's invention of the standardized shipping container not only gave rise to some of the largest international transportation companies today but also helped to decimate the manufacturing communities of some of the largest consumer nations like the United States and Japan and those in Western Europe (Levinson 2016). With the recent influx of protectionism and the decreasing cost of physical automation, near‐shoring manufacturing is making localization of production more of a reality, and those same nations above can bring manufacturing home again. Even though freight rates are a fraction of what they were in the days of break‐bulk shipping, logistics costs are on the rise and are no longer considered a small percentage of the landed cost. When brands or trading companies evaluate their total landed cost of goods, logistics have traditionally represented a small amount, hence the lack of scrutinization and upskilling of in‐house talent to handle these roles. Manufacturing costs are lowering due to the affordability of robotics, and this is causing transportation to be a much larger factor when determining the selling price of a product to the end consumer (Kelly 2017). Under more scrutiny, logistics companies must adapt by lowering their selling rates that can only be sustainable by lowering the inputs of their services and products.