By Paul Scott Abbott, AJOT As Peter J. Straub, manager of international transportation for tire industry leader Michelin North America Inc., looks forward to the Sept. 17-19 South Carolina International Trade Conference, he sees the Port of Charleston advancing its role in global commerce, to the benefit of his company and other Palmetto State shippers.
Peter J. Straub, Michelin North America Inc.’s manager of international transportation, is placing increasing emphasis on ocean and inland transit times.
In an exclusive interview with the American Journal of Transportation, Straub shares his thoughts on enhancements to Michelin’s supply chain approach, the company’s involvement in the South Carolina logistics arena, the upcoming conference and his own industry journey. According to Michelin’s corporate growth strategy, one of the ways in which the company is engaged in enhancing its competitiveness is, and I quote, “Backed by the powerful synergies between our supply chain, logistics, production and marketing teams, a transformation plan is under way to upgrade supply chains and logistics systems, in order to improve fulfillment rates, further reduce inventories and enhance manufacturing flexibility and responsiveness.” How, specifically, is what you are doing advancing this initiative? Ocean and inland transit times are becoming more and more important to Michelin because of inventories and order fulfillment to the customer. Because of this, we’re requiring the ocean carriers to be more precise with their transit times when we present our bid to them. After the carriers are selected, we hold them accountable for these transit times. If there were any changes to these transit times, we need to know about it, because it’s tied in directly with our order fulfillment. It’s also important that we monitor the inland drayage carrier’s transit times. It used to be that we’d require them to pick it [the container] up in a couple days after it’s been released to avoid demurrage costs based on the on-terminal free time. But what we’re doing now is setting specific goals for the drayage carriers to pick it up and deliver it to the distribution centers [DCs] within the designated time, in order to reach that level of efficiency that we’re looking for. So it’s beyond a matter of beating the clock against demurrage charges? Basically, we’re going away from the old concept of maritime shipping, “If you don’t get it when you want it, you sure as heck want it when you get it,” to where we’re planning on it arriving at our DCs in a given timeframe. We’re really monitoring that a lot closer now. Michelin North America, from its base in Greenville, S.C., has taken an active role in South Carolina’s logistics and international trade arena. Can you tell me a bit about Michelin’s partnership with the College of Charleston School of Business and your firm’s work with that school in logistics professional development? Michelin has developed a strong relationship with the College of Charleston. Over the last two years, we’ve worked in collaboration with the School of Business to strengthen the supply chain/logistics offering to the public. We have created a distance learning strategy to provide further education to a growing number of global logistics professionals who need greater access to practical material presented by experts in their fields to address the ever-growing demands of a connected world. Michelin’s financial contribution is only the beginning of the investment. We’re providing further opportunity for the College of Charleston’s students through CEO leadership encounters, internships, recruiting visits and collaboration with the College of Charleston Board of Governors to improve the overall learning experience. I’ve had the opportunity to experience this first-hand. This past February, I was invited, along with a number of Michelin employees, to go down and do a “BibInnov” –