Sea Freight - The Global Supply Chain

Protecting the Goods At Sea

Sea-going cargo carries less handling and temperature risk overall. However, risk is introduced elsewhere.

It’s easy to see how different risks are introduced when so many subcontractors are handling the cargo, and the product is exposed to the ambient environment on multiple occasions.  

 

Let’s map the high-level process for sea freight:

  

1. 1. You make a transport booking with your freight forwarding agent requesting sea transport.  
   2. Your freight forwarding agent makes the booking with the ocean carrier.  
   3. The ocean carrier will arrange a haulier and container to arrive at the chosen premises to load the cargo into the container (this can be at the shipper’s premises, or the freight forwarding facility if required).  
   4. The freight is loaded into the container.  
   5. The doors are sealed, and the container is hauled to the chosen port.  
   6. The container is stored at port until it’s time to load onto the vessel. 
   7. The container is loaded onto the vessel.  
   8. The vessel will then depart and travel via sea to the chosen destination. (If transhipping is involved, the container will be unloaded at a port en-route and loaded onto a different vessel for shipping to its destination).  
   9. Once the vessel has arrived at the destination port, the container will be unloaded and stored at port until cleared by customs.  
   10. Once customs cleared, the container will be delivered to the consignee’s premises for unloading.  

You can see from the above steps it’s more straightforward process-wise than air transport, the downside being it’s much slower; it can take upwards of 4 weeks to be transported depending on destination.

UPDATE: At the time of this blog going to print, the difficult situation in and around the Red Sea with regards to freight ships of differing nationalities being hijacked or attacked may need to be taken into account on expected delivery times.
Shipping companies are moving towards sailing around the horn of Africa which adds considerable time and distance to the shipping. It may be advisable to enquire of your freight company if this scenario will affect their expected shipping times in any way.

Using Gen-Sets

The product gets loaded into a container and sits there until it’s unloaded at the destination. When booking pharmaceutical ocean freight, you can request temperature-controlled conditions by using a container controlled by a ‘gen-set’.

The gen-set ensures the internal conditions of the container are maintained within a set pre-defined limit, and you can also request humidity settings if needed. One thing to be aware of is that a gen-set relies on external power sources to maintain the temperature/humidity settings within the container; it must be plugged in.

This can present a problem if multiple trans-shipments are required as you will be relying on the container being plugged/unplugged numerous times, thus you should take this into account when planning your routing and risk mitigation strategies.  

Experience Brings Awareness

As straightforward as it seems, there are some ‘hidden’ risks with sea freight that can become apparent with experience, and these should also be taken into consideration when planning ocean-going  distribution: 

• High risk lanes (the current Suez Canal issues for example), Somalia etc. 
• Security – the haulage transportation stage is high risk for hijacking and theft.  
• Demurrage fees – if the paperwork isn’t correct, containers can be held at port and incur high demurrage fees for every day it’s stored. These fees can be crippling to small businesses.  

• Quality management – unlike Air Carriers who adhere to the IATA TCR (Temperature Control Regulations) and can obtain industry certifications like IATA CEIV Pharma to remain competitive in a growing market, ocean carriers have no industry regulations or standards for pharmaceutical distribution. This lack of standard/regulation can translate into difficulties when entering discussions in the event of deviation.  
• Lack of process-control: The forwarding agent will subcontract the ocean carrier and the ocean carrier will subcontract the haulier for container transport to port. We cannot pick and choose the haulier, and this lack of control can be extremely prohibitive should things go wrong, whilst increasing the risk level exponentially.  

Further Assistance

As with air, each route and carrier present different risks, and a thorough understanding of the supply chain should be achieved using route risk assessments and lane validation plans to ensure mitigations are put in place and the highest level of patient safety.

If we can help further your understanding, we can advise you. We have the expertise and we’re here to help. Call us on 0330 133 0920 for a free initial consultation over the phone.

Alternatively, email us on info@ukgdpassociation.co.uk or contact us using the form below, including your email address and name.

 

Useful Links

The Global Supply Chain - Air Freight

The Global Supply Chain - Road Freight

EU GDP Guidelines 2013/C 343/01

Route Risk Assessments