2015 Quest for Quality: Ocean Carriers finding calmer waters

As Executive Editor Patrick Burnson has been reporting over the last few years, the ocean shipping industry has been navigating tumultuous waters as shippers have worked diligently to control costs at the same time that trade has witnessed a spotty recovery in the face of global financial troubles.

However, ocean analysts contend that some of the sector’s issues have been “self inflicted,” saying that carriers foresaw an unsustainable rise in demand and are now building capacity that won’t be needed.

As Burnson highlights this month in our 2015 Ocean Cargo Roundtable, collaboration between ocean shippers and their carriers is on the rise—and has never been more important to the success of the sector.

“Ocean shippers and carriers need to, and are, tightening the lines of communication in an effort to better understand capacity and scheduling needs,” says Burnson. “This will go a long way in helping the carriers better manage their assets and return to profitability.”

According to analysts at London-based Drewry Maritime Research, there’s good news as a result of this closer collaboration. A recent Drewry report indicated that liner schedule reliability improved for the fourth consecutive month in May as the aggregate, on-time performance for the three core East-West trades jumped by 4 percentage points to reach a new data-series high of 71.6 percent.

The LM readers who put this group to work agree that not only is service reliability improving, but the nine carriers listed below have performed above and beyond and are worthy of Quest for Quality gold.

Pulling into port first this year with an impressive weighted score of 49.14 we have Matson Navigation. Matson lead the way in four of the five attribute categories, scoring at 11.96 in On-time Performance, 8.53 in Information Technology, 9.86 in Customer Service, and a 9.17 in Equipment & Operations.

Maersk Line put up an equality impressive 8.53 in Information Technology, matching Matson in this all important category. Leading the way in the Value attribute this year we find COSCO, which posted an impressive 10.25 to lead the way.

Repeat winners from 2014 include Matson, Maersk Line (45.80), Hapag-Lloyd (45.36), Evergreen Line (45.12), OOCL (44.67), and Atlantic Container Line (43.98).

2015 Quest for Quality Winners Categories NATIONAL LTL | REGIONAL LTL | TRUCKLOAD | RAIL/INTERMODAL | OCEAN CARRIERS | PORTS | 3PL | AIR CARRIERS and FREIGHT FORWARDERS	home page