Page 9 - Logistics News - May June 2022

O P I N ION

These are helped today by artificial intelligence, This road is famous as Uhuru Kenyatta’s last stand
machine learning and IT that flag problems in – a Chinese-designed and built elevated, four-lane
advance. highway that took two years from start to finish –
incredible. My Uber joined the road and we picked up
Freight may not be travelling, but I am – and I the start ticket, zoomed at 100kmh over stationary
got to my destinations: Ethiopia and Kenya. Being a traffic below and there was hardly another car on
manufacturing and supply chain guy, I looked to see the road. We pulled off 10 minutes (not an hour)
how these 3Cs are applied: later at the museum offramp – to queue 30 minutes
Ethiopia: I arrived in Addis Ababa along with to pay the $2 toll at a boom – yes, a boom! Sure,
350 passengers to find a good airport and efficient this volume and flow will change as people get their
health check in no-man’s land. Then 350 of us eTags and toll fees reduce. Common sense and cost –
queued for one hour at a 10-station immigration ok, collaboration – maybe.
manned by three staff. Next, we arrived to find
luggage circulating and waited. It may be cheap The empire strikes back
for the airport, but it’s a dysfunctional supply It’s England and Italy in July: a family of three –
chain, so cost – ok, collaboration – no, common two with UK passports, so no visa required, but one
sense – no. with a South African passport needs a visa – and
Kenya: I arrived to find the same airport finds a pre-Victorian application process. You apply
experience, then Ubered to the hotel 15km away. maximum three months in advance, scan/upload
Aha, the new empty expressway had opened three your docs and then it takes three weeks to get a
weeks before to relieve the notorious Nairobi traffic. personal ‘validation’ appointment. “Oh, sorry did
our website have problems? We can scan your docs
for $50. There’s a war you know, so Ukraine comes
first, our three-week lead time now averages six.” (Or
12 if in Johannesburg – isn’t that three months?).
Once you’re through a safari of Houdini-defeating
call centres, you can speak to Fred (for 69p a minute,
or R13,50) and Fred says, “Sorry we can’t help, try
our website.” All 3Cs take a bath here.

Call to action
Let’s talk, innovate and change this stalemate
situation. Eighteen thousand TEU floating
warehouses and bureaucracy clog the network during
global change – and are unable to adapt, so the rest
of the chain has to. Let’s talk execution – what about
a network of smaller at-sea cross-dock vessels to
service change from behemoths that can selectively
unload at sea when the need occurs?

Instead of investing in fuel and pollution moving
kiwi fruit and fabrications across the world, invest in
developing local skills, jobs and our economy – not
Denmark’s. Stepping forward often needs a step back L O GI S T I CS NEWS
to get real, safe and sustainable. It’s not recovery, it’s
mostly common sense. •

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