March 1, 2022

Coffee with Crane: Asia Pacific Focus

Jeff LeBlanc is Crane Worldwide Logistics' Regional Vice President of Asia Pacific, based in Singapore. Jeff has been with Crane Worldwide Logistics since the company was established in 2008 and has worked in the logistics industry for over 20 years. 

Whilst visiting our head office in Houston, Jeff took some time to give us an update on the progress being made in Asia Pacific via our 'Coffee with Crane' podcast series.

Below is an extract from the podcast. You can listen in to the full podcast via Spotify, Google Podcast, or Apple Podcast or listen in to the video below.

The Asia Pacific team have had a successful year throughout 2021 during extremely challenging times, what is the secret to success?

When you look at the dedication and ownership of the team in the Asia Pacific region, that has been a key contributing factor to successful results. I always look at logistics as a team sport, and any team sport is a combination of individual efforts. When you look at the supply chain side of business, there are many people playing key roles, from operations and accounting to sales and solution design, everyone has to work in unison and bringing that altogether creates a great team. The Asia Pacific team at Crane Worldwide has been very consistent and dedicated. We believe in ownership of the business and the team gets the job done, we focus on making excellence a habit.

Looking forward into 2022, what are your areas of focus?

In 2022, we are still going to see air and ocean freight disruption, blank sailings and air capacity constraints in some of the key lanes are still occuring. Freight capacity is a key focus for us. We are also investing in the Asia to European lane. We have had very strong success with the China to Europe rail freight service as an alternative solution for our clients who have experienced disruption on their regular modes of transport. Ocean freight into Europe is still a key area of focus and we expect to see further growth in intra-asia trade lanes. 

If you could fix one aspect of the supply chain challenges we are experiencing right now, what would it be? 

Until the 777 air freight capacity gets back to normal levels, I believe we are still going to experience continuous challenges in the air freight market. The ocean freight market is still experiencing multiple challenges both at destination and at origin deriving from multiple factors.

To start, I would like to see the workforce get back to 'normal' pre-Covid times. Let the ports and truckers get back to work, which in turn will support ocean vessels getting back on schedule. The airlines have had crew shortages due to COVID regulations and at times have had to add supplement crews to ensure take off. Therefore, cost and delays have been added into the supply chain at different intervals and naturally that impacts the supply chain industry and our clients heavily. 

De-regulating some the constraints, when safe to do so, will allow the industry to have more stability.

Crane Worldwide Logistics in the Asia Pacific Region

Did you know...? Crane Worldwide has 120 locations, in 30 countries around the world and are able to provide full international logistics services.

In Asia, we have a strong presence throughout P.R. China as well as Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, and Indonesia. We are also located in Australia.

You can check out our global directory available here for a full list of Crane Worldwide Locations. Reach out if we can help!

Listen in to the full logistics podcast here: 

Don't forget you can tune in to every episode of 'Coffee with Crane' on your regular podcast player: Spotify, Google Podcast, or Apple Podcast

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